Businesses are facing tense times these days as consumers cut back on spending and the credit businesses need to operate becomes harder to find. It's not the first time that's happened, but some businesses have demonstrated a remarkable staying power over the years.
That includes two Queen Anne businesses that are celebrating their 20th anniversaries this October and one that's celebrating its 70th anniversary on Halloween. Here's a look at their stories.
REED WRIGHT HEATING & ELECTRIC
Tim Smith and Bryan Wilson, current owners of Reed Wright Heating and Electric on Queen Anne Hill, are planning a combination celebration on Halloween this year. One part is their 50th birthdays, but the other is to mark the 70th anniversary of a business that got its start delivering coal and sawdust to area homes that used boilers. "They used to burn sawdust in the boilers," Smith said.
Reed Wright, the original owner's name, passed away in the mid-1990s, about a year before Smith and Wilson finished buying the business after making payments for 10 years, they said. Wilson started working for Wright when he was 19, while Smith started when he was 23, years after coal and sawdust were used as fuel.
As the years passed, oil was used to fuel the boilers, which heated the water for the radiators, but most homes use gas to heat their boilers these days, Smith said. "Reed got started with the gas company when they went away from manufactured gas and started using natural gas," he said.
The fuel may have changed from coal and sawdust to oil and gas, but the devices that burn the fuel didn't, Smith said. But the old boiler systems do need servicing and repairs. "We can do stuff a lot of other companies don't have the experience for," he explained "We have older people here who taught us."
The company also installs brand-new high-tech boiler systems because once people have lived with hot-water heating they want to stay with it, Smith said. "They like the comfort of it," Wilson added.
As for the electric part of the business, that's a bit of a misnomer. "The company was an electrical contractor but really didn't do much," Smith said. Still, the company did install wiring for the 1962 World's Fair at the Seattle Center, he said. "It was a bigger company then."
Five people work for the company, but it doesn't do work on new construction, mostly because there isn't much in built-out Seattle, Smith said. "Our biggest niche is old buildings and homes from the pre-1930s." And Reed Wright Heating and Electric is swamped with work, Wilson said.
EASY STREET RECORDS
It was a different world 20 years ago when Matt Vaughan opened Easy Street Records in West Seattle. The recording industry was pushing compact discs as the next great thing in music, but there were some problems, too.
Cost was one of them. The cost of CDs in the late 1980s was $17.99 apiece, while record albums sold for around $7.99 apiece, Vaughn explained. "It also meant reconfiguring the bins and the layout of the stores."
So it was tough going for the independent music stores he worked for in West Seattle and in Bellevue, and both were going out of business, said the former Queen Anne resident. "I was just a record-store junkie back then," smiled Vaughan, who added he offered to take over the businesses. "And they agreed to it."
Vaughan figures he was just more motivated, but it took a fair amount of dedication the first two years he owned Easy Street, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this month. He worked seven days a week and crashed on a bed at the back of the store. "It was that kind of operation," Vaughn remembers.
"I was still selling new albums and CDs, but I was careful what I bought," he said, adding that he was also buying used CDs. Vaughn also lucked out on timing. "In '88 when I was first getting starting, a new music scene was beginning here in Seattle," he said, mentioning Sub Pop Records as an example. "We we're big supporters of it."
Easy Street Records was also one of the few stores where fans could buy that kind of music, and West Seattle was a good location for the store for another reason. A lot of members from the new bands lived in West Seattle, and the rehearsal spaces there were cheaper than elsewhere in Seattle, Vaughn said.
Another thing that makes Easy Street Records in West Seattle and the 7-year-old one in Lower Queen Anne stand out is booking bands in the stores. Easy Street stages between 80 and 90 concerts a year between the two stores, and the Queen Anne store opened up with a show by Elvis Costello.
Vaughn said he had a couple of employees by 1989, and around seven three years later. These days, around 45 people work at the two stores, he said. The Queen Anne store has become a destination location because it has a parking lot, Vaughn said.
But Easy Street and other independent music stores are facing new challenges these days because of music being downloaded more and more, Vaughn conceded. In fact, he predicts that by 2012, half of all music sales will be digital. "How record stores survive this new climate will continue to be a challenge."
CHILDREN'S DANCE WORKSHOP
Founded in 1988 by Queen Anne resident Lynn Beasley, the dance school operates in the basement of the Queen Anne Baptist Church across the alley from the Metropolitan Market. Students there range in age from 3 to 11, and 3 is not too young for someone to get a start in dance, according to Beasley.
She should know. "I started dancing when I was 3," said the mom of three. "I love to move; movement was the thing that made me happy."
Beasley got part of her movement fix as a cheerleader when she went to Rainier Beach High School. But she also got an earlier start when she was in seventh grade and studied dance under Dorothy Fisher, who started the Edmonds Ballet School. "I basically grew up with ballet," she added. "That was mostly what was taught."
Fisher's students performed in the Puget Sound area, but Beasley eventually got burned out on ballet, she said. One reason was ballet's focus on a particular body type (tall and skinny), a body type which she said she didn't have. "I wasn't going to be a dancer; I was so sick of it."
But she realized later that people with different kinds of bodies could still experience dance. And rather than dance, she got into teaching classes and choreographing dance at a private school in San Francisco while she was finishing her degree in the early 1970s.
Following that, Beasley moved to a small town near Yakima, where she taught dance to children for five years. "Then we moved to Queen Anne," she said. Beasley decided to focus on teaching beginning dance to young children. "That's the age I really love."
A neighbor suggested she try Queen Anne because it was a neighborhood that valued the arts, Beasley recalled.
And that's when she found the Queen Anne Baptist Church, where she's taught ever since. "The church is really nice," she said. "If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have a place on Queen Anne."[[In-content Ad]]
