Ever since (fill in the blank) left us, Seattle has never been the same.
Some nostalgia buffs might stump for Frederick & Nelson; others, Ivar Haglund or Bob Murray's Dog House.
In "Vanishing Seattle," Seattle writer Clark Humphrey has come up with more than 200 photos of past Seattle icons-both people and places-and provides an insider's commentary on what we've lost.
The 128-page book is an ode to Seattle before it was so darned "livable." And expensive.
As Humphrey notes, "Real estate hyperinflation helped obliterate the remaining vestiges of the city's more downscale past."
Humphrey, editor of the Belltown Messenger, former staffer for The Stranger and retro Seattle hunter and gatherer, has linked up with Arcadia Publishing to produce the book.
The cover shot sets the vernacular tone.
The Dag's reader board on Aurora advertises Beefy Boy Burgers for 19 cents, the spindly, new Space Needle standing in the background. As Humphrey notes, one of the drive-in's slogans was "This is Dags ... Canlis is ten bucks north."
Humphrey knows where the old Seattle sweet spots are.
An exterior photo of Frederick & Nelson is complemented by an inside shot of the first floor decked out for the holidays-a lost paradise to many Seattleites.
There are shots of Rhodes Department Store and MacDougall's from the days when Second Avenue was a bustling retail zone. There's an image of G.O. Guy Drugs at Second and Yesler (the Guys of Magnolia fame) and Fifth Avenue Record Shop ("Beautiful music for beautiful people") before it moved into the basement of Rainier Square and then vanished-another lost paradise.
It's good to see Abruzzi's Pizza again, where Nick, cigarette dangling from thin lips, twirled pizza dough between mysterious phone calls, and Saul greeted one longtime customer gone a year with an angry, "Where you been?"
Queen Anne gets its due with the Van de Kamp's Dutch Bakeries windmill and the S&M Market, which operated on upper Queen Anne from 1933 to 1989, "by which time it might have sold more logo T-Shirts than groceries," Humphrey notes.
The Hansen Baking Company returns with exterior and interior shots, a charming, old neighborhood grace note that fell to the wrecker in 1993 to make way for Larry's. But we won't go into that.
Some disappearances are less lamentable. The Blob is pictured here in all its Dali-esque, flesh-creeping glory.
Century 21 and the Seattle Center rate their own chapter. The Bubbleator is now a private greenhouse in a south Seattle backyard, Humphrey informs us. A big neon sign beckons adult fairgoers to Gracie Hansen's "Night in Paradise." Hansen was the "gracious grandmother" who served up the "naughty but nice" girlie revue that slightly scandalized 1962 Seattle. The classic bones of the old Civic Auditorium, erected in 1927, still look good, but its most recent incarnation as McCaw Hall is a crowd pleaser.
Humphrey pays attention to people as well as buildings: J.P. Patches, Stan Boreson, Wunda Wunda, Ivar, Pat O'Day, Leo Lassen, Marni Nixon, Sheriff Tex.
In a subtle, knowing stroke, Humphrey includes a photo of Julia and François Kissel, pictured in 1969 in their Brasserie Pittsbourg restaurant in Pioneer Square, signaling "a new generation of Seattle gourmet restaurants," Humphrey writes.
That's how it felt in 1969. Humphrey's book is bound to stir a lot of old feelings.[[In-content Ad]]
