I’ve been reminiscing about Seattle during the fall of 1975.
It was a town with no Kingdome (still under construction), let alone no Safeco Field. Heck, the Space Needle was only 13 years old (and already seemed a relic of a previous era’s optimism).
It did have a lot of old, cool, lo-rise buildings that, in the quarter-century since, have been executed for the crime of standing in the way of alleged progress.
Some of the coolest ones were in the “Sleaze District” of First Avenue, from the still-being-touristified Pike Place Market south to Pioneer Square.
Ahh, I remember it well.
There were the taverns–dark, dusty places with pulltab games and Oly schooners; places where alcoholic consumption was depicted as precisely the shameful activity religious leaders wanted it portrayed as. Some of them had 6-9 a.m. happy hours. None had microbrews (those didn’t start here ’til ’82) and almost none had the few highbrow bottle beers available then (Anchor Steam, Rolling Rock). If you were lucky, they might have had a Michelob at the bottom of the cooler, beneath the Schlitz and the Rainier Ale.
There were the “arcades”–places that had once been penny arcades with pinball and other amusement games, but which had long since turned to pornos. They included Lou’s Arcade, High’s Arcade, the Champ Arcade, and the Amusement Center (precursor to today’s Lusty Lady peep-booth operation).
Lou’s Arcade had a quaint exterior slogan, “Lou Sez: Hey Mate, Why Wait? Our Color Movies Are Super Great!” Another place had a hand-lettered sign on its wall promising “Nude Dancing On Screen.” I was quite disappointed to learn they no longer really had nude dancing on screen, just hardcore pornos. (To this day, my nastier instincts are aroused by beauty more than by hot-hot action.)
There were the little places (in the Sleaze District and beyond) that had seemingly been around forever, but which wouldn’t survive the onward march of upscaling. G.O. Guy Drugs; Shorey’s Antiquarian Books; the Fidelity Lane Ticket Office; the Coffee Corral diners; Steve’s Broiler; the Westlake Bartell Drugs with its oldtime drugstore soda fountain; Woolworth’s; a boutique called Q’raz that sold the kinds of wigs you see today only on drag queens; the murky old 211 pool hall; Abruzzi’s pizza parlor; Cook’s U-Drive truck lot with its beautiful truck-shaped neon sign.
All the little places that make up a town, and which no number of touristy ice-cream parlors and chain-owned cookie stands for dogs can make up for.
TOMORROW: The last of this for now, I promise.
ELSEWHERE:
