The scene: A clear, warm-enough Memorial Day evening in Fremont. Among those in attendance are families, old timers, and members of the Fremont retail community past and present. Some were close friends; others hadn’t seen one another in years.

There are also a middle-aged male clown, a male bagpiper, a female cellist, and several ladies dressed as “mourners” in black dresses complete with veils, ready to sob loudly on cue. (NOTE: This took place two days prior to the Cafe Racer shootings.)

It is a funeral/wake, a memorial to an institution that had already been all about the remembrance of things past.

Fremont’s “funky” reputation was already established by 1978, when David Marzullo opened Deluxe Junk. “Funky,” at that time, meant low incomes, low profiles, low foot traffic, low rents—and lowlife.

A Seattle Times feature story published around that time described Fremont as a blighted land of empty storefronts, as well as “littered vacant lots, weathered plywood with torn flyers flapping in the wind, peeling paint and a giant disposal-service complex.” Among its 12,000 residents were retirees, street people, and “a number of artists and remnants of the hippie culture.”

When Deluxe Junk opened, it was one of 10 antique, curio, and “vintage trash” stores in the then-rundown neighborhood. The only thing Fremont had more of at the time was taverns.

After a fire made the store’s first location uninhabitable, Marzullo moved into a former funeral parlor on the ground floor of the Doric Temple, a Masonic lodge right on the arterial cusp of Fremont Place, between Fremont Avenue and North 36th Street. (In later years, the block would become home to the kitschy Lenin statue.)

Some of the vintage sellers in the ’70s had dreams that were bigger than their business acumen.

But Marzullo had a knack for the trade.

He priced his goods low enough to move but high enough to pay the bills.

He built a base of customers not only from around Seattle but around the nation and beyond. (In the 1980s, Marzullo was one of the first local dealers to sell American vintage wear and furnishings to dealers in Japan.)

He developed a great sense of what his customers liked.

He maintained a broad inventory range. He stocked vintage fashions, badges, advertising signs, costume jewelry, magazines, board games, kitchen appliances, and household trinkets.

But perhaps Deluxe Junk’s most important speciality was home furnishings from the early to mid 20th century. That’s also the era when most of Seattle’s single-family homes were built. This was the furniture that most truly “belonged” in these homes.

Over the years, the surrounding neighborhood became gentrified. Industrial buildings gave way to tech-company offices. Storefront taverns gave way to brewpubs, soccer bars, and live-music clubs. “Cheap chic” shops gave way to fashionable boutiques.

Deluxe Junk persevered, long enough to itself become a relic of “a simpler time;” even as the collectibles business went online and global (and, in many ways, more mercenary).

In April, a lease dispute developed between the store and the Doric Temple’s leadership.

Supportes of the store claimed Doric leaders wanted to kick Deluxe Junk out, in favor of more potentially lucrative tenants.

The lodge insisted it was willing to negotiate a new lease, as long as Marzullo paid up several months’ worth of back rent.

(UPDATE 6/18/12: Marzullo publicly denied the claim that he’d owed back rent to his landlords.)

After several days of highly public disagreement, Marzullo announced he’d reached a settlement. Without going into details, he said the store would close and he would retire.

And the store would close three weeks before the Solstice Parade and Fremont Fair, Fremont’s busiest days of the year.

Deluxe Junk’s loyal customers and friends took full advantage of a massive closing sale. An online-auction seller bought the store’s whole inventory of 1950s Christmas decor.

Still, there was a lot of cool stuff left in the store’s main room on the evening of the wake.

Some of that was sold on the spot to friends of the store, who were seeking one last remembrance of Deluxe Junk—and of the Fremont that had been.

(Cross-posted with City Living.)