They’re demolishing Pier 48 on the Waterfront today. The beautifully rundown wooden building was vacant for several years. Before that, it had several uses.

It was home to the Princess Marguerite car ferry to Victoria, long since replaced by the faster but blander Victoria Clipper stationed a mile or so north.

It was the site of the first few Seattle Bookfests. Fans of the event (relaunched last year in Columbia City) like to say it just wasn’t the same after it couldn’t use the pier anymore.

The global Cobain fetish cult knows it as the 1993 site of MTV’s New Year’s Live and Loud concert special, which turned out to be Nirvana’s final Seattle show.

The pier, once cleared of the old building, will become a construction staging area for the Alaskan Way Viaduct demolition (and perhaps for whatever project might replace the viaduct).

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CORREX: Kind reader Martha Bussard remembered that Nirvana played Seattle once more, in the old Coliseum (soon to become KeyArena) on 1/8/94. The Live & Loud special was taped on 12/13/93.