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…this totally fictional (for now) ad would show up. (I found it at Seattlest; it’s been poppin’ up all over the local blog-O-sphere.)
As far as reality, there’s little more to report Croc-wise. The joint’s still closed. Stephanie Dorgan, its owner these past 16 years, isn’t talking to the media. At least one potential new ownership group has apparently shown up, but a lot of behind-the-scenes haggling would need to be done. Shows had been booked at the Croc into January (some touring gigs had been booked into next April); new venues or cancellations will be announced one show at a time.
I’m trying to figure what to say about the beloved, loud, crowded Croc, it of the tasty bar grub and the long lines, the way past-their-pull-date ceiling hangings and the exterior windows still (partly) commemorating the place’s 10th anniversary in 2001. The opening party for Loser took place there in 1995; I took care to place hand-scrawled signs at the door, warning that it wasn’t a secret Pearl Jam show.
I fell in love several times in that building, and out of love at least once. Darn, I hope someone figures out how to revive the place.
Tacoma’s own Ventures, kings of instro surf-pop lo all these years, have got their totally deserved berth in the Rock n’ Roll Hall O’ Fame.
Turns out I’m not the only one who’s become fascinated by old blank signs.
…rhetorically ponders whether the construction of ultra-luxury residences and offices behind the facades of old buildings is really historic preservation:
“Market capitalism has a special way of producing an illusion of adaptation when a community senses something lacking in a world filled with alleged choices. You want a piece of history? Fine, tell us how we can fettishize it and sell it back to you for a profit, and you can have all of the rustic brick you want. We’ve got truckloads.”
I was at the Mariners-Angels game on Aug. 28. The first inning was fantastic. As for the rest of the game, (insert Mad magazine-style, gross-out sound effect words here).
But some local players still ended the evening coming out ahead. They’re the kids and teens who attend the Rotary Boys and Girls Club, 201 19th Avenue.
That’s due to Tom Herche. He runs United Warehouses, in the (for now at least) industrial district south of Safeco Field.
No, his company’s not the old United Furniture Warehouse, of once-ubiquitous musical TV commercials. It’s a general storage facility, where small manufacturers, importers, and distributors can stow their wares at modest rents.
Every August, Herche buys a block of up to 500 tickets to a Mariners home game. He then resells them to friends and friends-of-friends at $25 each, with all the money benefitting the Boys and Girls Club. Folks who buy four or more tickets get to park in the warehouse’s lot, one long block south of the stadium.
He also treats the ticket buyers to a “Tailgate Bar B Que” at the warehouse. He springs for the burgers, hot dogs, sodas, and pony kegs of Coors. The drinks are served inside the building, the food outside.
The tailgate party was a perfect early evening, held in a perfect setting. United Warehouses looks like a warehouse ought to look. It’s got a curved roof and bare-wood support beams. A delightfully rundown-looking front office emits that vital “we don’t waste our customers’ money” look.
Herche’s company also has three larger, newer facilities out in Kent (plus one in Portland). But his Occidental Avenue building is a classic of warehouse architecture. And it’s a shining example of why the city should fight to preserve industrial uses in the old industrial district.
For one thing, it’s hard to imagine a scene in the big-box Kent Valley like the Tailgate Bar B Que.
The scene outside: Standup “tables” made of shipping palettes with Costco tablecloths. Hundreds of casually dressed adults, and a few kids, basking in friendly chatter and the late-afternoon sun, avoiding both the rush-hour traffic and the stadium parking jam.
The scene inside: Grownups sipping refreshing beers in the refreshing shade, standing amid stacks of cases of soft drinks, gardening tools, small appliances, and whatever else was staying in the warehouse this day.
But after a mere two hours of this, it was time for all of us to march en masse up Occidental Avenue toward the ballpark.
Sure, the seats were up in the right field nosebleed section, but nobody complained—at least not about that.
The game itself, you either know about or have tried to forget. The Ms scored five runs on four hits (including an ultra-rare three triples) in the first inning. It all went downhill from there. Our boys lost their fourth in a row (in what would become a nine-game losing streak), dashing hopes that they’d overtake the Angels for the division lead.
But everyone in the tailgaters’ group still had a swell time. Today’s Mariners organization, unlike the early Kingdome-based outfit, knows how to put on a complete show.
But enough about that. Let’s talk about the night’s real winners.
The Rotary Boys and Girls Club began as the Rotary Youth Foundation in 1939, begun by the Rotary Club of Seattle (still a major supporter). In 1947 it affiliated with Boys’ Clubs of America, which went coed in the 1970s.
The club serves more than 700 children from the Hill and the CD, ages 6-18. More than 200 show up on any given after-school day. Programs include education and career prep, “character and leadership” development, health and life skills, and the arts, as well as sports and recreation.
The club’s been blessed over the years by major supporters. Besides the Rotary Club and United Warehouses, Microsoft and auto dealer Phil Smart Sr. have made big contributions.
But they could always use more cash and volunteer hands, to help keep their programs going strong. You can contribute by calling 206-436-1880 or logging on to rotarybgc.org.
I first visited the Pike Place Market in 1975. More than three years after city residents voted to “Save the Market,” the big renovation/restoration was still underway. Much of the South Arcade was boarded up, with “artistic” grafitti and murals painted on the plywood barriers. One board bore the simple message: DON’T FIX IT UP TOO MUCH–SAVE THE MARKET.
The Market voters had “saved” was a homey, funky, rundown warren of stands and shops, a place of proletarian dreams and honest hard work. The fixed-up Market maintained this look, even as the surrounding First Avenue sleaze district shrank.
As the years passed, it became a mecca for civic self-congratulation. More merchants geared themselves to tourists, using such gimmicks as the infamous fish throwers. Luxury car dealerships shot magazine ads along Pike Place (“No Ordinary Supermarket, No Ordinary Car”).
New York financiers, supposedly “silent” investors in the Market’s real estate, suddenly claimed ownership. The city fought ’em and won. The city argued the financiers intended to “fix it up too much,” destroying the Market’s soul for the sake of upscale retail revenues. Now, it seems the city bureaucrats running the Market might just be “fixing it up too much” on their own. Some of the powers-that-be want to promote the place as the ultimate high-end retail destination for the condo crowd.
I say the Market’s role as “the soul of Seattle” is more vital than competing against Whole Foods.
Sure, sell fancy stuff. But still sell the basics. Make the place a refuge for products downtown people need but high-end retail doesn’t offer.
And Keep It Funky, God.
…at Crosscut has a brilliant idea—let’s save the Ballard Denny’s! The classic 1964 coffee-shop building was originally the last of the once-coast-wide, Seattle-founded Manning’s chain. But just like nearly everything else on or near Market Street these days, it’s threatened with demolition for a condo project. Berger seems to think any preservation move is doomed. I’m less cynical. It can be done! It should be done!
…Pioneer Square building that suddenly started to get dismantled this past winter? Turns out that all might not have quite been legal.
…this is the week when a major Seattle aesthetic institution marks a new opening, in a much larger, fancier space.
I speak, of course, of the Queen Anne QFC.
This 45,000-square-foot palace of sensual pleasure is twice the size of the chain’s prior unit six blocks west (a site acquired in 1974 from the once-mighty A&P). The new gallery of edibles is at the ground floor of a behemoth condo development, on land vacated by another once-mighty retailer, Tower Records.
The “store,” if you must call it that, contains all the departments you’d expect and more–a fish market, deli, “bistro,” sandwich bar, walk-in wine cooler, walk-in flower cooler, pharmacy, and, natch, a Starbucks stand.
As for product selection, it includes almost all the sometimes obscure brands I sought. It’s got HP and Pickapeppa steak sauces, Fisher scone mix, Session Lager, Hungry-Man frozen dinners, Millstone coffee, whole-wheat spaghetti, and liquid smoke. It didn’t have Moxie pop, but a manager promised it would show up next week. As for two other products it lacks, Campbell’s pepper pot soup and Arizona diet green tea, the folks in charge said they’d look into getting ’em.
This ongoing tribute to the wonders of human taste is open 24 hours a day, with no admission charge (though it’s hoped you’ll purchase some merchandise while you’re there).
As for that other local aesthetic institution opening an expanded space, the Seattle Art Museum’s grand new digs at First and Union are open free for a 35-hour marathon today and Sunday, for art lovers and Cinco de Mayo amateur drunks alike.
For five years, I lived across from the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, that huge concrete box propping up part of Freeway Park at the cusp between Capitol Hill and downtown.
More lately, I’ve occasionally temped there in between freelance gigs. I’ve gained a new appreciation for that city-within-a-city, that most earthbound segments of the floating world of business travel.
Despite the glamourous image of the ’50s-’60s “jet set,” business travel’s really what put the airline biz, hence Boeing and hence Seattle, into the big money. (In 1968, American Airlines advertised itself as a company “built for the professional traveler.”) While some people travel on business year-round as dealmakers or sales reps, most folks who travel on business do so only a few times a year; a goodly portion of these do so to gather en masse with their professional counterparts from around the country. They go to get out of the office for a few days, to see a strange city at company expense, to sit in group ennui during PowerPoint presentations, and to receive numerous sales pitches from vendors at exhibit booths.
Many people from many employers work the conventions, or benefit from the work done there.
There are the officers and year-round employees of the convention’s sponsoring entity (usually a business or professional association). There are the employees of professional convention-services companies—nomads who roam North America’s convention halls running registration desks, “lead retrieval” systems (see below), client-satisfaction surveys, etc.
There’s the Convention Center’s regular staff, cleaning rooms, operating video projectors, forklifting display-booth parts between the loading dock and the etc.
There are the various contractors and suppliers—caterers, catalog printers, sign printers, and such.
There are the restaurants, bars, hotels, cab drivers, and merchants in and around the Convention Center. There are the bus drivers who ferry groups of visitors to their hotels, to ancillary meeting venues, and to tourist attractions. There are the workers at the tourist attractions. (And, yeah, there are the strip clubs and escort services.)
There are the car-rental companies. There are the beneficiaries of car-rental taxes, includng the Seahawks and the Qwest Field staff.
There are the concierges and ushers, employed by the Seattle-King County Convention and Visitors Bureau (the fine folks who once bestowed us with the moniker “Emerald City,” and who now want our burg to be known as “Metronatural”).
And, under the concierge crew’s supervision, as many as 25 of us in the temp squad earn our pay by being dependable, being efficient, and being able to endure boring hours of either repetitive tasks or just sitting around looking authoritative.
With all this cash to be collected from out-of-town pockets, it’s no wonder states and municipalities kept outdoing one another in the 1980s and ’90s to build these taxpayer-supported shrines to business and the Business Class.
The convention biz has slumped since 9-11 and the resulting headaches of air travel, not to mention teleconferencing and online chats and other hi-tech alternatives. Yet, every year, thousands of people in hundreds of work-related “tribes” still feel a need to meet F2F and IRL. (That’s “face to face” and “in real life,” in ’90s chat-room lingo.)
My most recent gig there was a convention of surgical radiologists. Before that, I worked on the American Library Association’s confab. (From Willa Cather to catheters, all in one building.)
Most Convention Center events aren’t as exciting as that of the World Trade Organization in 1999. And most convention work is routine stuff, particularly the tasks assigned to the temps.
We stuff thousands of logo-encrusted backpacks full of promotional pens, CD-ROMs, T-shirts, umbrellas, ad flyers, convention catalogs, schedules, and last-minute addenda to the schedules.
We sit outside the center’s many big and small meeting rooms as “room monitors.” There, we pass out evaluation forms before sessions and collect them afterwards. In between, we regularly count the attendance, lest the fire marshals bust the whole convention over one overpopulated room. We answer questions and complaints from belligerent convention goers about intricacies of the convention’s schedule—or, as often the case, respond with a smiling “I’m sorry, I don’t know. The big booth on level 4 probably has someone who’ll know.”
We work for convention-service companies, disbursing “lead retrieval” machines to exhibit booths. (These are credit-card type readers that collect the demographic data of each attendee who swipes his/her registration card at an exhibitor’s booth.)
We stand behind the registration booths, assembling attendees’ badges and ticket packets while quickly explaining why they mustn’t misplace them; all while long sign-in lines are held up by one or two people whose pre-registration confirmations had been eaten by a computer somewhere.
My favorite moment in that regard was at a convention for ethnic-minority students from private high schools. While many convention goers are jaded and jet-lagged adults, these teens acted truly excited to be in a strange city with thousands of their peers. And, unlike some of the librarians and radiologists, they were visibly excited to receive their free backpacks.
I’ve learned to admire the vastness of even a middle-sized convention as a logistical operation, from signage to people-moving to the setup and teardown of exhibit booths.
And our Convention Center, even after the 2001 expansion, is but an average-sized facility of its type, at 200,000 square feet of exhibit space (not counting meeting rooms). The Las Vegas Convention Center, the world’s largest, holds 15 times that much floor space.
That’s an awful lot of lead retrieval machines to be handed out by a lot of temps.
…at the exhibit of gingerbread houses at the City Center building downtown. This year’s display is a highly appropriate benefit for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.
For the past eight years or so, the Airport Way strip in Georgetown has held a growing reputation as Seattle’s last low-rent artsy-funky neighborhood.
The quarter-mile of old lo-rise buildings, across from the Georgetown Steam Plant, has been the awkward but loveable commercial core for an awkward but loveable population of metal sculptors, musicians, and painters. The strip’s storefronts came to house hip bars, coffee shops, a pizza place, a record store, a video store, and a Vespa scooter dealership.
Meanwhile, the bulky, sprawling brick buildings of the plant (also known as Rainier Cold Storage and Ice; originally the biggest of Rainier Beer’s three pre-Prohibition sites) housed art studios, band-practice and party spaces, and even another brewery (Georgetown Brewing, makers of Manny’s Ale).
But Airport Way’s status as a pocket of cheap thrills, unsullied by commercial megabucks, changed this week. The steam plant, plus a few peripheral lots, were bought by hotshot real estate tycoon David Sabey. (He’s also infamous as the final owner of the Frederick & Nelson department store.)
Sabey told the P-I he plans to turn the complex into “a mix of stores, light industry, offices and homes.” He says some of the current tenants, including Georgetown Brewing, might be invited to stick around.
But his staff also released a drawing of how the site might look when it’s done. The drawing’s full of “tasteful” landscaping and quaint flourishes, just like you see at every Ye Olde Factory, Ye Olde Cannery, Ye Olde Firehall, Ye Olde Flour Mill, Ye Olde Freight Yard, and Ye Olde Whorehouse in America that’s ever been “restored” for townhomes and gift shops.
Maybe it’s time for us all to hie it to Everett or Bremerton after all.
…in the coming days: A 20th column-birthday reminiscence, plus pix of all sorts of big public spectacles.
But for now, here’s a remembrance of Roland Terry, one of our region’s most influential architects ever.
