January 14, 2008

Bowling, Booze, and Ballroom: Bust

Long live the 500 block of East Pine Street! Save Oddfellows Hall! Up with booze and dancing! Down with condos! These are the cries heard from the peaks of Capitol Hill.

Residents of the Hill are not the only ones mourning favorite Seattle locations:

• The Sunset Bowl will go the way of Leilani Lanes in April.
• The University Baptist Church is for sale.
• The Rainier Brewery Stock House is history.

But there is some good news for preservationists:

• The Denny’s on 15th and Market? It could still survive the condo onslaught. History, it would seem, like love, is blind.
• City Councilmember Peter Steinbrueck has led the fight to save dozens of downtown buildings.

Want to know more about preserving neighborhood historic buildings? Historic Seattle facilitates creative preservations like the Queen Anne High School condos.

Into Googie gems like the Denny’s and the Space Needle, along with other modernist styles? Check out docomomo-wewa.org (Documentation and Conservation of the Modernist Movement - Western Washington).

Meanwhile, what would you put in the old Ballard Denny’s if it becomes a landmark? My vote: anything but Denny’s.