This is a view of the last remaining section of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, looking north from the elevated deck in front of Colman Dock, along Seattle’s waterfront. This last portion was demolished over the weekend.
DeConstructing the Viaduct: Part IV
Monthly Archives: September 2019
Guild 45th Theater
The Guild 45th is a 500-seat theater in the Wallingford neighborhood that opened in 1921 as the Paramount. The theater has survived a succession of owners, from its first, William Code; to Bill Bruen, who changed the name to 45th Street Theater when Paramount Pictures built its own Paramount Theater downtown in 1928; to Jack Neville; and to Bob Clark, who renamed it the Guild 45th and remodeled it in preparation for the showing of mainly foreign films and an art-house repertoire. In 1988, Landmark Theatres, a national movie-house chain, purchased the Guild 45th along with the rest of the Seven Gables Theatres previously put together by Randy Finley, the theater’s fifth owner.
On June 5, 2017, the Guild 45th closed suddenly, along with most of the other Landmark chain in Seattle, except for the Crest Cinema. The site sadly still sits vacant and very little is known or has been publicized about the property’s future.
Live Aloha!
On a day of passing clouds, sun breaks, and eventually thunderstorms, the Live Aloha Hawaiian Cultural Festival occupied the grounds of Seattle Center with three performance stages, vendors of all things Hawaiian, and food trucks selling plate lunches, malasadas, shaved ice, and other island foods. In its 12th year, the festival continues to “promote, perpetuate and share the Hawaiian culture in the Pacific Northwest by enriching and strengthening the Hawaiian community and celebrating the arts and culture of Hawaii.”
The above is a drawing of the Mural Amphitheater stage during the performance of a halau hula (hula school), with the Space Needle looming overhead.
Another Look Back…
In my very first post on this site in February 2012, I showed a composite of two sketches I had done of the Spanish Steps in Rome. Here I am posting the full views of each drawing.
The first is from the summer of 1965, when I was fortunate to have had, through an ACSA exchange program, an internship with Wilson & Womersley, an architectural and town planning firm with offices on Bedford Square in London. At the end of the summer, armed with a Eurail Pass, I traveled around Europe for a couple of weeks. I did a few sketches on site, but not as many as I would have liked. The only one I still have in my possession is this view of the Spanish Steps in Rome, drawn with a fountain pen with a stub nib.
This is another drawing of the same site from 2000, the first time I had the privilege of teaching in the University of Washington’s Architecture in Rome program. Similar viewpoints but drawn 35 years apart with different nibs and separated by a lifetime of experiences.