Comments on Historic or Not?

as all of the buidlings that give character to Seattle succumb to developer scum and are turned into condos i think the community is trying anything to keep a little piece of what we love about this city. if that means having everything declared a historic landmark then so be it.

"Bush Cleaners"? Really?

Hey! Are those "good-time" girls hanging out at Bush Cleaners?

Stunts like this de-value real historic landmark candidates.

Unless something historically significant or someone historically significant had a connection here, I think the Ballard Denny's actually has better legs to stand on. At least that building is a prime example of a certain type/era of Americana, whatever your opinion on its aesthetics is.

Plus, historic preservation is to save the building not just the business of the day who happens to lease it. No doubt a lot of people who will get behind it are B&O fans, not the building's fans necessarily.

Capitol Hill has so much that needs preserving....but this ain't it.

Not.

A nice place to have coffee and a valued part of the neighborhood for many years.

But also a great piece of land on a busy arterial that is well served by transit. This should be a lot with more density on it than a single story wood frame building.

As Obama says, hope and change. Capitol Hill is changing. I hope the B&O finds a nice new home.

go back to the old font. Change scares me!

As has been mentioned here before: Pearl Jam came up with their band name at the B&O! I mean, c'mon! Seattle! Grunge!

EEEEEveeeeen Floooooow! Suh-muh-na-muh, suh muh nau nuh muhna!

And another thing... does anyone know what that Levi's Trading Post thing is next to B&O? I've never seen it open. Is that thing some sort of mafia front or something?

save it, save as much we can...the big $$$$$ people are gonna get theirs & we (society, culture, history) need some for ourselves. gotta show that history or urban geography can't be written with dollars alone. save that denny's building in belltown too.

Historical preservation doesn't preserve businesses, it preserves buildings. The B&O has no leg to stand on; the building might, if they meet the criteria.

That sort of single-story commercial strip is, or can be, hugely evocative of the 1910s and 20s building boom in Seattle, which determined much of what the fabric of the city looked like for the next 80 years (and largely looks like today), but on the face of it I doubt this qualifies -- it's pretty heavily modified, and there are miles of other, better examples. But if they want to make a case, they can try.

The Stranger's contempt for the very idea of historical preservation is disgusting, I have to say. Especially since it appears to be motivated entirely by a distance-from-your-offices factor. It certainly betrays a near-total ignorance of what Seattle is like, or how it got to be that way. Posting this archival picture is a welcome respite.

I used to live in the run down blue building next door, maybe we should save it too and all the people who used to shoot up in the stairway next to the basement.

B&O can relocate, tear the block down already.

"A" historic, not "AN" historic.

For choosing a or an, spelling doesn't matter; pronunciation does. A is for consonant sounds; an is for vowel sounds. The ever-popular "an historic" is incorrect for American speakers, because historic does not begin with a vowel sound. Even those Americans who say "an istoric" will admit that they say "historic," with the consonant h, when the word stands alone. I don't care whether "an istoric" rolls off your tongue more easily than "a historic"; you don't go altering your pronunciation of a word in order to change the article you use before it. Your comfort is none of the language's concern.

You aspirate the H, you pretentious fuckwit.

ENGLISHMOTHERFUCKER: you're wrong.

A long time ago, that Levi's spot used to open to the public; people could go in and sell their old jeans, whereupon they would be sent to Japan and resold for megabucks. Really old Levi's jeans, like the ones with red thread in the inside seam, are rare and valuable to crazy people there (thousands of dollars for some pairs). I haven't seen it open for ages; I think they do all their own picking nowadays, and thrift stores and so on, and just use the spot for a shipping point.

If this building is a candidate for preservation, the Starbucks down the street would be too, as it's nearly as old, and of a similar style of architecture.

@ Fnarf: As I'm sure you know, the London stylebook says to use "an" for "historic," "hotel," and "heroic." No other stylebook permits the usage of "an" with an aspirated H.
So *you're* wrong, unless you're posting from London or are, regrettably, a pretentious fuckwit.

An historic is unfortunately correct. It shouldn't be, unless you're Eliza Doolittle: An istoric; Enry Iggins.

Dear fuckwit: how pretentious do you have to be to pronounce the h? There's no way a native English speaker from ANYWHERE can do that naturally unless they're pronouncing the long a in "an", which no natural person does. They pronounce it "n", and thus "uh n'istorical". You CAN'T aspirate the h there unless you try really hard, because the accent is on the wrong syllable -- it's on "TOR", not "his".

If you're saying "history", the situation is reversed; "A HIStory" is correct. The comparison with "'enry 'iggins" fails for this reason.

You would know this if you had ears to hear, but you are too devoted to your tiny brain's need to correct others for faults that you have heard about on the internet. I imagine you spend a lot of time complaining about how people use the word "ironic", too, even when they are using it correctly.

Note also that there is already a word "ahistorical", pronounced with a long a, and it means quite the opposite of "an historical".

I agree that the move behind all this "save the parking lot for the sake of humanity etc etc" is really a response to the massive developement of look alike condo's and mixed use buildings all over Seattle. All of our neighborhoods look alike now and all of them have the same stores, well franchises really.

It is the result of not planning unique development for different parts of town. Soon, Seattle will look like downtown Bellevue. Just wait 10 more years...

This is why I dislike Historic Landmarks, period.

NO NO NO

The preserve everything movement is reactionary. Do these people really want an overpriced museum city of low, unattractive buildings? Increasing density isn't always a good thing of course, but we should keep the focus on constructive ways to make it more affordable, green, attractive. It can be done

Now that activists got away with saving the Ballard Manning/Denny's building, this seems to be the M.O. of urban obstructionists: declare any building you don't want razed for condos an historic landmark.

Yeah, I'm not sure it's gonna work more than once or twice.

@ Fnarf: I'm sorry, I guess your glib "You're wrong" post just rubbed me the wrong way.

"An historical" is one of those examples where you can easily catch people who think they're smarter than they are. "An historic" SOUNDS right, but -- barring strict adherence to the antiquated London Stylebook -- is wrong, dead wrong, silly-sounding and pretentiously wrong.

This is a historical landmark.
This is annastorical landmark.

I say the first one.

If you're still confused, check the AP Stylebook, the Chicago Manual of Style, or, y'know, a dictionary.

____ is why I dislike ____, period.

It's not an "historical monument" in the sense that the building itself is connected with something of historical significance (an historical event, or a good example of a school of thought or art or architecture, etc.). However, it is an important *kind* of building that Seattle needs to do a better job conserving. Otherwise, as other posters have pointed out, the city will turn into block-size block houses without any character whatsoever. The block-size block houses are to commercial development what McMansions are do other neighborhoods. They are soulless.

Buildings like the B&O need to be protected because of the soul and feel they give the place. Seattle needs another mechanism do that than "historical" designation.

In Europe, for instance, the older parts of cities are protected in that new construction has to mesh with the look and feel. Amsterdam buildings in some neighborhoods have have brick facades and windows of certain proportions (though the interior can be nearly anything you want). New houses built along Denmark's west coast are required to use thatch roofs like the historical ones. Etc. Why don't historic neighborhoods in Seattle have requirements like this (Pioneer Square, Capitol Hill, Fremont, Georgetown)?

Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina!

Seattle really isn't very old, and if we don't start saving some older buildings we won't have any actual "historic landmarks."

i'll explain it in only slightly more explicit terms. I dislike historical landmarks because they are a tool of populist reactionary feelings.

Absolutely we need to preserve every piece of underutilized property in our close-in neighborhoods. Especially in neighborhoods well served by transit. Only by preventing those developer scum from producing new housing can we drive up the price of our existing housing stock. And only when there are no affordable housing options left on Capitol Hill will we be free of the no-income hipster dipshits who currently frequent the hill. Yeah, preserve it - it's the best way to drive the poor people down to Renton.

I will repeat my question from the original post about this, which was: does anyone know what was there before the B&O building? Does anyone care? No. So why should I care about this building? There's nothing historic about it except by virtue of being old (it's not even that old, the trees that were probably there at some point were way older).

Projection of pretentiousness aside (don't you have to be pretentious to be a spelling/grammar Nazi online?), I agree with #15.

#18, what does syllable emphasis have to do with being able to aspirate a consonant? If you speak the sentence "Historic buildings are fun", are you saying that you don't pronounce the 'h' just because the emphasis is on 'tor'? Makes no sense to me.

"how pretentious do you have to be to pronounce the h? There's no way a native English speaker from ANYWHERE can do that naturally"

The point is that you would either use "a" and pronounce the "h", or us "an" and not pronounce the "h". You sound like someone is claiming you should say "an" *and* pronounce the "h", which, you're right, is crazy. Pronouncing the 'h' only seems silly if you've already decided that you should use "an".

"A Historic" sounds WAY more natural than "Annistoric" and it's what I say. The only way I can imagine "annistoric" spoken is with a British accent.

One of my fave places before I moved to Seattle and my first few years here.

Not historic. Build a 40 story tall residential apartment replacement and stop whining.

Knock it down and put up a more useful structure.

I still miss Henry's Off-Broadway.

Wasn't there a Red Robin in that location in the '80's?

"Historic Landmark" = That place reminds me of my youth, and/or I don't like developers. (See: Ballard Denny's.)

Oh, hell, just blow the fucking place up and be done with it. If you can manage to have some Saudis or Iranians in there when it goes up, so much the better. And Fnarf, yer wrong on this one.

Maybe we should just settle for istoric and anistoric for building designations?

We could save istoric buildings, and plow under anistoric buildings.

Red Robin was where Gay Starbucks is now.

W7ngman, seriously, LISTEN. "An historic" is completely American, even Californian. In fact, the majority of people who THINK "a historic" actually SAY "un'istoric". It has to do with both the lack of emphasis on "hi" and the extreme unlikelihood that a native American speaker of English would say "a" with a proper short "a" vowel sound (like "Ann") here. You say "uh", or a schwa, and when you combine that with the unaccented "hi" followed by the strong "STO", there's NO WAY you can say "uh historic" without eliding the "h". Even if you don't slip the "uhn" in, you'll end up saying something like "uh istoric", which is ridiculous.

As for your phrase "historic buildings are fun", no, in fact, very few speakers would hit that h; most would barely get the i in either, pronouncing it more like "(e)STORic".

I think this confusion over what people actually say when they say "an". It's "Nn", not "An". Nothing remotely British about it; in fact, a posh-accent Brit would be much MORE likely to "Ann" (and still elide the "h").

I say, guv, I tink Fnarf's in hi beans gain.

Hope he don thrup gain.

The Red Robin was down the hill in what is now the Starbucks.

The current site of the B&O is not its original site. I can't quite recall where it used to be (I'm sure COMTE knows) but it wasn't where it is now -- I remember when they moved in the '80s.

As far as the building itself -- those single-story wood-frame buildings were the equivalent of tents during Seattle's early economic booms; they were the cheapest, simplest structures that the city would allow. Ironically, they're better made than many modern structures -- but as cultural artifacts they were, almost literally, a dime a dozen. There are better examples in less useful locations (the nice formerly-mixed-use structures across the street from Lowell Elementary school that have now been converted to all-residential, for example). I like the old buildings, and I hope someone has the presence of mind to recycle the materials, but they're a bad use of space in the city.

Also, just as a historical trivia item, Seattle whorehouses used to claim their prostitutes were seamstresses, for purposes of payroll and taxes. Possibly the seamstresses pictured here actually were whores, or at least aware of the connotation.

@ Fnarf: You're wrong.

Game, set, match.

I think B&O started in the Broadway Market, expanded to its current site, kept the Broadway Market site as a secondary, then sold it a couple of years before the big conversion.

God, I'm old as dirt.

Ok, I'm done with you telling me what I do and do not think and say, because you've been 100% wrong on all of it. Do you have any data to back up your hundred assertions of what "most" people do and don't say or think? Or are you just talking out your ass? Are you a fucking linguist or something?

I say "a historic". I also pronounce the "h" in historic regardless of where it is in a sentence or what word comes before it. According to you, this is a figment of my imagination?

Do you say "annypothesis" or "a hypothesis?" Same fracking thing.

http://www.betterwritingskills.com/tip-w005.html

This building isn't a landmark structure by any reading of the code. If people want to save it, buy it, and give the B&O free rent. Otherwise, shut up and enjoy the beautiful new condos.

No one is wrong guys, it's personal preference. Now, saying "an" AND aspirating the "h"... that's just plain wrong.

It's an undeniably old, but probably anistoric block.

Is that supposed to be Cockney, Will? "In hi beans gain"? That's just dreadful. You're tone deaf.

ENGLISHMOTHERFUCKER, you are as well, it would appear. I urge you, once again, to ACTUALLY LISTEN to how most Americans say these words. Listen to some newsie on TV say "Hispanic" -- you won't hear an H, you'll barely hear a whisper of an i. You'll hear "ss-PAN-ic". Or "that'sust AIR-ic'l". Words beginning with "h" that have their emphasis on the second syllable usually lose the h, especially when the second syllable is very short. Nothing remotely British about it. Most Americans pronounce "hotel" with a very strong "Ho", with a dipthong, hoe-oo, almost a stressed syllable.

Fnarf wrote:

the extreme unlikelihood that a native American speaker of English would say "a" with a proper short "a" vowel sound (like "Ann")

Uh... What the hell are you talking about? I'm pretty sure I've only heard the word "a" pronounced as a long 'a' (as in "ape") or as a schwa (like "uh").

It's "a historic" if you pronounce the 'h' and "an historic" if you don't. Period. If you speak English with an American accent, the later is ridiculous, because we do pronounce the 'h' in "historic".

You say potato, and I say potato!
You say tomato, and I say tomato!
Potato! Potato!
Tomato! Tomato!

I'm not really seeing why this doesn't work....

this thread ihs crhazy.

@50 did you see the SNL with christopher walking singing that song?

May have, but do not remember it.

It's a very old joke.

I would probably say "unna POTH usus", but I can see why someone might hit sharpen that "y" into a "HAIY", which would take a plain "uh" in front, "uh hai POTH usus" -- "unn aiy" is probably too hard.

I maintain that American speakers grossly underestimate the number of times they utter schwahs, and utter gooey dipthongs, and thus insert consonants in between them; in fact, those who DO say AIY at the front of "a historical" are actually saying something closer to "aye yis TORR icl" than an aspirated "h".

To a non-American, our speech sounds like an undifferentiated string of chewing-gum oing-ung-ayng diphthonged vowels.

Fnarf:
Regardless of whether or not you believe (you don't) that the letter H exists in spoken English (it does), the fact remains that, in accordance with all writing texts not using British rules, it is never appropriate to write "an historical."
The OP was right. Let's drop it.

Yes, Phil M, I made a mistake -- it's "An" that would be pronounced "Ann" or "ən" -- I left the "n" out.

My point still stands: "A historical" requires an effort to puff out that "h", an effort which just isn't there on such an unstressed syllable. The only way to make the "h" is to stress it, which not only sounds weird "HISS TORR ic" but is very unlikly given the laziness of speech, which always seeks the easy way out: "ss TORR ic".

Fine: if you want to say "əh HISS TORR ic", have at it, but (a) don't tell me I'm wrong for doing it my way, which is how this thread started, and (b) don't tell me that most people do it your way, because they don't. They MIGHT say "əheh STOR ic", possibly, but few actually aspirate the h in an unstressed syllable with a negligible vowel.

@43

B&O started in that location, on Belmont & Olive (B&O, get it?). They had a stand in the Broadway Market, but were bumped in the QFC takeover.

They've been there for 30 years, and are one of the oldest (if not oldest) coffee shops in town.

If you dig around in the seattle photo archive, you can see that the space used to house the Belmont Tavern.

Those aren't just any cleaners. Those are BUSH cleaners.

@43

Yeah, I remember that the Broadway Market thing was a secondary outgrowth of the original B&O, but I was really pretty sure I remembered them moving into the place where they are now. Maybe I'm just remembering one of the expansions...

I stand corrected then.

Back in the day, I was an Espresso Roma denizen.

Cafe Allegro in the U District has to be older than the B&O; they've got to be pushing 40. The only earlier one I'm aware of is the old Last Exit (long since defunct). But I think the original Raison d'Etre downtown was there before the B&O, as well as the first Stewart Brothers, though that might have been just coffee beans, not drinks for sale (as was Starbucks in the Market).

I remember the Roma, on Broadway right at 45th. That place came later, in the very early 90s, I believe.

Roma was where Cafe Bleu is on Broadway.

Even before Raison d'Etre was Free Mars in the Jello Mold Building (later Cyclops).

The Raison d'Etre was at least several years before Free Mars; it had been there for years when I left town in 1983, while Free Mars didn't open until 1985 (according to the Cyclops history page). Cafe Allegro, according to their history page, opened in May 1975, shortly before the Last Exit, but I could swear they were older. Either way, trump any of the other candidates.

Okay, okay. I give.

I've only been here since 1986.

Even if I'm wrong, Napoleon, I will grind you down until you admit defeat.

"An historic" is correct, because that's what trained historians, like myself, are taught to use. Look in any historical journal printed in the United States and it will say "an historical." Fnarf wins. Fuck all.

Ok, again (as pronounced):

"A historic" - Right
"A 'istoric" - Wrong
"An 'istoric" - Right
"An historic" - Wrong

Everyone's right! Unless you say "an" and aspirate the "h", or for some reason do neither... then you're just weird (and wrong).

I think what irked me about Fnarf's argument was not that he said "an 'istoric" is right (its fine, albeit strange in my book) but rather his baseless assertions that most people say it this way.

Other than that, love ya Fnarf!

I did not start this fight, w7ngman. ENGLISHMOTHERFUCKER did, when he called me (and everyone else who speaks this way) a pretentious fuckwit. You then piled on by suggesting that people who speak this way must by definition be putting on an English accent. Nothing could be further from the truth, in either case.

I still maintain that most American speakers habitually either stick the "n" in, or execute some linguistic gymnastics in order to force out the unnatural aspirated "h". This is probably a genteelism, made out of fear of being thought incorrect (not unlike the way people say "he said it to Jim and I" instead of the correct "he said it to Jim and me", because "Jim and me" sounds "wrong" on its own.

I am not a professional linguist, but I do have a good ear for accents and speech patterns, and I hear people mumble their way through this and similar constructions ALL THE TIME. If you ask someone "is it 'a historical fact' or 'an historical fact'? most Americans will pick the former, and they will pronounce it for the questioner "EY hiss TORR i cull"; but if you catch them speaking naturally they'll wipe out that EY into "ə", elide the "h", and drop about 90% of the "i" as well. Many or most of them will attempt to fill that double schwa with something. That something at the beginning of a word is traditionally an "n", giving "ə nəs TORR icl" They do, they really do.

"The Raison d'Etre was at least several years before Free Mars; it had been there for years when I left town in 1983, while Free Mars didn't open until 1985 (according to the Cyclops history page). Cafe Allegro, according to their history page, opened in May 1975, shortly before the Last Exit, but I could swear they were older. Either way, trump any of the other candidates."

I concur. Raison d'Etre was there well before Free Mars. The Last Exit, according to this page, opened in 1967, so if Allegro dates to 1975, the Exit is older. Damn, I miss the old Exit.

Stewart Brothers started out as the Wet Whisker, supposedly opening one on Pier 70 in around 1970-71. It was ice cream and coffee. I am not sure how long they were there -- I remember an ice cream place in there, but not if it was the Wet Whisker or not. But anyway, sometime after that there was a Wet Whisker on the Ave, which became Stewart Brothers Coffee, which was later sold to Joey Kline of the band Prudence Dredge, who changed it to University Coffee, which shortly after that moved around the corner to 45th, across from the Neptune. This was in the late 80s. Right around the time that Stewart Brothers had to change their name to SBC.

Oh, and I was going to say that I love how the current pic and the vintage pic of the B&O block still look so similar, with most of the buildings still intact.

And I never hear anyone from around here "fill that double schwa" with an "n." I've just had several people read the phrase in a sentence, and none of them did that. They do slur the word pretty strongly, but native Northwesterners, at least, seem to maintain the "hi-" clearly. This is most likely not true with dialects everywhere in the US, but it seems pretty common here.

Ok, not to flog a dead horse, but:

a) I didn't say you started the fight

b) I disagreed with the pretentious part, and even suggested that I thought he was projecting his/her own pretentiousness (grammar nazi, duh)

c) I said I thought it was personal/dialectal preference (supported by my link)

c) I only noted that the only way *I* can imagine it pronounced in my head is with a British accent, which, now that I think about it, is wrong, I can't imagine it AT ALL. It was merely supposed to be anecdotal evidence against your assertion that "most" people drop the "h" (ie, if that were true, surely I would have heard this and it would sound more natural in my head). This is pretty different from actually making such assertions, and I didn't say those people are British "by definition" by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm thinking this must be a locality thing. You can see the difference in usage in natural writing even in this thread here. Google "a historic" and "an historic" and you get many hits for each. I grew up in the NW and lived here all my life, something tells me its common here to aspirate the "h" (and thus use "a" not "an"). IIRC you didn't grow up in the NW so that might explain differences in how natural each seems in our heads.

Jolly good show, though, old chap.

I did grow up in the PNW. Born and raised in Seattle, Doctor's Hospital. People mumble and elide more than they think they do; next you'll be telling me that you pronounce the "t" (as a "t") in "sweater" or "Clinton".

Do you say "Warshingtən"?

All this linguistic frippery aside:

Is it an Istoric building, or an Anistoric building?

Whether it's linguistically correct or not, enough historians use "an historic" to make it a perfectly legitimate spelling. Furthermore, every historian I've ever known say "an historic" with a fairly soft "h" sound: an-(h)istoric, (a light but audible "h" sound). In my experience, the "h" is not discarded in the States. Read actual American historical journals for evidence of the pervasiveness of "an historic." Because a lot of historians sure are pretentious.

For an example, do a google search of the following:

lafeber "an historic"

Take a look at the text of each result for examples of "an historic" used in context.

Walter Lefeber is one of the foremost historians of US foreign policy and one of the least pretentious and pedantic historians alive. And I'm pretty sure he also pronounces the "h" in "an historical." And as I'm sure this point will be discounted, do a text search with any prominent historian and you'll see the same results.

This is actually getting fun again.

@73: Definitely an anistoric building.

If the shops closed and left, how much would people pay to go there to see the building? Does a major alteration to the outside of the building affect how historic it is?

I have a suspicion that this is 100% about B&O, not the building. Are businesses at all part of the consideration of whether a building is historic? I'm thinking no, but if so it kind of reframes the debate.

@72: Well, scratch those last few sentences then.

To answer your questions: no, no, and wtf hell no. Not glottilizing T's... now THAT'S fucking pretentious :)

When you said "fill that double schwa with something" I thought you were talking about a nasal stop, given the nasal quality of the 'n' consonant. Since you busted out with the IPA though I figured I would look up what we're talking about. I think usage of "an historic" is a result of "h-dropping". It's a prominent characteristic of and is commonly associated with Cockney English (a London dialect). The OP might have been playing on a stereotype found in Victorian literature, but they got it backwards. The upper-class (hence pretentious?) weren't the h-droppers, the proles were.

I am surprised that an h-dropping dialect lurks in the pacific NW. I'll have to listen for it, I have never really noticed it before (and I'm talking about genuine dialectal h-dropping, not mumbling, which theoretically shouldn't change how things are spelled, anyway).

Thanks Fnarf, I enjoy a good geekout from time to time.

Istoric or no, whatever replaces is it is going to look like cheaply constructed crap, with yet another Quiznos in it.

It's not related to Cockney. As stated before, 'Enry 'Iggins and all that is dropping the "h" from STRESSED syllables. No one in the US that I'm aware of would ever do that except under extreme duress. But dropping the "h" from UNSTRESSED syllables is natural, and everybody does it all the time.

You stayed true to your word in #65, Fnarf, I gotta give you that.