There was a huge rubber plant, or maybe a monstera, in the entranceway--does anybody know what will become of it? It won't be easy to move ... poor thing.

Bye, Vivace.

I don't think we need to do anything really about such things. We are not talking about significant or unique structures or even anything all that old. Hell a lot of these buildings are rather poorly laid out and suffer from all kinds of problems from earthquake readiness, to sufficient bathrooms and handicap access.

My little hope at times is that an earthquake destroys most of the brick piece of crap buildings beyond the point of salvage and we start with fresh new ideas and all the preservationists are smote out of existence.

Sound Transit has to dig a mighty big hole in the ground, and there's no way to do it without taking out buildings. On the positive side, when construction is finished, nearly all that land will be made available for redevelopment of the type typically championed by The Stranger. There IS a brighter future ahead.

Vivace is moving to the aptly named (and reinforced) Brix at the other end of Broadway. The building was scheduled to be done already but is delayed until September.

People like that wanted to tear down the French Quarter and Pike Place Market in the 60's to make way for "progress".

The entire anti development and progress streak here is so reactionary and is always one step behind. That is why I don't find it genuine and why I question it at every point.

New York, Paris, and London have preserved lots and lots of workaday older buildings and in so doing enhanced the value of those cities immeasurably. Seattle, on the other hand, is starting to resemble (architecturally, at least) Ventura Boulevard in LA's San Fernando Valley more and more by the day.

Woo hoo - now THAT's progress!

Congratulations Seattle!

And I'm sorry but the comparison to NYC, Paris and London are totally ridiculous and stupid. Seattle will never be like any of those cities and will rarely have anything influential worth preserving in the the field of architecture. It's one thing to preserve a building that is one of the finest examples of Art Deco style, it's another to preserve a brick building simply because most other buildings go up aren't brick facade even.

And I'm sorry but the comparison to NYC, Paris and London are totally ridiculous and stupid. Seattle will never be like any of those cities and will rarely have anything influential worth preserving in the the field of architecture. It's one thing to preserve a building that is one of the finest examples of Art Deco style, it's another to preserve a brick building simply because most other buildings go up aren't brick facade even.

Poor analogy - Portland is only 170 miles away, and you don't even have to get a passport and/or change your citizenship.

There are thousands of ordinary brick buildings in lower Manhattan, Paris, etc etc. that define those places every bit as much as the Chrysler Building or the Eiffel Tower do.

Beauty may well be in the eye of the beholder, but generic modern sure looks the same (and drives longtime residents and business out) whether you plunk it down in Phoenix, LA, or Seattle.

That said, by the way, I can deal with the fact that this particular building is being demolished to fulfill a truly public purpose just fine. It's your cavalier attitude toward the rest of Seattle's history and local architecture that I find puerile.

It seems to me that in your philosophical (if one can call it that) world view you would likely consider a generic 6-story box where Dick's now stands as "progress".

To draw a New York analogy, that would be almost as bad as condo developers finally demolishing Art's Deli. I would hope you might regard that as a bad thing, notwithstanding the fact that their building isn't exactly an architectural marvel.

In Europe, you can walk in to a place like the Blue Moon, the Central Tavern or Jules Mae's and they'll look exactly the same as they have for the last 200 years, and as they will for the next 200. Seattle will be a better place in 200 years if a bit of our local history manages to survive despite greedheads like you.

Mmmm....corned beef.....