The initial meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Board to consider the nomination will be next Wednesday, November 19, in Room 4060 of the Seattle Municipal Tower, 700 5th Avenue. The meeting begins at 3:30, and with other items on the agenda it's estimated that Washington Hall will be considered at 4:30 or later. Historic Seattle emphasizes that it's important for the Landmarks Preservation Board to see and hear neighborhood support for a nomination such as this.

Washington Hall (on 14th Ave S and East Fir St) is a dilapidated building with a dignified history. W. E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in its theater and Count Basie played there, as did Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, and Jimi Hendrix. It was the first home of On the Boards, before they moved to Queen Anne.

It's currently managed by the Sons of Haiti, a Masonic organization who've let the place slide into deep decline. Leaks, holes in the ceiling, pigeon shit in the upstairs room (which the sons rent to an East African Church): the place needs help.

(Though the cascades of ferns and moss down the flanks of the building, which have grown to soak up the water falling from rusted-out gutters, are beautiful.)

The word a year ago was that the Sons would sell to 4Culture and Historic Seattle. The word a few months ago was that they were going to sell to a tear-down developer who was offering them more money.

Go to the meeting this Wednesday and give this building a future—hopefully as a stage and offices for the CD Forum. But any old thing is better than nothing.