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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

City Sudden Interiors

Posted by on Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 11:13 AM

This morning a machine was chewing up a house on the block near Cal Anderson Park that's being torn down to make a light rail station. (Can't see a house's insides exposed like that, yawning open, being eaten, without thinking of the way Hemingway does the destroyed houses in a sentence in the second chapter of A Farewell to Arms—"the sudden interiors of houses that had lost a wall through shelling, with plaster and rubble in their gardens and sometimes in the street.") I took a couple photos (here, here) and then walked to the front of the house and took this one, after the house was mostly eaten. That's part of my glove in the foreground. Sorry. Cell phone.

Slog reader Ari Brown was there earlier than I was, and posted photos on his blog this morning. Good photos. Like, with no gloves in the foreground. Here's a photo of the house right at the beginning of its end:

cf25/1236707724-aribrownphotohouse.jpg

(Thanks, Ari.)

 

Comments (17) RSS

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1
All that wood that could have been re-used if it were taken apart in pieces. :(
Posted by Patti on March 10, 2009 at 11:30 AM
2
I hope that house didn't have historical significance. It sure looks old.
Posted by elswinger on March 10, 2009 at 11:36 AM
3
Sound Transit did quite a bit of reclamation in the interiors - check out their Capitol Hill Sustainability Report. The houses were offered up for salvage or relocation. I don't think anyone tried.
Posted by Ben Schiendelman on March 10, 2009 at 11:37 AM
4
Nice to see some work finally starting. Wish it could be finished faster. Now since the businesses could suffer due to construction, I think people should start frequenting the local shops and restaurants a little more up there.
Posted by JesseJB on March 10, 2009 at 11:49 AM
5
Great stuff. Once the line is done, rents and home values will go up, and the trash will be driven out of Capital Hill!

Oh, what? They didn't tell you this?
Posted by Stupid White Man on March 10, 2009 at 11:58 AM
6
Looking forward to the UW LINK station too.

Hurry up and finish so we can take the light rail to the airport, k?
Posted by Will in Seattle on March 10, 2009 at 12:05 PM
7
@3 A lot of the interiors pieces were salvaged.
Posted by andrew on March 10, 2009 at 12:08 PM
8
@5
You don't get to bitch about the neighborhood if you can't even spell its fucking name right.
Posted by andrew on March 10, 2009 at 12:11 PM
9
My roomie Jason and I used to occupy the whole upstairs of that house. Many wonderful memories created there. That house had great energy. Sound Transit paid us a nice sum to relocate ourselves in early 2007. At least it's going dwon for a good cause - public tranportation.
Posted by kristi on March 10, 2009 at 12:21 PM
10
Pop quiz: how many units of rental housing were demolished to make way for light rail on cap hill?
Posted by Trevor on March 10, 2009 at 12:55 PM
11
@10: The answer is fuck you.
Posted by Matty on March 10, 2009 at 1:11 PM
12
@10: 15, IIRC.

Current count of new rentals expected to be built by 2016 in the immediate vicinity of the station is well over 300.

Older homes, regardless of their relative un-newness, often rent at a premium.
Posted by Baconcat on March 10, 2009 at 1:12 PM
13
I also lived there with Jason back in 2004-2005. The first night that the man who is now my husband and I spent together was in that house. So it's pretty historic for us. Of course, that was after our first date at the Kincora, which is also gone now. It's as if Seattle wants to wipe us from its memory. But at least the house is going down for light rail (yay!) and not condos, I mean, a parking lot.
Posted by Debbie on March 10, 2009 at 1:33 PM
14
There's a meeting coming up on what will eventually replace that house:

http://www.soundtransit.org/x10501.xml

Lots more info here:

http://www.soundtransit.org/x7757.xml
Posted by Mark on March 10, 2009 at 3:01 PM
15
Pop quiz: how many Seattle houses were removed before I-5 was built in the early '60's?

Answer:

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?Dis…

4,500 parcels/houses.
Posted by Mark on March 10, 2009 at 3:06 PM
16
@14: My bet is 6 stories of mixed use development: 5 floors of condos, and a floor of Subway Sandwich shops, Bake-Lite Tanning Salons and a Checkmart.
Posted by NapoleonXIV on March 10, 2009 at 3:19 PM
17
@10 who cares?
Posted by Gypsy Kaz on March 11, 2009 at 9:27 AM

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