Speaking of the New York Times, Capitol Hill gets more love from the Old Gray Lady this weekend with this lovely slideshow honoring the transformation of Pike/Pine’s auto row into the modern day play rooms of Party Mountain — Seattle’s New Showrooms:
A century ago, Seattle’s original Auto Row was home to chandeliered showrooms, which became all but forgotten after car dealers moved to the suburbs. By the post-World War II era, grand buildings on parallel Pike and Pine Streets stood empty. Low rents eventually attracted artists and musicians to the area, and the ’90s grunge scene spawned bars and music venues. In the last decade, preservation-minded developers transformed many of those automotive buildings into offices, apartments and shops, restoring original windows, old-growth beams and wood floors. Today the Pike-Pine Corridor is the epicenter of the popular Capitol Hill neighborhood, claiming some of the best restaurants, nightclubs and vinyl record stores in the city.
Like any outsider’s take, it’s part fiction but nice to see national recognition (again) of the neighborhood’s success. Note: Slideshow does not mention soaring rents, weekend knucklehead invasions or $12 salads.
For a look at some of the reality of the current work by these “preservation-minded developers” — I think we copyrighted this one, NYT, btw — check out this recent CHS coverage:
- ‘Sale of the year’ — Preservation-minded developer scores two more pieces of Hill’s auto row past
- $4.15 million later, Capitol Hill’s Colman Automotive building restored to 1916 glory
- Melrose Market II: Pike/Pine office+restaurant+retail project ready for review
We’ll see if the next round of projects — the BMW buildings, the Mercedes dealership, and Liz Dunn’s office project, above, brings similar applause.
