Almost a year ago I wrote a long history of Broadway Market in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, which ran in Capitol Hill Seattle blog. Because of its length I decided not to include a number of scans of 1927 blueprints by architect Charles Haynes that I found at the Seattle Department of Planning and Development (since renamed Department of Construction and Inspections). Here they are for your enjoyment.
Broadway market
Here’s what I had to say about Haynes and his market design:
Towards the end of 1927, [Arthur] Gerbel hired architect Charles Haynes to draw up plans for the market. In mid-January 1928 Gerbel formed Broadway Central Market, Inc., with R. M. Kinnear and Henry A. Beck as officers.
The three signed a 99-year lease with [property owners Claude] Jensen and [John] von Herberg at the end of February and Haynes began overseeing construction of Broadway Central Market.
Charles Haynes designed so many Seattle buildings in the first few decades of the 1900s that the new edition of Shaping Seattle Architecture gives up and says “many revival style houses, apartment buildings, and commercial projects, including more than one hundred houses in Mount Baker.” Major projects around Capitol Hill included the Roy Vue Apartments, Butterworth Mortuary (now the Pine Box), a building with showroom for Mack Truck at the SE corner of Pike and Broadway (now Frame Central), and Dunlap Apartments (now Emerald Arms), but basically the list is so long that no one has put it together yet. Haynes worked with Gerbel on many projects including the Mack Truck building.
Here are the plans; click through for download and manipulation on Flickr:
The market has gone through many changes over the years, to adjust to different retail climates and to the continually evolving needs of grocery stores in particular. In the article I chronicled six different unique configurations and eras for the building. How many more will there be?
More groceries
I’ve been writing a surprising amount over the last couple of years about Seattle’s early 1900s groceries. Here’s a list of links:
- Augustine & Kyer
- Charles Louch Farm
- Groceteria
- (Witness Weeps) – The Tragedy of Alvin Monson
- Piggly Wiggly Seattle
- Anderson, United and Mutual Markets
- Eba’s Cut Rate Markets
- Main Arcade Eba’s Store No 1
- Corner Market Eba’s Store No 2
- Wallingford Eba’s Store No 7
- Seattle’s Drive-In Markets
- Seattle’s earliest car architecture in pictures – Drive-in markets
- Ice cream, beer, and the Montlake Drive-in Public Market (on CHS blog)
- 50s Futurism Forgotten – The Burien Tradewell Story
- Buy your rubber at City Market (on CHS blog)
- Capitol Hill – fancy groceries since 1923 (on CHS blog)
- A Broadway clock that tells history not time – Queen City Grocery and IGA (on CHS blog)
- Broadway Market v1.0 (on CHS blog)
- Blueprints of Broadway Market
- Piggly Wiggly on Broadway (on CHS blog)
- A shop on 11th Ave – Salle Brothers and Arai Grocery (on CHS blog)
Both of my In Laws families had businesses at the Broadway Market. I cannot recall the name of the businesses. I am wondering if you have any information or pictures? Ezra Israel had a fruit stand, and Victor Levy had a fish market at the Broadway Market/ my guess is that the both of them started out at the market in the late 20’s to early 30’s into the 40’s and early 50’s.
Steve, thank you for the comment!
I’ve sent you an email with what I found about Ezra Israel and Victor Levy. As I said, I would love to hear any stories that your family has to share.