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The Double Header (Seattle)

1934 establishments in Washington (state)2015 disestablishments in Washington (state)Defunct LGBT drinking establishments in the United StatesLGBT culture in SeattleLGBT drinking establishments in Washington (state)
LGBT stubsPioneer Square, SeattleWashington (state) stubs
The Double Header, Seattle, Washington
The Double Header, Seattle, Washington

The Double Header was a gay bar located at 407 2nd Avenue S in Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood, in the U.S. state of Washington. The LGBT establishment opened in 1934 and closed in December 2015. It was thought to be the oldest gay bar in the United States.In the basement of the building, a gay dance club called The Casino operated from the 1930s to the 1950s; afterwards it was converted into a diner. It was popular with drag queens.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article The Double Header (Seattle) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

The Double Header (Seattle)
Yesler Way, Seattle International District/Chinatown

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Latitude Longitude
N 47.60114 ° E -122.3322932 °
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Interurban Building

Yesler Way
98104 Seattle, International District/Chinatown
Washington, United States
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The Double Header, Seattle, Washington
The Double Header, Seattle, Washington
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Interurban Building (Seattle)
Interurban Building (Seattle)

The Interurban Building, formerly known as the Seattle National Bank Building (1890–1899), the Pacific Block (1899–1930) and the Smith Tower Annex (1930–1977), is a historic office building located at Yesler Way and Occidental Way S in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Built from 1890 to 1891 for the newly formed Seattle National Bank, it is one of the finest examples of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in the Pacific Northwest and has been cited by local architects as one of the most beautiful buildings in downtown Seattle. It was the breakthrough project of young architect John Parkinson, who would go on to design many notable buildings in the Los Angeles area in the late 19th and early 20th century.The Seattle National Bank would leave their building after only five years, followed by numerous legal battles between its owners, creditors and builders that ultimately led to the foreclosure of the building. It came under the ownership of New York industrialist Lyman Cornelius Smith who would rename it the Pacific Block in 1899. From 1904 to 1928, the Puget Sound Electric Railway's Seattle–Tacoma line terminated in front of the building and the old banking room was converted into a ticket office and waiting room. The building was threatened with demolition several times in the 1910s and 1920s but plans to replace the building with a skyscraper always fell though. The building underwent a major interior modernization beginning in 1929 under L.C. Smith's heirs, which included demolition of the entire Southeast wing of the building. The building was renamed again to the Smith Tower Annex, which it would remain until its most recent restoration in the late 1970s after which it was renamed the Interurban Building as a nod to its role in local transportation. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 as a contributing property to the Pioneer Square Historic District.

Pioneer Square, Seattle
Pioneer Square, Seattle

Pioneer Square is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of Downtown Seattle, Washington, US. It was once the heart of the city: Seattle's founders settled there in 1852, following a brief six-month settlement at Alki Point on the far side of Elliott Bay. The early structures in the neighborhood were mostly wooden, and nearly all burned in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. By the end of 1890, dozens of brick and stone buildings had been erected in their stead; to this day, the architectural character of the neighborhood derives from these late 19th century buildings, mostly examples of Richardsonian Romanesque.The neighborhood takes its name from a small triangular plaza near the corner of First Avenue and Yesler Way, originally known as Pioneer Place. The Pioneer Square–Skid Road Historic District, a historic district including that plaza and several surrounding blocks, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Like virtually all Seattle neighborhoods, the Pioneer Square neighborhood lacks definitive borders. It is bounded roughly by Alaskan Way S. on the west, beyond which are the docks of Elliott Bay; by S. King Street on the south, beyond which is SoDo; by 5th Avenue S. on the east, beyond which is the International District; and it extends between one and two blocks north of Yesler Way, beyond which is the rest of Downtown. Because Yesler Way marks the boundary between two different plats, the street grid north of Yesler does not line up with the neighborhood's other streets (nor with the compass), so the northern border of the district zigzags along numerous streets. In some places, the Pioneer Square–Skid Road Historic District extends beyond these borders. It includes Union Station east of 4th Avenue S., and several city blocks south of S. King Street.

Sinking Ship
Sinking Ship

The Sinking Ship is a multi-story parking garage in Pioneer Square, Seattle bound by James Street to the north, Yesler Way to the south, and 2nd Avenue to the east, and just steps away from the Pioneer Building on the site of the former Occidental Hotels and Seattle Hotel. After the Seattle Hotel was demolished in 1961, the Sinking Ship was built as part of a neighborhood redesign.It was designed by Gilbert H. Mandeville (engineer) and Gudmund B. Berge (architect) of the Seattle firm Mandeville and Berge, and built in 1965. They also designed the Logan Building and an addition to the First Presbyterian Church downtown, the Ballard branch of Seattle Public Library, and two buildings at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 (the Alaska Building and the Transportation 21 Building). A writer for HistoryLink described the Sinking Ship as "that skid road parking garage whose nihilistic construction depresses the flatiron block where James Street and Yesler Way meet at Pioneer Square."The parking garage is said to be haunted. It is owned by the Kubota family.The Seattle Monorail Project proposed a monorail station at the site of the Sinking Ship, which it hoped to acquire through condemnation. The Kubota family disputed the condemnation lawsuit, stating their intention to build housing and retail at the site.The garage has been made fun of many times in the past few decades. People were angry that a historic hotel was torn down, only to build what Henry Kubota’s daughter, Doris, called “the ugliest building in all of Seattle.” In 2001, on the garage’s roof, police and city officials watched and did nothing to stop the deadly Mardi Gras riot. Frommer’s travel guide calls the Sinking Ship “the monstrosity that prompted the movement to preserve the rest of this neighborhood. However, in a turnabout of affairs, in 2019, the parking lot was named the "coolest" parking lot in the United States by the design publication Architizer and London-based Looking4.com. “With its unique form and position along the street’s slope causing it to closely resemble the bow of a boat, the Sinking Ship is an iconic site in Seattle,” the contest’s sponsors wrote in a statement.