Digging through my archives after moving and I find a gem: The Belltown Rag, Vol. 5, No 1, August 1982. Editor was Mark Sullo, local artist and long-ago founder of Belltown's Wall of Sound record store, now located on Capitol Hill with new owners.
A photocopied zine, The Rag contains an article about the new Apex co-op and an interview with Don Wolfe of the recently shuttered Crawford and Waage hardware, which began as Buckman Hardware in 1912.
I flip through the thing and make a great find: a page consisting of four big ads for businesses which are still extant. The Virginia Inn (since 1901!), Mama's Mexican Kitchen (1974), The Pink Door (1981), and the Read All About It Newsstand in the Market (1979).
Other advertisers from that issue that are still in business: Egbert's (1982), The Rendezvous (1927), and A-1 Laundry (1958).
Hard to believe anything survived the decades-long plan devised by real estate moguls to transform Belltown from greasy hobo central to yuppie plastic hell.
I also found an ad for long-gone (1979-2000) but fondly-remembered Seattle music magazine The Rocket, where many great artists and writers made their bones, including Art Chantry, Jeff Kleinsmith, funnyman John Keister and the Messenger's own Gillian G. Gaar. Publisher Charles Cross has since become a successful writer of rock exploitation biographies.
I'm inspired to write this because our editor Clark's new book, Seattle's Belltown (Arcadia Publishing), just came out. His effort from last year,
Vanishing Seattle, was a surprise regional hit, selling over 5,000 copies and warming the hearts of countless Pacific Northwest curmudgeons over the
last holiday season. Find Seattle's Belltown on
Amazon
or go to MiscMedia.com.
