The End of a Beer Garden
Developers are grading the site of a historic park and beer garden on Second Street to make way for a row of temporary brick storefronts.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Second Street front of the block between Madison and Spring streets is shortly to be covered with a fine row of stores to be erected by John Leary and Cyrus Walker. They propose to unite in grading the property down to the street level for a depth of forty feet, thus cutting off the high bank which forms the garden and terrace of Mr. Leary’s residence. These will be brick structures, one story high, intended to last about five years until the city grows enough to warrant a more substantial block. The quarter of the block owned by Mr. Walker has a little history: in the early ’70s, it was owned by a German named Frank Guttenberg, who made a park of it and ran a beer garden there with musical attractions. He began to open on Sundays, but Rev. Daniel Bagley, whose church was directly across Second Street, strenuously objected, and he was compelled to observe the Sabbath. The land, bought in 1879 for $4,000, is now valued at $80,000.
“He began to open on Sundays, but Rev. Daniel Bagley, whose church was directly across Second Street, strenuously objected, and he was compelled to observe the Sabbath.”
The Leary-Walker property illustrates the relentless pace of development that has defined downtown Seattle since its founding. The shift from a Sunday-defying beer garden to short-term commercial brick buildings reflects the city's perpetual 'booster' cycle of replacing the old with the new, a trend that continues to shape our urban density today.
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