The Seattle Skyline’s Growing Pains
Developers and City Council clash over property rights, railroad access, and the birth of a brick-and-mortar downtown.
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.
Mr. Arthur Horton has expected plans prepared for a large brick building to be erected on the corner of Third and Cherry streets. The building will cover a quarter of a block and will be constructed with all the latest and most approved building methods in the city. It will make a landmark for this part of the city, and will extend west toward Fourth street. In short, it will be six stories high above the street on Third and four stories above the street on Fourth. There will be offices, wholesale and retail stores, and in the rear and two stories above the first floor, which is the ground floor of Cherry street, the apartment floor is divided into 27 separate suites. Mr. Kern has also been in negotiation to rebuild the block at Main and Second, which was destroyed by fire, saving only the foundation on the Third and Main street side. He intends to erect a new brick building that will cost nearly $100,000. These building projects are a sign of the times, as the city moves from the era of wood frame structures to more permanent brick and mortar construction.
“These building projects are a sign of the times, as the city moves from the era of wood frame structures to more permanent brick and mortar construction.”
The transition from wooden shanties to dense brick blocks in 1890 mirrors the current tension between Seattle’s low-density past and its high-density future. Today’s debates over zoning, transit corridors, and property rights find their roots in this era of rapid, often contentious, urban expansion.
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