The Hidden Lives of Third Avenue
A Seattle landlady recounts the unsettling discovery of a double life happening right under her roof.
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.
A sensation from Seattle Saturday reached the ears of the authorities. A landlady on Third Avenue, kept by colored folks, told the following story: 'They told me they were lawful men and wives, but I had a suspicion, and I kept watch. They always appeared to me as husband and wife, and I never suspected anything else. They had no children and she had no absence of clothing. She and the boy have been there every day. They are of fine family but did not act like it. It was a good deal to have them and caused me to be broke up from day to day until she said she was going to be married to her husband or so she says.'
“They told me they were lawful men and wives, but I had a suspicion, and I kept watch.”
In 1884, boarding houses were the epicenter of Seattle's social surveillance, where landladies played the role of moral police. This story echoes modern anxieties over 'non-traditional' housing and the invasive ways communities monitor their neighbors' private lives.
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