Clew notes an interesting book

Jun 02, 2005

Clew notes an interesting book

about a massive warehouse -- the Starbucks Center Building and asks a question about a statement made in the book.

The odd thing is this assertion:
In Seattle, many of the industrial district's old warehouse buildings that would have been eagerly adapted to loft spaces in the 1980s and 1990s had been demolished in the 1930s in favor of smaller, wood-frame structures. (p. 44)
We had a district of concrete warehouses and knocked them down in the Depression to build (mostly two-story, giant pole-barn) wood structures? Why on earth? It's hard to imagine that the wood buildings ever had lower running costs, even. What did I miss?

Jun 2, 2005 11:57:40 AM

2 Comments

Depression-era makework programs, perhaps?

Posted by: Dave Adams | Jun 03, 2005 at 09:22 AM

Eh, we had enough real work for the CCC to do. Possibly the area was regraded or resurfaced then; there was a Depression photo in the book of street-paving in the area. But knocking down expensive durable buildings to put up cheap high-maintenance ones? Weird.

Posted by: clew | Jun 05, 2005 at 05:20 PM

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