Grand Opera House (Seattle)

The Grand Opera House in Seattle, Washington, USA, designed by Seattle architect Edwin W. Houghton, a leading designer of Pacific Northwest theaters, was once the city's leading theater. Today, only its exterior survives as the shell of a car park. [http://web1.seattle.gov/dpd/historicalsite/QueryResult.aspx?ID=-982020016 213 Cherry ST / Parcel ID 0939000090] , Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Accessed online 20 December 2007.] Eric L. Flom, [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=2651 Fire burns Seattle's Grand Opera House on November 24, 1906] , HistoryLink, September 7, 2000. Accessed online 20 December 2007.] Considered by the city's Department of Neighborhoods to be an example of Richardsonian Romanesque, the building stands just outside the northern boundary of the Pioneer Square neighborhood.

The building at 213–217 Cherry Street, Seattle, Washington was originally owned by John Cort, of Cort Circuit fame. Opened in 1900, after Cort convinced the city to extend the northern border of its official entertainment district north from Yesler Way to Cherry Street, it was the city's leading theater of the time. It survived a November 24, 1906 fire, but after it was gutted by another fire in 1917, it was converted to a parking garage in 1923.

The reign of the Grand as Seattle's leading theater was relatively short. Cort himself was one of the reasons for this, when he made Seattle's Moore Theatre, also designed by Houghton, his flagship house after its December 28, 1907 opening. The 1911 opening of the showpiece Metropolitan Theatre in the Metropolitan Tract further eroded the Grand's position. By the time a January 20, 1917 fire gutted the building, it had become a movie theater. [ [http://www.themoore.com/artists/?artist=642 STG Presents Moore 100 Open House] , on the STG/Moore site. Citation for date of Moore's opening and secondary citation for Cort's use of the theater. Accessed online 20 December 2007.]

After the 1917 fire, the building sat empty for several years before becoming a multi-level parking garage in 1923.

Theater

The Grand Opera House was constructed 1898-1900. Nearby at Third Avenue and Cherry Street, John Considine, a veteran of box house days and a pioneer of vaudeville had his highly successful Seattle Theater. [Frank Cullen and Florence Hackman, "Vaudeville, Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America", Routledge (2006), ISBN 0415938538. p. 263. Citation for Considine's box house background.] The basement level of the Grand opened as a variety and beer hall known as the Palm Gardens before the building was otherwise finished.

The stage of the Grand was convert|30|ft|m|1 and convert|72|ft|m|1 wide. Two tiers of boxes stood six on each side of the proscenium. There was also a balcony. In all, the highly ornate auditorium had a capacity of 2,200 people. The St. Charles/Rector Hotel was constructed next door on Third Avenue in 1912-13; it was originally interconnected to the opera house at the balcony level.

Parking garage

In March 1923, new owners Victor Elfendal and W.W. Scrubby decided that the Grand would be converted to use as a parking garage. Schack, Young and Myers, a major Seattle architectural firm, effected the conversion. The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods asserts that this relatively intact and early example of a commercial parking garage has historic significance, independent of the building's historic significance as Downtown Seattle's oldest surviving structure initially designed as a theater. As Seattle's commercial core began to grow and as the automobile began to shape the city, "large parking garages…were a lucrative and essential part of downtown commerce."

The structure

The builiding is a 5-story brick masonry structure in Richardsonian Romanesque style, not counting a foundation and basement. It measures convert|77|ft|m|1 x convert|120|ft|m|1. The theater interior is entirely destroyed, and the façade is much altered, but some original exterior features remain under white paint. The original red brick cladding has been painted over, as have the ornamental quoins and the remaining portions of the original sandstone trim. According to the Department of Neighborhoods, surviving sandstone features include "the former entry vestibule arch, the arched openings with keystones at the second floor level windows, the upper floor level window sills and watertable. Painted original sandstone trim also accentuates the former name plaque above the entry vestibule arch and the cap of the central raised entry bay."

The building retains all of its original window openings. The two large openings at the first floor level date from the parking garage conversion. At the east end of the second floor, a former door opening to the ticket booth became a window opening: creating the garage entry and exit meant removing the entry stairway, which (according, again, to the Department of Neighborhoods) "reportedly was accented by Vermont blue marble." Originally, the garage retained raised corner parapets and a prominent cornice; these have been lost. The industrial steel sash windows from 1923 remain.

Notes

External links

* Eric L. Flom, [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=2651 Fire burns Seattle's Grand Opera House on November 24, 1906] , HistoryLink, September 7, 2000. Includes historical pictures.