THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
November 9, 1991
Soapbox
City’s Loss of Historic Buildings a Disgrace
By Ken Akiva Segan
The destruction of architecturally historic buildings, religious temples and monuments is a worldwide calamity, and we in Seattle bear shameful witness.
Seattle is very young, a mere babe in the woods, and we hardly have a handful of great old buildings, including theaters, in the city. Now that the Emerald Palace, also known as the Music Hall, built in 1929 as a grand movie house, is history, we are left with the still-threatened Paramount, the shut-down Coliseum and the Fifth Avenue and Moore theaters. Even the few remaining ‘40’s and ‘50’s-style movie theaters seems special compared to the hideous multiplexes that have proliferated like worms from hell.
But aside from a small and vocal crowd of individuals and the rare heroic organization like Allied Arts, everyone else feigns interest and gives short lip-service to our ongoing time bomb.
This acquiescence and silence have been as criminal as the leveling of the Emerald Palace itself, which is a national disgrace and international tragedy. What has happened elsewhere around the world?
In Cambodia, the near destruction but eventual salvation of the famed Angkor Wat temples from the ravages of war and neglect has been a miracle, even though restoration work has barely begun and war still threatens.
In Poland, the near or total destruction of hundreds of ancient Jewish synagogues, cemeteries and other structures has coincided with the ongoing destruction of scores of other buildings from the corrosive air quality that has stripped facades and badly damaged infrastructures, a problem that has had wide impact from Athens to London.
Neighboring Romania has witnessed the leveling of scores of ancient churches, synagogues and peasants’ houses under the now-deposed Ceaucescu dictatorship’s mad plans to replace old villages and towns with communist workers housing.
Tibet, occupied by China in 1950, saw most of its Buddhist temples and monasteries leveled over many years of colonization, as did Mongolia, where the religious communities and their edifices were systematically leveled by Stalin beginning in the 1930’s.
In America, we haven’t had the excuse of dictators, occupying powers or war, but this hasn’t prevented us from tearing down countless beautiful houses, theaters and other buildings, forcing angry battles that have pitched developers and politicians, who turn the other cheek, against historic-minded community groups.
One of our most remarkable successes was the saving of the entire “Art Deco” district of Miami Beach, led by the driven quest of the late Barbara Capitan who early on recognized its beauty for the future.
More recently, Detroit, New York City and Portland, among other cities, have successfully seen alliances forged between business, civic and political leaders and preservationist groups who have all realized the tremendous social and economic value to be realized in reopening once-again dazzling buildings like hotels and theaters.
It would be easy for Seattleites to solely blame the Realtor-developer-investor interests for our home-grown disaster and leave it at that, but that’s only part of the picture. Al Clise, scion of the family that owns the now half-dismantled Emerald Palace, has presented his interests in the most arrogant and affrontive manner, yet no one, especially the media, has been willing to stand up to him. This is understandable, since our business community stands behind his “right” to do what he wishes with his property.
Knowing my interest, people ask me “Why doesn’t Seattle do something?” To save a priceless old theater costs millions of dollars, and no one will do that when they spend many more millions to build a shiny new box and get tax write-offs. That’s the ticket, and it’s a sick one. Now we are a leader in the Seattle-style World-War bunker architecture.
Our visual art leadership has displayed an astonishingly narrow pursuit, and the new director of the Seattle Arts Commission and the new curator of the Seattle Art Museum have failed, miserably so, the greatest challenge that they will face in their careers here, and it was right in front of them.
So while it’s reported that the opera and symphony, the Convention Center and the Early Music Guild, among other institutions, desperately need more and greater space, our theaters will continue to vanish one by one in smashing heaps of dust.
To save the Paramount and Coliseum will take the likes of our most prominent gallery owners and art dealers pressing the big name families who are our major arts benefactors to meet with the directors and boards of institutions like the symphony, opera and museum and when they agree on what must be done, they’ll meet with the foundation directors from the many famous corporations here, kaffeeklatch with the bankers and venture capitalists.
Most important, when they realize they’ll be doing something great for the community that has fed them and enabled them to prosper, then maybe something might happen.
Meanwhile, Seattle will weep. Can you imagine tearing down London’s Royal Opera House after a year of sluggish ticket sales for a businessman’s hotel? Or demolishing Washington’s Ford Theater for a parking lot? Hah!
Seattle artist Ken Akiva Segan has works represented in museums throughout the U.S., Europe and Israel. Soapbox columns are contributed by P-I readers.