|
| Title | Alaskan Way sea wall area at Belltown seen from the water, Seattle, ca. 1934 |
| Photographer | Staff Photographer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
| Date | 1934 |
| Caption | In the early 1930s, Seattle' Railroad Avenue was a treacherous waterfront thoroughfare perched above the tides on rotting pilings. The roadway was key to Seattle commerce because it connected wharves, warehouses and railroads. As the road deteriorated, it was harder and harder to move goods in the port. A concrete sea wall, built in 1911-1916 protected the central business district from Washington to Madison Streets. In 1934, work began on the northern stretch of sea wall, between Madison and Broad Streets. Between 1934 and 1936, the newly-protected waterfront was filled in and paved as Alaskan Way.
This image shows two men working on the sea wall project below Alaskan Way. The metal structure on the far right is actually the back end of a steam shovel. The large brick building perched on the hill in the center is the Empire Laundry, on Western Avenue at the corner of Bell Street. |
| Notes | Signs in image read: Empire Laundry Co.
Perry Bros. Eggs Poultry.
Handwritten on sleeve: SEATTLE, STREETS, Alaskan Way, construction of sea wall.
Caption information source: Paul Dorpat and Genevieve McCoy, Building Washington: A History of Washington State Public Works; Polk's Seattle City Directory, 1934. |
| Subjects | Waterfronts--Washington (State)--Seattle; Bridges--Washington (State)--Seattle; Pilings (Civil engineering); Rowboats--Washington (State)--Seattle; Bodies of water--Washington (State)--Seattle |
| Places | United States--Washington (State)--Seattle |
| Digital Collection | Museum of History & Industry Photograph Collection |
| Image Number | 1986.5.12202.4 |
| Ordering Information | To order a reproduction or to inquire about permissions contact photos@mohai.org or phone us at 206-324-1126. Please refer to the Image Number and provide a brief description of the photograph. |
| Credit Line | Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, Museum of History & Industry, Seattle; All Rights Reserved |
| Repository | Museum of History & Industry, Seattle (MOHAI) |
| Repository Collection | Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection |
| Type | Image |
| Physical Description | 1 nitrate negative: b&w; 4 x 5 in. |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from original negative as a 3000 pixel TIFF image in 8-bit grayscale, resized to 640 pixels in the longest dimension and compressed into JPEG format using Photoshop 6.0 and its JPEG quality measurement 3. |
