Let's see your Volvo (The Photo Thread)

[matthew1]

RealNetworks, for a brief window of time, was worth almost as much as Apple. [By my math it was within a couple % of market cap.] Yes, you read that correctly. This was around 2000, and Apple was in that very ill stage you read about, between their debut in the 1970s and today. Steve Jobs had returned, but they had yet to find their footing, and this was before the iPod was introduced (2002), and well before iPhones (2007).

RealNetworks was the premier app for internet video (very small, short clips, bad quality), and their product RealPlayer was on almost every PC I ever saw in those days. RN was publicly traded then, but as far as I can tell now, it was taken private about 10 years ago (usually not a good sign, and definitely not a good sign in this case). RN was a media behemoth, but is now a faint shadow of itself. Still, it was fun working there.

[BlackBart]

Is that the side of Queen Anne? Or over on the Eastside / Belevue?

[matthew1]

https://maps.app.goo.gl/iFEdPAoFXDXqrKsX9

The corner of Cedar and Western in Belltown. That parking lot is now apartments as you can see below in the screenshot, or in the above link ^.

It took me 10 minutes of "driving" around in Street View mode to find it. Nothing is the same there now. The whole city is like that, as you know.

[matthew1]

This was the RealNetworks building https://maps.app.goo.gl/wdVDknDTgYuqkCoH7

Huge place. IIRC it was the city's convention center for a few decades in a previous life. At one time 700 people worked there, which is when I was there. There was a small cafeteria in the big atrium. RN vacated that spot circa 2006-2008 and moved a block or two south to a much smaller place as their revenue cratered.

[BlackBart]

I don't know my way around there anymore. Belltown was sketchy empty brick warehouses before it got Yupped Up.

Have you seen the formerly beat up industrial neighborhood between downtown and Lake Union? I was completely lost last trip - it's a forest of towers and sleek buildings and there are no reference points to know where you are.

[matthew1]

BB, yes.

My job after RealNetworks was an old, established ad agency named Cole & Weber (Washington Mutual, Boeing clients, before I got there). I left RN to go to C&W in summer 2003, which at that time was in a 100+ year old building https://maps.app.goo.gl/fDuh5mzb5Qy72NcL6 in Pioneer Square. (I'm happy to see Zeitgeist Coffee is still there https://maps.app.goo.gl/PAb2mAYqNCLc9m658 FWIW.)

In spring 2005 we moved to a brand new, hi tech building https://maps.app.goo.gl/p8HJnNpd1C9BnvTf7 in South Lake Union. It was more or less an effort to breathe some life into the agency, attract young/tech business. It more or less worked... more or less.

Anyway, in spring 2005 the new office was the first new office building in those immediate blocks, maybe as much as 10-12 blocks in any direction, possibly in all of SLU. I can't remember one other, and I walked all over the place every lunch break. The neighborhood was still neglected and run down. Notice the REI flagship building across the street, which today is almost completely hidden by its tall evergreen (?) trees. You can see it better if you "drive" one block east.

I left Cole & Weber two years later and moved back to Denver. By that time half of SLU was getting razed to build large buildings of all kinds.

I also went back and immediately got very lost. That was in 2018. SLU was almost devoid of landmarks that would have helped me realize where I was. The office buildings to the south are exceptionally tall and new, gigantic monsters. It's Manhattan now. Denny Way is kinda the dividing line between the new-normal SLU and the ca-razy large megatowers to the immediate south.

I highly suggest using the "See More Dates" in Google Maps to anyone to get an idea of how the area has changed in 20 years.

[BlackBart]

Oh YEAH, those sweet buildings on Occidental, so nice! I remember the name Cole & Weber (maybe in a doorway?). Lots of galleries and nice offices along there. I walked past there about 10,000 times! I was at 1st and Jackson, the old loft building which was being taken over by a little company called Adobe - not sure what they did. With the LOUD dusty viaduct behind us - imagine what that must be like now with a view of the water and no noise! Then later right in the PP Market, corner building across from the bronze pig and clock. Beautiful place first thing in the morning while they're unloading fish and the tourists haven't arrived. Then back to Pioneer Square and up in ye olde Smith Tower, which was pretty fun.

My reaction exactly to SLU and the towers and being totally disoriented. Denny was sort of a dumpy street with a Best Buy and a West Marine and car dealers and then the Seattle Center down the hill. Now you can take the SLUT (South Lake Union Transit!) streetcar down the hill to Lake Union, where next to the old Wooden Boat Center are nightclubs and posh restaurants on the water.

Paul Allen was behind transforming that SLU neighborhood from old warehouses. We tried to pass a bond issue for a huge rectangular urban park in the middle of that, with hip housing and shops around it. It didn't pass, so PA just started using cash quietly and bought pretty much all the blocks down there, and started redeveloping it. No residents were pushed out as it was all machine shops and storage then.

I don't remember your new building. Isn't that near the old classic Seattle Times building and the Parks & Rec office? I thought the new REI queenship was well done. The first ice axe door handles anywhere!

[abscate]

I remember RealPlayer. Of course, I also wrote 100kb data to 10” PDP11 discs marveling at the storage capacity. Replacing the second 360k floppy with a 10 Mb hard drive, game changing

[matthew1]

Yep, SLU was all old apartment buildings (1-3 stories), one old church https://maps.app.goo.gl/dhKenZwMAJU6VTz77 that is still there, the "p-patch" across the street that is still there, and the rest was light industrial. I'd guess half was light industrial. Some of it was used, some vacant.

You worked in some great spots, I must say.

The Cole & Weber building in Pioneer Square didn't have that cafe at the ground floor when I was there... that was our lobby. So if you remember the name it's probably from walking by and seeing the name on the door. Bright red carpet.

Here's a couple shots from inside that:

cwu__DSC1270.jpeg (79.51 KiB) Viewed 2567 times

cwu__DSC1261.jpeg (142.23 KiB) Viewed 2567 times

Notice the interior reinforcing bar... this was after the Nisqually quake.

Here's a shot from my window in the SLU C&W building, March 2006:

cwu__DSC1627.jpeg (127.59 KiB) Viewed 2567 times

That's looking west. We had the top floor. The famous 13 Coins restaurant is dead center, but I can't make it out. It was a small building, one or two floors, small footprint.

[BlackBart]

Oh, so I'm wrong about housing displacement - I didn't know there were still apartments in there. It appears there's a LOT of new housing, but certainly not at the prices of those frumpy old buildings.

Earthquake reinforcing, EEP! People told us the earthquake and the WTO riot really hurt Pioneer Square and it started to slump. I always liked it though.

I spy a bus station and acres of surface parking - boy has that changed! A friend of a friend works for a big architectural firm in there that built their own modern office.

The cool thing about the Smith Tower was all the windows were bronze double-hungs (hand-painted to look like wood), 6 feet high, from desk height up. Even when it was dark and drippy we had a lot of light. I used to joke the view of the murky grey harbo(u)r "reminded me of Helsinki in the winter!" I have no idea if Helsinki is as grey as Seattle. When it was clear, we had a straight shot of Mt Rainier to the South. And the Kingdome roof before they blew it up. Harborview Hospital and Coast Guard helicopters shaking past us at eye level to the helipad on the hill above I-5 - we had to just hang up the phones, impossible to hear. 19th floor.

That was one of the first fireproof tall buildings. White terra cotta tile on a steel frame. The interiors were full of mahogany doors and trim - but it was all hand-painted hollow steel, like 7 layers of paint to resemble wood. Crazy. The Smith-Corona typewriter and Smith & Wesson gun guy built it to show off.