Showbox Theater and Pike Place

4/20/19 Showbox Theater, downtown Seattle

Last year, the historic Showbox Theater near the Pike Place Market was in the news when its owner announced that it was selling the property. The theater, opened in 1939, would be demolished and replaced by a (yet another, most likely boring and boxy) 44-story apartment building. (It’s the story of Seattle these days.) After that, nostalgic venue fans, historic preservationists and even high-profile musicians like Eddie Vedder stepped forward to try to save the Showbox. The debate rages and is still unresolved. Meanwhile, the venue continues to operate.

I wasn’t even aware of that last part until I arrived Saturday to sketch the theater and saw that the marquee was current. Although I’ve never seen a concert there, the marquee and Showbox sign are downtown icons, and I wanted to document them, since it’s likely that they’ll eventually come down. Others must have felt the same way, as we got a good turnout of Showbox sketchers.

4/20/19 buskers at Pike Place Market

It probably helped that the morning was dry and mostly sunny (though not warm). After the Showbox, I swam upstream through the throngs (what is this, July or something?) at the Pike Place Market to my favorite busker spot near Rachel the Pig. Performing were a ukulele player and a tuba player – a colorful duo that I’ve sketched before.

Swimming further upstream, I spotted the usual long line of people waiting their turn to buy coffee at the “original” Starbucks location on First and Pike. As I captured the storefront and P. K. Dwyer (another busker I have sketched many times) playing guitar and harmonica outside, I overheard a couple of young men (visiting from the UK, based on their accents). Taking photos of each other with upheld Starbucks cups, it was clear that this was an important stop on their tour. Reviewing the photos, one man was especially delighted to finally be photographed in front of his mecca. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the actual first Starbucks on Western no longer exists (though natives like me remember it), and this second store on First somehow became the “original.”

Times change, old buildings get torn down, history gets rewritten. Meh. I may be a grumpy, overcrowded native, but at least I’m sketching it all.

4/20/19 One-man band P.K. Dwyer busks in front of the "original" Starbucks on First and Pike.

A good turnout at the Showbox!

David Hingtgen

Jane Wingfield

Seattle Busker Week Finale

9/20/14 Jim Yun

After a week of special events around the downtown area, local buskers turned out for a grand finale performance this afternoon outside EMP. Seattle Busker Week was the 40^th anniversary celebration of an ordinance that made busking legal in Seattle. In 1974, busker Jim Page became a local hero when he took on the city prohibition that made performing in the streets for money illegal.

“Busking is based on the principle that if you can talk, you can sing,” Page said, giving anyone an opportunity to perform for an audience. An original song he performed today was a lampoon of Bertha, the expensive tunnel-boring machine which has been stuck for months.

Ukulele player and singer Jim Yun, a Seattle busker who had been in Chicago for a while, began his performance by complaining about that Midwest city’s highly restrictive busking laws. “This is an awesome city for creativity and creative expression,” Yun said, praising Seattle and its liberal busking policies.

Since I’m a frequent sketcher of buskers at farmers markets and street fairs, and it’s my personal policy to put money in the hat of any busker I sketch, it was a surprising change to see today’s buskers performing without their hats out. But as a celebration of Seattle’s liberal ordinance, it made sense: They gave back to an appreciative city with a free show.

9/20/14 Bob Crosby and Jim Page

9/20/14 Katy Keenan

9/20/14 (didn't catch this guy's name)

Ignorance is Bliss

6/5/14 Buskers at Queen Anne Farmers Market

The ukulele player wearing a Hawaiian shirt, a thin waxed mustache and a tiny ponytail is colorful enough, and I’ve sketched him at farmers markets more than once. But yesterday at Queen Anne Farmers Market, his co-busker stole the show, at least in terms of attire: A tuba player in a top hat, large earrings and a kilt. I regret that my sketch doesn’t capture the best part of his outfit: On his feet were the kind of running shoes with individual toes. Together they performed jazz standards in the warm afternoon sunshine at my first farmers market of the season. As I sketched them, I felt I had endured eight months of rain and cold for that moment. I had earned such bliss.

Little did I know that on the other side of Queen Anne Hill, maybe only a mile or two away, a gunman had opened fire inside Seattle Pacific University, killing one student and injuring others. I would learn about the incident in the car on the way home, a trip that took three times longer than it should have because a major thoroughfare had to be closed due to yet another crazy, senseless act of violence on an otherwise beautiful day.

But for the moment, I was basking in sheer pleasure: The beginning of summer with my sketchbook, my bag heavy with the weight of local strawberries.