Seattle: 1900-1920 -From Boomtown, Through Urban Turbulence ...

The Civic Center as planned by Bogue and copied from his report.The center of this great installation of Beaux Arts constructionswould have sat at what became the commonplace intersectionof 4th Avenue and Blanchard Street in the Denny Regradeneighborhood.City Politics, 1904-1912: Progressivism Emerges83enormous expense, more than $1million, that would be incurred inthe process. More disturbing, themandatory implementation of theBogue Plan also came under fire.The pro-Bogue forces counteredby contending that the plan couldbe implemented on a pay-as-yougobasis, so long as the plan wasadhered to in the long run.The real trouble inpromoting the Bogue Plan wasthat it had been eclipsed by theHarbor Island terminals issueand by the development of thedowntown Metropolitan Tract.The latter had become the city’sretail and office center as a result of John Douglas’s “city within a city” master plan for hisMetropolitan Building Company (MBC). The MBC’s eighteen stockholders, most of whomwere lumbermen, incorporated in 1907 to take over the leasehold for tract developmentfrom the ubiquitous James Moore, who had failed to develop the university’s property.The regents formally accepted the transfer to the MBC in March 1908, though Douglas,characteristically, had already hired two architects—John M. Howells and I. N. Stokes ofNew York—to develop the master plan.Courtesy, Seattle Public Library. Photo by A. Curtis.Douglas failed to entice anydepartment stores to locate in the tract.He also hoped for a hotel but decidednot to pursue one because hotel revenuesfluctuated with the seasons. He choseinstead to assign office buildings priority,because office rentals would providea steady income. Construction begansimultaneously on the White Buildingand the Henry Building, which wereOne of the few survivors of the Denny Hill neighborhoodis seen here twice during its regrade descension. Theboarding house near the southeast corner of LenoraStreet and Fourth Avenue was lowered about seventyfeet, or about forty feet less than the regrade’s deepestcut near Third Avenue and Blanchard Street and theBogue Plan’s proposed Civic Center. “About 1909” isa good date for both views. The slightly earlier worklooks east over Second Avenue. The Denny Regradereached 5th Avenue in 1910 and left a cliff along itseastern border in 1911. The work of humbling whatwas left of Denny Hill east of Fifth Avenue to its moderngrade resumed in 1929 and was completed in 1931.