Worth Repeating
New perspectives on our old familiar places
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 OLD SEATTLE PAPERWORKS The Black and Cedar Rivers, Renton, 1906 -- The romantic explorers on this 1906 flotilla are making their way from Lake Washington to Elliott Bay along the Black River, a waterway that most modern Renton residents have probably never heard of. The story of this journey was printed in the Seattle P-I, which described the scene as "near" the Cedar River. At that time, the Cedar joined the Black River near where Airport Way now crosses Rainier Avenue.
LIBBY STUDIO/NW MUSEUM OF ARTS & CULTURE Liberty Lake, 1923 --"Spokane's Inland Seashore" was a promoter's nickname for Liberty Lake, and the name fit, especially on weekends, when a sizable minority of Spokane visited its excellent beaches and bathhouse (at left).
PAUL DORPAT AND JEAN SHERRARD Liberty Lake, NOW -- While searching for the proper angle from which to repeat the Libby Studio beach scene, we soon serendipitously came upon Liberty Lake resident Ross Schneidmiller. He stands in the foreground of the contemporary scene near the lake's northwest corner.
PAUL DORPAT AND JEAN SHERRARD Paul Dorpat has, since 1982, written the "Now & Then" column that appears in this magazine. Jean Sherrard has written and directed scores of radio plays for National Public Radio. He teaches drama and writing at Hillside Student Community school in Bellevue. Author-signed copies of "Washington Then and Now" can be purchased through www.washingtonthenandnow.com
COURTESY OF DAVID DAMKAER, SKY VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Sultan, 1891 -- Even before flat-bottom steamers reached Sultan in the late 1880s, it was a rowdy town catering to lumberjacks and miners. Where the swinging bridge once hung, busy Highway 2 now hums with traffic headed toward Stevens Pass and beyond.
PAUL DORPAT AND JEAN SHERRARD Sultan, now -- Fire frequently visited Sultan, leaving few wooden structures untouched for posterity. What does remain (though concealed in the "now" photo), is the dogleg that Main Street makes at Third Street.
PAUL DORPAT AND JEAN SHERRARD Renton, Now -- The Black River quickly went dry in 1916 when its source, Lake Washington, was dropped 9 feet to the level of Lake Union for the completion of the Lake Washington Ship Canal. The intersection of Airport Way and Rainier Avenue is on the right, near the McDonald's golden arches.
COURTESY OF WILLIAM REED, UW LIBRARIES SPECIAL COLLECTIONS Monroe Street Bridge, Spokane, 1911 -- Four Monroe Street bridges have been built above the Spokane River and below Spokane Falls. With the third bridge, above, the first three-arch concrete span of 1911, Spokane got itself a second symbol to frame its first: the falls. Shown here under construction, the 1911 bridge looks identical to the fourth because when a symbol wears out, you replace it with a replica, if you can.
PAUL DORPAT AND JEAN SHERRARD Monroe Street Bridge, Spokane, Now -- The repeat (of the fourth bridge, with rebuilt arches) was made on Jan. 1, 2006.
COURTESY OF SEATTLE PUBLIC UTILITIES Tolt River Valley, CA 1958 -- In 1936, Seattle city officials applied for water rights to build two reservoirs on the South Fork of the Tolt River to supplement the city's main Cedar River supply. It wasn't until the mid-1950s that Water Superintendent Roy Morse convinced the City Council of the need for more resources. The Tolt River Valley was cleared for damming soon thereafter, as illustrated by this somewhat apocalyptic-looking Seattle Water Department photo.
PAUL DORPAT AND JEAN SHERRARD Tolt River Valley, Now -- Wandering through the Tolt River Watershed is strictly regulated, but with the water department's Lee Ambler, Jean Sherrard was able to pass through a dozen locked gates to discover that 50-year-old hemlocks blocked the original view. An unobstructed ledge 20 feet above the water provided an imperfect repeat of a rarely seen vista. The scallop-shaped mountain right of center is part of the McClain Peaks.
COURTESY OF NW MUSEUM OF ARTS & CULTURE Davenport Hotel, Hall of the Doges, Spokane, 1911 -- Before Lewellyn Davenport opened his landmark Davenport Hotel in 1914, he was already celebrated for his elegant namesake restaurant. With a Mission Revival makeover by Spokane's famous architect Kirtland Cutter, Davenport's Restaurant expanded in 1904 to include this extravagant second-floor ballroom modeled after the ducal palaces of Venice. Here in 1911, Spokane's artistic community decorated this Hall of the Doges with its own elegance for a costume ball.
PAUL DORPAT AND JEAN SHERRARD Hall of the Doges, Now -- During the hotel's recent restoration, the Hall of the Doges was removed from the oldest part of the structure and reinstalled in the new east addition. In the repeat, celebrants are attending Spokane Coeur d'Alene Opera's Diamonds and Divas ball on New Year's Eve 2005. |
"Washington Then & Now," by Paul Dorpat and Jean Sherrard ($45), is Westcliffe Publishers' eighth offering in its "Then & Now" series, pairing historical photographs with contemporary shots taken of the same locations. The reader may know the fancier name for this convention: "repeat photography." The following is excerpted from Jean Sherrard's introduction to the book. The "now" photos are also his.
In her book "Babel Tower," the great English novelist A.S. Byatt describes a remarkable feeling. Familiar places, places in which our ancestors lived and died, are understood, or at least sensed, on a cellular level. "Every inch of this turf," she writes, "has absorbed . . . knucklebones and heartstrings, fur and nails, blood and lymph." There is, in this vast sense of continuity, a comfort and even a pleasure to be had. It provides a context for one's place on the earth — historical, cultural and familial. But it is a sense that Americans — save, of course, those who were here when Europeans first arrived — never experience. Simply, we just haven't lived here very long. The places most of us walk were not trod by our ancestors for thousands of years, are not lodged in our bones, and cannot be understood in our cells.
One advantage to this newness: As immigrants and descendants of immigrants, with relatively shallow roots, we can pack up and go wherever we want and call it home. The lack of moorings gives us great freedom and flexibility, but often at the cost of that sense of context Europeans glean at an early age.
With this book, we attempt to split the difference, exploring those elements of rapid growth and change that define this country for better or worse, and finding our "context" — if that is not too inadequate a word for the task — within those changes. How do we fit into a landscape that's constantly shifting beneath and around us? We build and rebuild, tear down and build anew. Is there a place for us in that whirlwind? What have we lost and what have we found? Our attempt to document a few of those changes doesn't actually answer these questions. But somewhere in the tension between what was there and what is there now resides the clue. I found a piece of it when I knew — from the way the rocks lined up on a distant hillside or the way the eave of one old house stood in relation to another — that I was standing in the footsteps of the historical photographer. The satisfying clunk I felt was like a piece of an enormously complex puzzle dropping into place.
Paul Dorpat has, since 1982, written the "Now & Then" column that appears in this magazine. Jean Sherrard has written and directed scores of radio plays for National Public Radio. He teaches drama and writing at Hillside Student Community school in Bellevue. Author-signed copies of "Washington Then and Now" can be purchased through www.washingtonthenandnow.com.
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