PAUL DORPAT

I TOOK AN extended pause before choosing this snapshot over another photo of the once-popular Igloo diner at Sixth Avenue and Denny Way. This view looks across Aurora Avenue in 1942, a long and prosperous year after construction began on this roadside attraction in the fall of 1940. The focus is a little softer here, indicating perhaps the compromises the tax man must have made while rushing with a camera through the day's list for snapshots of new taxable structures.

The Igloo (actually two igloos with the conventional ice-tunnel door between them) was made of steel sheeting, and their texture and "knitting" are evident in the photo. The later photo shows two oversized penguins on the roof and awnings that appeared as eyelashes on the two white globes.

Like its longer-lived neighbor, the Dog House, the Igloo was set at the Denny Way gateway to the Aurora Speedway section of the Coast Highway with the idea of luring hungry motorists. Along the way, it became a Mecca for locals as well. Still, the Igloo closed about the time the Battery Street Tunnel opened in the mid-1950s connecting Aurora with the Alaskan Way Viaduct and bypassing Denny Way.

Readers interested in some of the humanity attached to this architectural fantasy will enjoy a visit to historylink.org. One delight is Heather MacIntosh's interview with Irene Wilson, who found work and a new family at the Igloo in 1941 after the petite teenager fled a difficult stepmom in North Dakota.

Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.