The retail slump is claiming a few more victims in the apparel field, including the Madame Mozaics women's boutique on Pike and Harvard, the Power Company fetish-wear emporium in the Broadway Market, and the Fritzi Ritz vintage outlet in Fremont. Fritzi's inventory was moved to a similar store in Greenwood on May 1; the other stores are currently holding liquidation sales.

Dick "The Pickle King" Farman, 85, played pro football for the Washington Redskins in the 1930s, then co-founded the Farman Bros. Pickle Co. in 1944. The Farman brand, originally based in Enumclaw and now merged into Tacoma-based Nalley Fine Foods, has survived as a local operation within an increasingly global, consolidating food biz. Farman died May 5 from a heart attack.

The First United Methodist Church at Fifth and Marion will be demolished within the next two years and replaced by a 32-story office tower incorporating a new church space, congregation leaders announced last week. Built in 1908 and now one of downtown Seattle's last classic low-rise structures, it's an ornate yet comfortable building with its domed sanctuary and giant stained-glass windows. In addition to services for its aging membership (only 300 Sunday worshippers typically gather in the 1,300-seat sanctuary), the church currently hosts a men's homeless shelter and a women's day program. It's also hosted classical-music performances, readings, and lectures, and was a headquarters for many WTO protesters in 1999. But earlier that year, church officials had successfully fought in the state Supreme Court to keep the building from being named a legally protected historic landmark. After the building was damaged in last year's Ash Wednesday earthquake, leaders stepped up negotiations with developers for the site. The Methodists' Capitol Hill church building, east of Group Health Hospital, had already been sold and refurbished into commercial office spaces in the early 1990s. One factor that might keep the downtown Methodist structure up a while longer: the current depressed state of the office-space market.

Seattle Slew, 28, died May 7 of natural causes. The horse's demise occurred on the 25th anniversary of his Kentucky Derby victory, the start of his Triple Crown winning streak. (Only one horse has won all three Crown races since.) Slew was owned by former Washington State lumberman Mickey Taylor, but only came to this state once, appearing in a celebrity "golden gallop" cameo at the old Longacres track.

obits@thestranger.com