Ray Brandes, 94, was a charter member of the Mountaineers club, built and owned a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and helped film the famous newsreel footage of the 1940 collapse of "Galloping Gertie," the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
The Art Bar, on Second near Pine, will close this weekend (their final night is Saturday, July 28). Originally opened by two former Nordstrom execs, it began as a watering hole for Amazon.com employees, then evolved into a DJ club that hosted funk and hiphop nights plus breakfast-hour raves on Saturday mornings.
"Big" Pete Blasi and Oren Henderson, who died in a Father's Day auto accident, were remembered in an all-star benefit concert for their families last Thursday at the Moore Theater. The Moore's press release stated, "Pete worked at NAF Studios for years and Oren worked at both the Moore and Paramount theaters. There is not a venue or tour in Seattle they did not work at some point in their careers. Pete has left behind a son, Oren a daughter." Reader Tania Mueller adds, "Oren was my neighbor in the late '80s and was always very nice to me. I was underage, so he would buy the beer and my friends and I would drive him to whatever show was out of the Seattle area. We would go to Natasha's in Bremerton or to see Angry Samoans in Gig Harbor."
Beate Uhse, 81, sold contraceptive pamphlets in postwar Germany, then built that business into a nationwide chain of sex stores and a pay-TV smut channel.
Mimi Baez Farina, 56, was a folk singer and promoter of live concerts for the sick and imprisoned. Her story, and those of her sister Joan Baez and late novelist husband Richard Farina, is told in David Hajdu's new book, Positively 4th Street.
GreaterGood.com, the Seattle firm that ran the Hunger Site and other charitable-giving websites, closed up shop last Friday (without holding any benefits for itself).
Ibsen Nelsen, 81, was the Museum of Flight's chief architect. He also designed many other Seattle buildings and homes, and was an advocate for historic preservation.
