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The Clash

One Hundred Punks Protest Demolition of Their Favorite Bar

by Cienna Madrid

Kelly O

DUDES VERSUS DEVELOPERS Between rock and a hard place.

The Funhouse—known to tourists as "that creepy clown place"—has been a popular, divey punk rock club operating in the shadows of the Space Needle and the monorail since Halloween night, 2003.

But on March 21, over 100 Funhouse fans packed a city Design Review Board meeting to hear preliminary plans to replace their club and an adjacent two-story office building on the corner of 5th Avenue and John Street—a desolate block punctuated by Ride the Ducks HQ and a McDonald's—with seven-story condos.

The room was very Jets versus Suits, and the Suits were hopelessly outnumbered.

"I'm frustrated that they want to turn a beloved music venue into a vertical residence—basically furthering their mission of making Seattle's downtown nightlife and music scene obsolete," said nightlife veteran Amanda Rotter while waiting in line to enter the meeting.

Inside a stuffy, hot room at the Queen Anne Community Center, the crowd was not pleased by the news that their punk club would be sacrificed to give new residents stunning city views. As Jens Muller, project manager for NK Architects, explained to the bristling crowd, apartment residents would enjoy "literally three landmark view directions," including the Space Needle and Seattle Center, Lake Union and Mount Baker, and "downtown with maybe some harbor action."

Although the roomful of punks came to protest the development, the board members made it clear that it wasn't in their job description as city volunteers to document the complaints—they were only collecting feedback on the design proposal itself. "Please keep your comments limited to suggestions for [the presenters]," a board member requested repeatedly.

The punks obliged. "Are you talking about soundproofing the north face?" one woman asked. "Because it's incredibly difficult [to drown out] the Duck tours going every hour."

Overall, it was a strong showing from Funhouse supporters, and as proprietor Brian Foss pointed out last week, the deal is by no means finalized.

But music lovers should be steeled for the nearly inevitable reality that their club will someday be bulldozed—if not by this project, then by another. The Funhouse is pressed by downtown, South Lake Union, and Seattle Center, all of which are attracting more development—in fact, 48 percent of all the apartment buildings currently under construction in King and Snohomish Counties are located in Seattle's downtown core, according to real-estate consulting firm O'Connor Consulting.

But the Funhouse could someday move to another location, even if the boxy, one-story shack it currently occupies doesn't survive.

This article has been updated since its original publication.