On December 6, 1911, the Seattle Times announced: “The new Society Theatre, a photo playhouse, opens at Broadway and John next Friday night, with four reels of new films … music will be furnished by a three-piece orchestra.” (Next to an ad for 15-cent mechanical toy mice, and the “permanently useful gift” of an electric iron.)
Nearly 80 years later, on January 11, 1990, the paper reported: “The Broadway Theatre on Capitol Hill will close its doors for the last time tonight. The Pay’n Save store next door is scheduled to expand into the theater’s space at the corner of John and Broadway. The Broadway’s last picture show is We’re No Angels.” (Other headlines included “Drug Foe Returns To War At Home” and “‘Glass’ May Be Drug of the ’90s.”)
The Pay’n Save became a Rite Aid, which kept the iconic neon theater marquee; in 2022 it said “come get flu shots here.” After the store shuttered in December of 2023, the abandoned sign drifted into the poetic: “come get shot here.”
It’s a sad site these days. A patchwork of greige paint on the graffiti-prone walls; “BROADWAY” is all that remains on the sign and the neon has all been stripped out. Something needs to go there. But what?
Last month, fast-food conglomerate and official caterers of late-stage capitalism, McDonald’s, filed to take over the space, half a block from a (for the record, cheaper) Dick’s. I’m not here to hate on fast food. I, too, feel nostalgia for when Broadway had a Jack in the Box and Taco Bell, but those were also the days when the Lamborghini was still on top of Club Lagoon. I’m also not here to hate on cheap food and reliable bathrooms. But should a McDonald’s also be a crisis clinic? And how big does a McDonald’s need to be? Surely not 5,000 square feet, especially when new McDonald’s are serving slate-gray, tech-prison realness.
“Preservation” is a loaded concept when we need max efficiency in this expensive-as-fuck city of ours. But must every choice we make include no rizz whatsoever? If we need a neighborhood sacrifice, why not tear down the US Bank across the street?
In How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built, Stewart Brand wrote that preservationists are “passionately interested in the question, ‘What makes some buildings come to be loved?’ and they act on what they learn. The result is a coherent, still-evolving ethical and aesthetic body of ideas. One architect has observed ‘Preservation has become the best carrier of that moral force architecture needs if it is to have value beyond shelter. Preservation is capable of projecting a vision of new possibilities, of hope for our own future….’”
When you think about cities you love, aren’t they defined by old, interesting buildings? When we imagine the city we want to live in, what’s there to do? Are there options besides bars? Are there places to gather, take in art, shop, exist outside the home?
I’m not here for a policy debate. I’m simply not buying that a McDonald’s is the best possible use of one of the most transit-rich, historically recognizable corners in Capitol Hill. For fun, let’s imagine…
- It’s a movie theater. Obviously! With the Egyptian in a coma, and so many other theaters gone, we need this.
- It’s a venue. A big, banging venue would be incredible for the neighborhood, and the city.
- It’s a roller-skating rink.
- It’s a combination roller-skating rink and venue. (Southgate Roller Rink! Take over this building!)
- It’s an ice-skating rink. (Yes, I have caught Alysa Liu fever, and I hope I never recover.)
- It’s a bowling alley, or a thrift store, or a record store, or a giant bookstore. (Let’s stop letting Portland win?)
- It’s a year-round haunted house.
- It’s an indoor sculpture park.
- It’s a Trendy Wendy II.
- It’s a Daiso.
- It’s a magic-show emporium.
- It’s a Rainforest Cafe. Or one of the Factories (Cheesecake or Spaghetti, your choice).
- It’s a… drugstore! A good ol’ iffy city drugstore in a charming old theater space in a neighborhood that really needs more drugstores.
Okay, fine, imagine it’s a McDonald’s. But consider: In 1985, McDonald’s planned to demolish a dilapidated mansion called the Denton House, but residents of New Hyde Park, NY rallied to save it. The home earned historic status in 1988, leading to a compromise: McDonald’s had to restore the façade to its 1926 beauty; the renovated landmark reopened as a McDonald’s in 1991.
