Credit: dmcopernicus on Flickr
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  • dmcopernicus on Flickr

At a staff meeting this afternoon, the managers of the Lusty Lady announced they were going out of business and would permanently close their doors in just two months.

Gypsy, a dancer at the Lusty Lady, said the meeting was “heartbreaking” and “very, very emotional” as general manager Darrell Davis, longtime location manager Deborah Seaver, and staff members told stories about working at the iconic, woman-managed peepshow.

Despite the landlord cutting their rent several times in recent years, the Lusty can’t afford to pay its bills. “It’s really the world economic climate,” Davis said in an interview after the meeting. “Amazingly, pornography is not recession-resistant. The other recessions we’ve had in the past have not had much impact before. But we’re right across the street from the Washington Mutual Tower, all the small sandwich shops nearby are closing—there’s just no traffic.”

The internet has also steadily eroded business. “We had our all-time high in 1998,” Davis said. “The fact that you can get massive amounts of fairly high-quality pornography for free has had a definite effect.”

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The peepshow was originally called the Amusement Center—company lore says it took its name from the already-existing sign for a business that used to have pinball machines. “Then we changed to adult amusement, 16mm films called ‘Panorams,'” Davis said. In 1981, the Amusement Center installed its first New York-style peepshow (live dancers on a mirrored stage with two private booths for viewing) and in 1985 changed it name to the Lusty Lady, after a San Francisco business Davis and the other owners had opened.

The SF location was sold to an employee cooperative in the early 2000s and Davis and the other managers focused their efforts on the Seattle location.

The Lusty is known as a friendly, family business. “Candy [sister of manager Deborah Seaver] still sometimes gets up to dance on holidays,” Gypsy said. “Their daughters work there, too.”

“We’re amazingly different,” Davis said. “There used to be this idea that ‘those kinds of women’ weren’t dependable or reliable, all these assumptions about people who take off their clothes and dance for a living. And we’re women-managed. I’ve been shocked to hear women say they’ve felt safer working at the Lusty Lady than in a law office and I’m like ‘what?!’ Like the RCA dog with my head cocked: I just couldn’t believe the stories of sexual harassment.”

“I had a very, very hard time not crying at the meeting,” Davis continued. “One of the women got up and told Deborah that she had taught her all the things her own mother hadn’t—you could take that sentiment and reproduce it a thousand times for lots of the women who worked with Deborah over the years.”

From Wikipedia.

Mimi Gates, stepmother of Bill Gates and director of the Seattle Art Museum, said “The Lusty Lady’s marquee is a Seattle landmark.”

In 2006, the Seattle Lusty Lady survived a threatened wrecking ball when the building’s owner, a Seattle family, refused a multi-million-dollar tear-down offer from developers of a new Four Seasons Hotel next door. The owners instead received $850,000 “for air rights to the views over their property”. Employees celebrated by posting on their reader board: “We’re Open, Not Clothed!”

Mimi’s right: the Lusty’s marquee is a Seattle treasure. More photos of it here.

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Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

98 replies on “Lust’s End: The Lusty Lady to Close”

  7. It’s funny how it changed over the years without changing — the neighborhood changed around it. When it opened, it was an oasis of clever in a desert of sleaze; now it’s the only saucy thing on a street of corporate blankness.

    In 1960, it was the Seven Seas Tavern.

  8. An old sign is nice, but Mimi Gates is going to have to come up with more than that to compete a mom who gave her son an entire monopoly.

  9. It’s the only thing with personality and authenticity in that whole area. Wedged uncomfortably between the hoity toity 4 Seasons and the high-rise condos, it’s the only slice of humor and cheeky creativity left on that strip. Sad day.

  12. From the outside: It’s a treasure. It’s the rare business that deserves the adjective ‘sassy’.

    From the inside: I have no idea. That will clearly have to change.

    I foresee that there will be many trips made by in the weeks to come by folks who loved the signage but who could never bring themselves to brave the interior. I suppose that could be decried as the typical ‘too-little-too-late’ spectator-ism, but so be it. Seattle will give the owners a couple of good months before they sign off.

  13. The first time I was turned loose as a teenager downtown, the Lusty’s marquee during the Chuck Close (Chuck Clothes) exhibit was the only thing I took a picture of all day. Guess I’ll have to venture inside now.

  14. That place is a seattle icon, for its marquee alone. Another piece of my hometown flushed away by the prevailing tastes of the world. Sad.
    The autopsy will be death by free internet porn.
    I guess I’ll have to pop in, pay my respects, and risk getting my shoes stuck to the floor!

  20. One of my favorite parts of going to SAM was being able to check out the latest sign at the LL across the street. (And, of course, seeing the shock and horror on visiting mothers’ faces when their children asked the inevitable “Mommy, what’s a Lusty Lady?”) I seriously hope the sign remains standing as a reminder of times gone by.

  22. The fireworks were saved – can’t we save the Lusty Lady? Starbucks? Microsoft? Chase? (you’re right across the street!)

  26. People should suggest that the Lusty Lady donate the marquee to the Museum of History and Industry to display with all of the other defunct Seattle landmarks they already have (the Toe-Truck, the Dog House Bar sign, the seat from the bubble-ator, etc).

  32. If that Seattle PI globe is a landmark, how could the Lusty Lady sign not be? The city needs to step in and preserve at least the sign, if not the whole establishment.

  33. Best thing about LL: they fired Shannon “Goddess Kring” Kringen’s self-absorbed ass. She eventually became a hooker at the female-owned Sacred Temple, and got fired from there too.

  34. Perhaps the Wrights could buy it and install it in Seattle Center instead of the Chihuly crap. If they lowered the admission price, it would be a nice moneymaker and patrons would certainly go more than once. Tourist attraction, also.

  35. @ 14, hilarious! I remember that sign.

    This is the sort of news that’s dreaded but not unexpected. Who goes to a 25-cent peep show these days?

  36. This is awful. I’m going to have to go rent Cinderella Liberty and then have a good drunk and a good cry.

    Best marquee ever: “Veni, Vidi, Veni.”

  43. Calling Jim McDermott, we need a frickin’ earmark here. think about how pissed off this would make the loyal opposition! I’m guessing that a third of them will implode and create mini black holes.Keeping the Lady open will cost less than a tire change on a B2 bomber. You know, those bombers that we use every day to protect our freedomz from teh Messicans.

  45. That is tragic! I look forward to my walk past the Lusty Lady every day with great anticipation of whether they have a new clever joke on their marquee. Seattle stepped up to save the fireworks, can we save the Lusty Lady?? I’ve got a few rolls of quarters I’ll donate…!!

  46. I’ll miss the signs but I’m surprised they lasted this long. Anyone on this thread even been inside? I guess I should go check it out before they close for good..

  48. I think their demise has little to do with the economy, and more to do with XTube. With the abundance of free porn on the internet, I’m surprised they lasted this long.

  49. 38/kk: Best marquee ever: “Veni, Vidi, Veni.”

    I was wondering if anyone was going to mention that one. I agree. It may not have been original, but it’s brilliant.

    It wasn’t one of the best but I always smile thinking about “Obi Wan Disrobi.”

  50. This makes me so sad. I worked there for over 8 years, and loved it. What a fabulous community of women. Lusty Lady, I will miss you.

    Oh, and my favorite marquee line was actually deemed too explicit to post: Cervix with a Smile.

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