Crawford & Waage Hardware, on Third Avenue south of Bell Street, is holding its closing sale this month. One of the last "regular folks" retailers in Belltown, the store was founded circa 1915 and was billed as the oldest hardware store in Seattle. Its co-owner since 1951, Wallace Wolfe, was locally famous for his ever-attentive air and his hands-on approach to customer service (whether helping a customer find just the right product or staring down a looky-loo browser). Wolfe's death in January at age 92, combined with sharp rent increases and the rise of suburban "big box" chains, led his son and daughter-in-law Donald and Christie Wolfe to announce their retirement. As Christie wrote in a letter to the Belltown Paper, "The last three years, with the increase in rent, you would have to be a big business to hold on. And so this 'oldest hardware store' in Seattle started to bleed. And we tried, dear neighborhood, to hold on, but she has finally been lowered to her knees.... Thank you for your faithfulness to the store and to us. We tried, but it doesn't look too good." The store's demise follows that of City People's Mercantile on Capitol Hill earlier this year, and leaves greater downtown bereft of a real hardware store. (No, Restoration Hardware doesn't count.)

Street Outreach Services was finally evicted from its drop-in center on Second Avenue north of Pike Street on May 1. Since its 1991 opening, it's been downtown's only day shelter for drug addicts and the homeless, serving over 300 people daily with clean needles, health info, and referrals to social and medical services. But the city government, and the downtown business interests who often dictate city government policies, are less interested in helping the down-and-out than in making everything look clean and inviting to upscale shoppers. City officials persuaded the building owner to kick out SOS last November. The agency obtained a limited extension, but hasn't found anybody willing to rent them a new space that is both cheap enough and appropriate for the center's needs. SOS previously had to shut down two Capitol Hill programs (a needle exchange and a drop-in center for street kids). It continues to run a one-on-one outreach program on the downtown streets, offering social-service referrals and HIV/AIDS prevention info.

The Rain Dancer restaurant and lounge at 4217 University Way NE danced its last dance on May 15. The low-lit, low-key spot offered up hearty Southwest-inspired grub by day and smart, poppy live music by night; it also tried to market itself as a nightcap spot for UW performing-arts audiences. The space (a narrow storefront with a big back music room) is now just one more of University Way's many available storefronts.