Let’s change scenery and decade with today’s vintage snapshot gallery with a visit to Seattle. The cloudy sky images in this post are dated to about 1980 and 1985 respectively, and as is our preference, the shots cover a good deal of daily life and traffic.
We start with the 1980 (or so) dated images, with some apparently taken around Christmas 1979:
And now, let’s move on to 1985:
Related CC reading:
Having just been in Seattle two weeks ago, the first time since the 1980s, the change was of course very significant.
There’s some good car spotting here. The Dasher and Monza make a nice pair at the gas station; fatsbacks both, one very angular and the other very rounded.
Just like I remember it, before the Frasier Crane fantasy of Seattle in the ’90s.
I especially like Photo #2, with that lovely solid cloud deck.
I knew I should have bought property….
The earlier photos are all from West Seattle. The later photos are of downtown Seattle, with the last photo taken at Pike Place Market, just out of frame to the right.
In one photo I see “Hancock Fabrics”, they were in business 1957 until Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2007.
Nice tour. Thanks.
Seattle.
A special place. I was fortunate to spend a lot of time there while working. It was a stop-off for my quarterly trips to Hawaii. I had a week’s worth of work there every quarter and I preferred spending a week in Seattle, then flying off to Honolulu, then flying straight from Chicago to Honolulu and suffering from jet lag.
I also had a girlfriend who lived there and we always had a great time.
One time the sun shown while we were on our way to the San Juan islands in the Sound. Seattle in the sunshine is magical. Yet, usually, the skies are overcast and drizzle can be had most of the year. After a week of Seattle, I was always delighted to spend the next two weeks in Hawaii enjoying the sun. Thanks to my constant trips to the Northwest, I discovered that I need at least a few days of sunshine a week, so I just couldn’t live there.
As to cars – I’d like the Capri, peeking out in the line at the filling station near the Dasher and Monza previously noted. There is also a Dart and a Duster I wouldn’t mind having. The Dodge Colt is another little car I liked. I’d take any of those, then drive the heck out of King County, that’s for certain!
The “snappy, red, Granada and the “red, Omni” bring back some nice memories..
Sigh….
Several of these pics look right out a “Pgh PA”, back when it was still “reasonably alive”.
Like all cities now, the pandemic choked the remaining life out of it..
Budget Tapes and Records. I remember spending all of my allowance there (different location, not this one in West Seattle but one in my hometown of Marysville, a bit north of the city). Titles included 1984, Shout at the Devil. Out of the Cellar, Stay Hungry, Screaming for Vengeance, Bark at the Moon I could go on….
I grew up further north (Burlington) and purchased the contents of my tape case–same titles as you– from Tape Town in Mount Vernon. When I moved to Seattle (first time) in 1985, it weas budget Tapes & records (with the occasional side trip to Tower Records on Mercer).
This was the era of Seattle that miss…..
Love the red ’69 LTD in the lede photo.
You won’t find downtown parking prices like that anymore!
You can see the Kingdome ( imploded 3/2000) and Huling Bros. Buick (exploded 2007). Gotta love the A100 van and Buick? turning left from Fauntleroy Ave.
In 1985, boxy, newish Japanese imports dominated except for that 2nd image where everything discernable is 10 or more years old: the VW Bug, the ’72 Newport and mid 70s Maverick/Comet.
Maybe a fluke, but some people in Seattle were clearly hanging onto their cars for a few years.
Third picture down under ‘1985’– The red Omni is sporting Washington ‘Exempt’ plates. It being red leads me to remembering the Seattle Fire Department using these as staff motor pool vehicles. By the mid 1980’s, most of the City of Seattle motor pool (non-emergency) vehicles were mostly Omnis (with a few Escorts tossed in).
Complete with (not quite) matching red interior. My first car was an ’81 Omni Miser in the same red but with a beige/tan interior – that distinctly late ’70s/early ’80s sunny yellow-beige that contrasted nicely with a red car.
I’ve never seen GM new-look buses without the add-on A/C unit above the rear window here in the DC region.
Under the People’s National Bank sign in West Seattle I see an orange rotary Mazda and a late BMW 2002 in that strawberry red metallic paint. These were later model 2002s which I adored but that color did not fit in my opinion.
Great assortment of photos, and well curated and presented, as always. I love how that red Granada pops against its background, kind of like a symbol of mass-produced American luxury that what surrounds it and is in the background.
Ironically what surrounds that Granada is now a very expensive neighborhood. I definitely would have to squint extra hard so I could mistake that car for a Mercedes.
The line of cars at the gas station:
Is this during the ’79 Energy Crisis when everyone was running around with nearly full gas tanks, but waiting in line to top off that very last gallon.
Ahh, the good old days!
Lived in West Seattle for many years, it’s my wife’s ‘home neighborhood’, she grew up in Alki.
The shot of the guy crossing the street with a brick street behind him is at the Pike Place Market, the garden center is just behind him. Caught my bus home at the Market , Monday through Friday (during the day it wasn’t too bad but don’t go around there after sundown).
Yes, the original’ Starbucks was a block or so from my bus stop. It opened when I was in high school (1971) and only sold coffee making equipment and bean grinders, not cups of coffee. We didn’t pay much attention to it.
The era when you could actually find free parking if you were willing to walk a few blocks.