| Historic Name: |
Broadway High School |
Common Name: |
Broadway Performance Hall |
| Style: |
Queen Anne - Richardsonian Romanesque |
Neighborhood: |
Pike/Pine |
| Built By: |
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Year Built: |
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| Significance |
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This building is a notable neighborhood feature, although it is essentially a reconstruction. Seattle (later Broadway) High School, the city’s first modern high school opened in 1902, attracting students came from throughout Seattle and even from across Lake Washington. With the high school and the excellent streetcar service, Broadway flourished with a wide variety of businesses. By 1910 the area was largely developed and by the 1920s district boomed to become one of the city’s premier shopping venues. The Great Depression of the 1930s led to general stagnation, and the neighborhood changed significantly after World War II. Broadway High School closed in 1946, replaced by Edison Technical School, a vocational training institution. In the 1970s, Seattle Central Community College, the successor to Edison, demolished the old high school buildings, including the auditorium designed by architect Edgar Blair in 1909-1911. To retain some memory of the old school, a new auditorium, known as Broadway Performance Hall, was built using the original stones; while the form and style are generally similar to the original building, the size and location of the windows differ, and the interior is completely new.
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| Appearance |
The Broadway Performance Hall is prominently located at the northwest corner of Broadway and E. Pine Street, at the south end of the main Seattle Central Community College campus. The four-story structure is set into a raised terrace on a foundation of roughly cut ashlar stone masonry. It features a low hipped roof with a small cupola at the center and pairs of hipped roof dormers on the east and west elevations. The exterior sandstone walls of rusticated ashlar sandstone are accented with smoothly dressed blocks, including a wide frieze band below the roofline's dentilled cornice. The principal east elevation, facing Broadway, was originally an interior wall and was rebuilt with stone salvaged from the principal elevation of the main building. As a result, the east elevation contrasts stylistically with the auditorium's three original elevations and features rougher stonework and less ornamentation. Three large round-arched openings, rising above a shallow bracketed balcony at the second story, dominate the principal facade. These are flanked by pairs of smaller round-arched openings, each with a simple circular opening centered above them. The building's main entrances are set in wide flat-arched openings at the first story below the balcony. Additional entrances are located on the first story of the north and the west elevations.
The three original elevations are also organized with groupings of large round-arched openings. However these openings, three on both the north and south elevations and five on the west elevations, are taller and narrower, yielding a lighter and more transparent effect. Four two-story panels of smooth stone embellish the northwest and southwest corners of the building on these elevations. Within each panel, a large circular opening embellished with swags is located above a large window with a bracketed and ornamented hood. On the west elevation, a long shallow balcony, supported by a series of paired brackets, lines the base of the five arched openings. |
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| Status: |
Yes - Hold |
| Classication: |
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District Status: |
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| Cladding(s): |
Stone |
Foundation(s): |
Stone |
| Roof Type(s): |
Hip |
Roof Material(s): |
Asphalt/Composition |
| Building Type: |
Education - School |
Plan: |
Rectangular |
| Structural System: |
Stone - Cut |
No. of Stories: |
three |
| Unit Theme(s): |
Architecture/Landscape Architecture, Education |
| Integrity |
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Changes to Windows: |
Moderate |
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Changes to Original Cladding: |
Slight |
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Changes to Interior: |
Extensive |
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Changes to Plan: |
Moderate |
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| Major Bibliographic References |
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Williams, Jacqueline B. The Hill with a Future: Seattle's Capitol Hill 1900-1946. Seattle: CPK Ink, 2001.
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Sound Transit, Historic and Archaeological Report, Draft Environmental Impact Statement, 1998.
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