Thursday, January 10, 2008

Belltown Now & Then

Local scribe Clark Humphrey, the redoubtable Seattle scholar behind Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story and the essential Seattle blog miscmedia, has now published "Seattle's Belltown." The book is the latest title in the Images of America series (celebrating "the history of neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the country") and features hundreds of historical photographs of this ever-changing neighborhood on the edge of Seattle's downtown. Humphey, a Belltown resident, doesn't lament a vanished past so much as he takes a long view of this restless quarter. "Alexander Calder's Eagle sculpture may have landed here, but Belltown's official metallic bird is still the crane of the construction variety."

Part skeptic, part optimist, and always carefully observant, Belltown is fortunate to have a resident chronicler like Humphrey. This Friday, January 11, he is giving a talk and showing images from the new book at the Form/Space Atelier, 2407 1st Ave., in Belltown. 6:00 pm.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Josh,

Thanks for your continued support. Also, your iPod is in the paintbox by the front door-

-Paul

Gurldoggie said...

Sadly, this talk was incredibly boring. Humphrey may be a good writer, but he is a god-awful speaker. He had nothing prepared. NOTHING! Why bother getting in front of an audience if you've got nothing to say?