ON THE CUSP of the Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington, D.C., we at “Now & Then” unequivocally dedicate ourselves to a tranquil changeover — to a pertinent Seattle issue.
We reference, trustworthy viewers could possibly have guessed, the President Apartment Lodge. This 7-story brick making served a 34-calendar year phrase from 1927 to 1961 even though perched northeast of downtown on Olive Way atop what right now is Interstate 5.
However an sophisticated edifice, this was no right away abode for the likes of Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower or Kennedy, as its title could indicate. With 36 solitary rooms and 58 two-room suites, every with pull-down wall beds, the President hosted extended stays commencing at $30 a thirty day period.
On its opening, newspapers rallied public support. They touted electrical refrigeration, radio outlets and hardwood floors and lauded “automatic elevator support to all floors,” which includes a basement garage, “doing absent with the often-uncomfortable requirement of heading out of the making to arrive at the car.”
Headstrong entrepreneur Matthew P. Zindorf developed and owned the President. Acknowledged as an engineer who built Seattle’s initially bolstered concrete composition (the 1910 Zindorf Flats, however standing at 714 Seventh Ave.), he experienced made major initiatives listed here and in Canada since 1890.
He also dabbled in general public plan. In a few 1934 letters to The Seattle Occasions, he proposed how to solid off the Depression: “I would keep every single sincere, prepared employee at function. No young children nor women would be required. I would begin to reduce the hours of the used to give do the job to the unemployed. I would hold them employed all the time.”
Politics on the household front attained him tabloid-style protection in 1929. “Wealthy Realtor Sued for Divorce On Cruelty Cost,” bellowed The Seattle Situations, as Zindorf conceded custody of a daughter, a home and alimony. A Seattle Article-Intelligencer headline claimed his spouse, Daisy, complained that, “She Did Very own Housework To Conserve Income.” Daisy reportedly testified that Zindorf experienced canceled her charge accounts, restricting her to paying out $80 a thirty day period to operate their residence with no help. Zindorf’s aspect went unreported.
Zindorf died in 1952 at age 93, stepping down from function just a few many years earlier. When residing at the Elks Club, he frequently walked downtown with grandson Leon Brauner, now of Ocean Shores, who recalls, “Every time we passed a unique Fourth Avenue financial institution, he whacked his cane in opposition to the plate-glass window.” His granddad’s rationale is a fuzzy memory, but definitely, “It was his way of producing a issue.”
Electric power-cranes clawed absent the President’s partitions in March 1961, declaring a different victory in the unavoidable campaign to build I-5. Pardon the expression: All in favor?