Seattlest Interviews Clark Humphrey, author of Vanishing Seattle

Is there a particular event or series of events that mark when old Seattle became new Seattle?
Probably September 1991 through April 1994. That was the lifespan of Nirvana as a hit band. It was also when The Stranger and KNDD appeared, and Frederick & Nelson and the Dog House and Pay 'n Save disappeared.

I arrived in Seattle in '93, and remember the last days of a lot of the places featured in your book. I always meant to eat at Twin Teepees, for example, and was disappointed when it closed down before I could get around to it. For people who are new to the region -- or even people who are too young to remember much of old Seattle -- where (other than miscmedia.com) are good places to find info about its spirit and institutions?
Steve Callihan's Seattle Lexicon. Marlow Harris's Roadside Seattle. Don Glover's Esoteric Seattle, unfortunately out of date with one or two already-disappeared links. And, of course, historylink.org.

I'm guessing that many people have already told you they can't believe you didn't include _____. (My fill-in: Two Dagos from Texas.) Given that you have a keen sense of Seattle's history, do any of their post-publication suggestions surprise you?
I've had no true surprises yet. Certainly everybody who's lived here has their own memories of lost time. I was given a strict format and page count, and couldn't find useable pictures of some places.

As a Seattle transplant, I have to ask you: Do you really believe that the disappearance of Jay Jacobs is as culturally significant in Seattle as, say, the disappearance of Chubby & Tubby or Rainier Beer?
If you'd ever shopped or worked at Jay Jacobs, or remember its ads, or been a local teenager or the parent of a local teenager, yeah, it's important.

Are there any now-vanished parts of Seattle that you wouldn't include in your book, or that you don't feel are significant?
Everything has significance. That's one of my messages. The universal is found in the specific. The stuff of everyday life is tremendously important. Everything counts in large amounts, as a non-Seattle band once said.

Do you think the characteristics that define new Seattle are themselves a product of Seattle, or do they reflect influences arriving from outside the area?
Gates is definitely from here. So are the Nordstroms. So were the founders of the original Starbucks, even though Howard Schultz is a product of Brooklyn.

I've heard people propose that Tacoma or Portland or even Kansas City are now what Seattle used to be. Is that a line of argument that you agree with?
Perhaps, in the sense of having kept more old buildings standing (though in the cases of Tacoma and Kansas City, that's largely because few wanted to build anything to replace them with).

Are there specific places, things, or institutions that have started up since '94 that you feel still capture the feel of old Seattle?
The Lava Lounge and Shorty's in Belltown; Wall of Sound Records and Linda's Tavern on East Pine; the Airport Way retail/bar strip in Georgetown; even, to some extent, the Museum of Flight.

Your book, obviously, focuses on things that have disappeared. What icons of old Seattle, major or minor, are still standing?
The annual hydroplane races. Dick's Drive-Ins. The Little Red Hen dance bar in Green Lake; the Baranov restaurant in Greenwood; the Two Bells in Belltown. The ASUW Experimental College. El Centro de la Raza. The main Goodwill store (tentatively set to be replaced by a Target). Bumbershoot. The Grand Illusion theater. Sunset Lanes and the Totem House in Ballard. Beth's Cafe and the Peutz driving range on Aurora. Ivar's. And that's just the short list. Enjoy and support them all.