original format: 16mm, color, sound (tranfered from Digital Betacam)
Silent footage of a work crew from the Seattle Engineering Department using a wrecking ball on the Olympic Building and a digger to move the wreckage. Features views of Pioneer Square, including the Triangle Hotel, and Downtown Seattle.
Historical context note: The Olympic Hotel, located on the corner of 1st Avenue and Yesler Way, existed in Seattle, WA, before 1905, and was erected following the fire just after 1890. Saunders and Houghton served as the architects. Main tenants of the first Olympic Hotel included the Cooper and Levy Outfitters, Klondike suppliers, and the ticket and baggage offices of the Northern Pacific Railroad, c. 1905. In the 1950s, the hotel had been renamed the "Cascade Hotel" and smal shops, such as Sam's Cafe, B and R Restaurant, and Alaska Menswear, occupied first floor retail shops. This eight-story building was partly demolished in a memorable structural collapse in 1972. One corner of the Olympic gave way when an interior bearing wall had been mistakenly removed during a remodeling. In 1974, the entire building was demolished.
Item 455, Record Series 2613-09, Seattle Municipal Archives
