The Showbox

This guide to The Showbox in Seattle follows the summer of 2018, when word broke that a Vancouver developer planned to demolish the 1917 building for a forty-four-story tower, ending decades of music history that ran from Duke Ellington to grunge-era shows by Nirvana and Pearl Jam. It traces the city council's unusual gambit, an emergency ordinance stretching a historic district two blocks to swallow the building for just ten months, and the lawsuit that followed. You'll hear how three preservation groups raced that same clock with a landmark nomination. Stand in the lobby and listen for what a legally shaky ten months still managed to buy.