From HistoryLink.org:
"Founded in 1939 as the Show Box, Seattle's historic Showbox Ballroom is one of the town's very few extant entertainment venues that can lay claim to having provided local music fans such an astonishing breadth of music over the decades. From the Jazz Age to the hip-hop and grunge eras the storied ballroom has featured shows by touring icons like Duke Ellington, Muddy Waters, and the Ramones, and up-and-comers like Coldplay, Katy Perry, Moby, Lady Gaga, and Lorde, as well as concerts by homegrown talents ranging from the burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee to Merrilee Rush, the Sonics, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Macklemore. Originally opened by local tavern and theater veteran Michael Lyons (1891-1965), the room has over time been billed variously as a "theater," a "cabaret," and a "ballroom."
Yesterday the historic venue turned 79 years old but today a news piece came out that highlights a plan that will turn the venue that has hosted almost every popular music act you can think of into a giant pile of rubble, making way for 44 floors of whatever. The Daily Journal of Commerce reports that Vancouver, B.C.-based Onni Group has filed plans to build a 44-story tower with 442 residential units on the Showbox property, at 1412 First Ave. Every Seattle local can see the rapid gentrification happening around us, we barely recognise our home anymore. As if skyrocketing housing costs aren't enough, they want to crush our history leaving nothing but faint memories in their wake. We as a community cannot allow for this to happen! Please sign to save the Showbox market!
