Thirty years looks longer than usual when you look back at Seattle Weekly‘s 30th issue (dated Oct. 20, 1976). The cover story was entitled “Is There [Night] Life in Seattle?” and the paper’s then–pop music writer Paul Gregutt answered in the affirmative: “If you think Seattle dies at sundown, you haven’t been to Sunday’s, the Freighthouse, or the Bombay Bicycle Shop.” Where? Yes, indeed; and when I add that the “live music” at the aforesaid Sunday’s was a lady harpist and that “the young and noisy” were said to foregather at the Pier 70 Tavern and Chowderhouse, you’ll appreciate more than ever that you were too young for serious barhopping way back then.
Just as dated but of far more enduring interest is editor-publisher David Brewster’s analysis of the (then) recently concluded compromise plan (between Bellevue, Mercer Island, and Seattle) to complete the last five miles of Interstate 90’s 3,100.