Feature Presentation

In its career as a movie star, Seattle has been the gawky ingénue, the scruffy veteran, even a trendy sex symbol.

Film Row

For several decades during the 1900s, 2nd Ave in Belltown, was known as “Film Row,” seen in this 1918 photo. Film Row was the center of film distribution in the Northwest, housing film exchanges from all the major studios. Theatre managers and owners came to Film Row to preview and select movies to show in their theaters. Universal Film Exchange was the last of these exchanges to close in 1980.

Transporting to a Dream World

The original cinema palaces welcomed visitors in a grand and exotic scale, with vaulted ceilings, lush tapestries, and ornate features, as uniformed ushers stood by. Celluloid Seattle featured a grand movie palace lobby utilizing artifacts from the Fox (later Music Hall) Theatre.

The Paradox Between a City and Cinema

Up until the 1962 World’s Fair, Seattle’s portrayal on film was a far-flung Western outpost: a rough-hewn place where tugboat captains and lumberjacks roamed. The city’s actual movie-going habits contradicted its frontier image, though. This was the era of the Coliseum, Paramount, Blue Mouse, Orpheum, Fox (Music Hall), and the other grand, elegant movie palaces that showcased Hollywood’s golden age.

The Liberty Theatre

Seattle’s Liberty Theatre opened at First Avenue and Pike Street in 1914, intending to be “a theatre which for perfection of appointment, convenience and luxuriousness has no equal this side of Chicago.” The exterior of the theater featured a forty-foot-high Statue of Liberty, illuminated by 1,200 lamps of eight different colors.

When it was built, the movie theater’s concave screen was the largest in the city, stretching 19 feet 4 inches wide by 14 feet 8 inches high. Like most theaters of its era, it showed movies and live performances. Here, dancers pose below the proscenium arch.

The Primetime City

The television show Twin Peaks was largely filmed in North Bend; the town and its surrounds were regulars on the show. The Salish Lodge acted as the show’s Great Northern Hotel.

Give Him the Chair!

MOHAI recreated Dr. Frasier Crane’s living room from the hit NBC series Frasier. Visitors could have a seat on the sofa or in Martin Crane’s chair-with pup Eddie-and watch Hollywood’s reimagining of Seattle on the small screen.