For a time I sold some lamps at a little shop called Mercado in downtown Ballard. There was a fire (tenant smoking in bed in upstairs apartment), the building was severely damaged, and the store never reopened. The building consisted of a wooden frame with a brick facade; the irreparable timber structure was eventually removed and the tall stack of bricks was braced with steel beams and left standing for several years. Some talk of historic preservation was the purported reason for leaving the teetering edifice in place for so long, but I guess eventually someone convinced someone else that no one was going to be able to build anything new behind it.
The sign says bricks are for sale, three for a dollar.
Posted by Charles on December 1, 2003 09:56 PM