Update 1/5/16
The Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board voted unanimously to nominate the Crescent-Hamm Building at 4302 SW Alaska Street/4559 California Avenue SW for landmark status. The board's designation hearing for the building will be on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2016.

Original Post 12/8/16

History of Crescent-Hamm Building (from the nomination)

In 1908, W. T. Campbell purchased the two lots on which he would later build the Crescent Building from Cecil and Helen Upper and F. N. and Alice Handschy. With this purchase, Campbell owned four lots of prime real estate at this important intersection where the two streetcar lines merged. Campbell paid $5,000, a price that suggests the lots had improvements. Indeed, Baist’s 1912 Real Estate Atlas depicts the property as it existed for more than a decade, with a one-story wood building occupying the east half of both lots and a small outbuilding at the rear of the parcel . The Sanborn Fire Insurance Company’s 1917 map of the Junction shows the same structure, noting it functioned as a retail shop and drugstore.

In 1925, Campbell commissioned architect Victor W. Voorhees to design a new two-story retail and apartment building on the property. The City of Seattle issued a building permit for the project on October 13, 1925, and the Commercial Construction Company began work shortly thereafter. Although the permit record does not include architectural drawings, the construction is richly recounted in the city inspector’s notes, which began on October 22, 1925 and continued through October 4, 1926. Inspector Hanson noted on December 22nd that “work started on terracotta facing,” and noted completion of the terracotta work during his January 13th inspection. The construction of a mezzanine may have been an afterthought, as Voorhees later applied for a separate permit to complete “a balcony space.” Inspectors made 34 visits to the property during construction.

The building apparently was complete enough to allow tenants to move in by late March 1926, although inspectors kept after the contractor, and then the architect, through the summer to finish out the “self-closing fire doors” with acceptable “rebound hardware.” Jamieson-Daly Drug Company, which had operated out of the previous building, returned to occupy the prominent corner storefront. The Crescent Dry Goods business, formerly Anderson Dry Goods, moved in next door. Lutz’s Ladies Ready-to-Wear & Millinery, which advertised itself as “the store for the college girl and her mother,” occupied the “entire large mezzanine floor at the rear of the store,” in the space above the Crescent Dry Goods business, facing California Avenue

The West Seattle Herald noted, “The mezzanine floor, which is something of a novelty in this district, is easily reached by an incline it is especially well lighted by windows.”

Local newspapers featured Campbell’s new building several times between March to June, perhaps because of his city councilman status. It was pictured in two editions of The Seattle Times.

Almost immediately there was confusion over what to call the building. The West Seattle Herald explained why: “He couldn’t call it the Campbell Bldg., because that name was already used for his older building across the street. The name ‘Junction Bldg.’ was already preempted by Mr. Colman’s edifice diagonally across the intersection. He finally settled on the same name as that used by the dry goods firm which occupies part of the building, so it is officially ‘the Crescent building.’” This name survived into the mid-1950s, long after the Crescent Dry Goods business moved out.

Businesses soon occupied the building’s storefronts lining both Alaska and California streets, and tenants moved in upstairs. Heloma Beauty Parlor and The Fixit Shop occupied the Alaska Street storefronts. The Junction Dentist and several apartment dwellers occupied the second floor spaces. The first major turnover came in 1931 when both Crescent Dry Goods and Jamieson Drug Store moved out of the Building and to the Admiral District. The reasons for their relocation are not known, but perhaps they moved because Campbell was preparing to sell the building. Or, perhaps their move came in response to the opening of several major retailers in the area, including Kress, J. C. Penney, and Ernst Hardware.

In 1930, just as the national economy was in decline, Campbell completed his new Arcade Public Market building also designed by Voorhees, across the street from the Crescent and adjacent to the Campbell Building. He now owned three significant commercial properties in the Junction business district. Any number of factors could have influenced Campbell’s decision to sell the Crescent Building, but it likely was related to his recent mortgage of the four lots across the street and a growing inability to carry his debts during the declining economy. Regardless of his reasons, he sold it to Aline Hamm for $100,000 in 1931. This was not an isolated deal between Hamm and Campbell. Just five months earlier, Hamm had purchased a Campbell property in the Admiral District, bringing her “total frontage of improved business property along California Avenue” to 230 feet.

Aline Demaray Hamm, a Minnesota native, came to Seattle in the early 1890s. She married German native and hotel, restaurant, and real estate entrepreneur Dietrich Hamm. The couple amassed considerable landholdings, including a 400-acre farm south of Seattle overlooking the Duwamish River, in today’s South Park area. Dietrich was partnered with Ferdinand Schmitz in Hamm & Schmitz Land Company, which was active in Seattle and King County in the early 1900s. Dietrich was an original member of the Duwamish Waterway Commission, and, in 1909, was instrumental in the effort to straighten the Duwamish River. South Park’s Hamm Creek is named for Dietrich Hamm. After his death in 1918, his wife took on his real estate business, which she continued into the 1930s.

Shortly after Aline Hamm acquired the Crescent Building, People’s Drug Store moved in as a ground-floor tenant and remained for nearly a half-century. In the 1930s, Hamm’s son Charles, an accomplished musician, worked for the business and for a time lived upstairs in one of the apartments. Bessie Ward briefly served as the Crescent apartments manager. Grocery businesses came and went, including William Galster’s grocery (late 1930s) and Hansen’s Food Center (late 1940s).

When Aline Hamm died in 1947, the building transferred to her heirs (her adult children, with Charles serving as trustee). Charles managed the building, as his name appears on building permit applications and later announcements about the sale of the building. The Hamm family owned the building for 37 years until Charles sold the building in 1968 for $215,000 to C. J. Pinard and Ralph Lao. It transferred to Georgy and Irma Yen in 1980.

Easy Street Records has occupied the corner store space since 1989. A decade later, the independent record shop expanded to include a full-service café, occupying both store spaces facing California Avenue. The added space allowed for in-store music performances that now number close to 200, with appearances by Pearl Jam, the Sonics, and Mudhoney, to name a few. The unique selection of new and used music on CD and vinyl records and in-store performances have earned the shop high praise. In 2010, Rolling Stone listed Easy Street Records among the best record stores in the nation.