SEATTLE - I bought a T-shirt today, just for old times' sake. It's red, reads "The Elliott Bay Book Company and Elliott Bay Cafe" on the front and on the back has the book store's logo and the cross streets where it has been doing business for 36 years - "First and Main in Pioneer Square".
Sadly, after today, that won't be the address any more. One of Seattle's true retail icons, right up there with Nordstrom and REI and that coffee joint right down the street, is packing up its books and turning the page on more than three decades of history in Seattle's oldest commercial neighborhood.
It's sad, but not tragic. The company will reopen in a few weeks at a sweet new location on Capitol Hill. But as "Elliott Bay Book Company" continues and opens a new chapter, what happens to the area it's leaving?
"This store has history. You can't just scoop up history and upchuck it somewhere else. It doesn't work," says author and longtime customer Saab Lofton.
He's worried about what the change means for the neighborhood and what it signals to those who don't live here, the shoppers like me who know Pioneer Square as a place to come to browse and shop and drop a little cash now and again, a place anchored by the big book store that has seemingly always been on the corner.
"When places like this uproot and take off it sends a message, a message that downtown is to be avoided," he said.
Owner Peter Aaron says the decision was agonizing but in the end it was a decision that had to be made. He cites ".parking, population base and freedom from conflict with sporting events" as reasons for making the move to 10th Ave. on Capitol Hill.
Apparently sports fans aren't the best customers and the Seahawks' 12th man in particular is not a big book-buyer.
Regular customers have learned to just stay away on game days because of rowdy crowds and pressure on parking and traffic. Also, Elliott Bay can't expect much walk-in business from the blue-and-green face paint crowd.
"A Sunday game in the weeks before Christmas can cost us $30,000 to $40,000," he said.
So I've got my commemorative shirt and tons of memories of one of the great book stores in the world and that is going to have to do. Sure they'll reopen and sure it will be great (I've seen the new space, it is fantastic) but it sure won't be the same, won't ever be the store on the corner of First and Main. Capitol Hill's gain is Pioneer Square and downtown Seattle's loss.
