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Hat 'N Boots awaits brighter future

Despite time, vandals, land swap could help preserve old landmark

Tuesday, November 9, 1999

By PHUONG LE Mail Author
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Ringing phones sent Kai Schwarz into action.

Someone had vandalized the beloved Hat 'N Boots, and Schwarz's Georgetown neighbors are calling to report it. As unofficial keepers of Georgetown's kitsch, Schwarz and his neighbors know the drill.

Photo  
If the Port of Seattle works out a land swap with the National Guard, the old Hat 'N Boots could wear a new identity as an espresso stand.
Dan DeLong/P-I 		 
So on Sunday, Schwarz borrowed a gallon of barn-red paint from a neighbor and covered the giant cartoon faces someone had put on two sides of the concrete icon.

"We are the only ones looking out for the interest of the Hat 'N Boots," said Schwarz, a 38-year-old architect who moved to Georgetown from Queen Anne six years ago. "It's a pride issue for us."

As the fate of the relic -- a 44-foot red cowboy hat and a pair of white, 36-foot concrete-and-steel boots -- remains uncertain, residents continue to fight to preserve the fading remnant of 1950s filling-station art once common along old Highway 99.

Over the years, they have picked up litter on the derelict lot, cleaned up after vandals and chased away maverick skateboarders bent on riding the brim.

They even managed to fend off a Fremont businessman who wanted to relocate it to the north at a time when the landmark's future was in serious doubt.

Now, residents are anxiously waiting for a proposed multimillion-dollar land swap that could mean a comfortable future for the old gas-station kiosk and restroom, which may become an icon of Seattle for the next millennium: an espresso stand.

The Port of Seattle wants to buy the 11-acre site at East Marginal Way South and South Corson Avenue from the state Department of Natural Resources. The $5.2 million purchase price includes the Hat 'N Boots, which sits on a sliver of the land at one corner.

Port commissioners may take up the issue early next year, said David Dean, the port's general manager of economic and trade development.

The port plans to develop the site and then swap it with the Washington National Guard for a 25-acre tract north of Pier 91 at Interbay. The Guard considers the Georgetown property a more suitable site for a new armory. While the Guard does not want the Hat 'N Boots, it is looking for ways to help preserve it, said Lt. Colonel Rick Patterson, spokesman for the Washington Military Department.

"We're sensitive to the issue," said Patterson, who recalls marveling at the state Route 99 structure. "It is, of course, a landmark. We're committed to some method of preserving it."

There have been no dearth of suggestions for reusing the Hat 'N Boots, which closed in 1988: a miniature golf course, a shipping facility or using it again as a gas-station kiosk.

Schwarz said residents would like an espresso stand run by culinary students from the South Seattle Community College as part of their classroom experience. Fondness for the 1950s pop-art icon runs deep in Georgetown.

"It's a neighborhood landmark that is kind of quirky, like the neighborhood is," said Laurie Kovack, a 10-year Georgetown resident. "It's saving a little niche out of the evolution of the neighorhood."

Jim Bowman, a Magnolia resident who noticed the graffiti cleanup yesterday while driving to work along East Marginal Way, said he was disturbed by the recent vandalism.

"Those things are all disappearing," said Bowman, 52. Hat 'N Boots is "a prime piece of Seattle kitsch."

P-I reporter Phuong Le can be reached at 206-903-0728 or phuongle@seattle-pi.com

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