*In reference of images in My Pics
Some of you know know the story:
In 1994, a frightful group of spook-artists once known as "Haunted House Productions" moved into this wharehouse known as the Van Vorst Building to build and operate the KUBE Haunted House once again.
It was the perfect era for running a haunted house, especially in such a theatric city like Seattle. The local economy was BOOMING with Microsoft on the rise with Amazon.com, Starbucks had everyone addicted, our own microbrews poured through thousands of taps as bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden were redundantly overplayed by all the locals who claimed to be their best friends. Yeah, the market was PERFECT for a Haunted House.
Our first year at this residence was rather tough due to it's enormous amount of space (recent developement has removed 1/3 of it's structure). However, our senior crew had been together since the mid '60s and still had many unbelievable ideas that proved successful after opening. Such as:
The Veg-o-Matic by Rick Burgy: A walk-in human blender. You enter what appears to be a hallway through a flooded mausoleum...until the liquifying blades swing down through the sides.
The Wizard's Keep by Dale Hansen: You enter a very small theatre that seems to be completely vacant with lightning flashing in a lone doorway on stage. You might catch a sudden glimpse of a wizard in the doorway but he instantly disapears. Most people stop wondering "where did he go?" and assuming it was some kind of projected image -but then the wizard jumps out at them. *Some people literally pee'd themselves! I saw one person jump so hard they broke through a wall unit.
I can write for days about the phenomenal sets, costumes, actors, and make-up artists., but I'm tired already. However, this group, currently known as "ScreamWorks NorthWest" is what lead my interest into the industrial arts, something (the only thing) I wanna do as a career.
We remained at The Boren House for three years allowing us to expand our ideas and excell beyond imagination.
In 1996, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft owned the entire South Lake Union neighborhood and made a motion to the city to level all structures (including The Boren House) and regrade the entire landscape as a park known as "The Seattle Commons".
Very quickly we made a petition with many thousands of signatures coming from many artists, residents, students, sponsors from radio, TV, Fred Hutchison and Children's Hospital. It was undeniable that people valued the building (with or without us in it).
Therefore, uncle Paul said we could stay. It was a VICTORY! -so, we thought.
Just a few days later fire marshals came for reinspection. Ironically, what had past a few months prior to that had then become "structurally unsound" and irrepairable. Their exact words were that the next earthquake, big or small, could easily collapse the building and we needed to vacate right away. We did as they said and things weren't the same ever since.
Since then, Seattle has been shaken by the Nisqually Earthquake (6.8) in 2001 and two small ones, the building still stands proud!
In Y2K the building was registered as a historic landmark. Recently, Amazon.com has purchased a few acres of it's land for their future headquarters. The facade of the building will remain intact.
*Early history of this amazing buiding found at:
http://web1.seattle.gov/DPD/historicalsite/QueryResult.aspx?ID=160466209
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