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Pacific Northwest | April 25, 2004Pacific Northwest MagazineApril 25, 2004seattletimes.com home
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CONTENTS
COVER STORY
PLANT LIFE
TASTE
ON FITNESS
NORTHWEST LIVING
NOW & THEN
LETTERS
PREVIOUS ISSUES OF PACIFIC NW


WRITTEN BY PAUL DORPAT

Live, at the Globe
 
 Photo
COURTESY OF MUSEUM OF HISTORY & INDUSTRY
Clarinetist Nicholas Oeconomacos' House of the Terrestrial Globe held the southwest corner of Roy Street and Minor Avenue. The southern corner of it sat in what is now the westbound lanes of the Mercer Street exit from Interstate 5. The rear lift tower of the old Ford assembly plant on Valley Street appears in both scenes.
PAUL DORPAT
TWO YEARS AGO this April we featured the splendidly eccentric square-jawed figure of Nicholas Oeconomacos holding his cane, kid gloves and wide-rimmed fedora while posing in his black cape above the spring tulips in his front yard. The photographer, Arthur "Link" Lingenbrink, had his own specialties, including storytelling, celebrity chasing and sign painting. In this week's historical photo he has put two of these together.

The little sidewalk sign at the bottom right-hand corner that reads "Enjoy Living Music" is surely Link's, and the house that fills most of the frame is the last home of the celebrated American-Greek virtuoso clarinetist. The home at 625 Minor Ave. was Oeconomacos' second residence in the Cascade neighborhood. The first (with the tulips) was foreclosed on him during the Great Depression for want of paying the mortgage. In a failed attempt to pay off the bank, Oeconomacos had busked with his clarinet and caged canary for small change on Seattle's main streets.

John Philip Sousa's "best clarinetist" (Oeconomacos took two world tours with Sousa) called this his House of the Terrestrial Globe. Hence the simple circle ornament top center. On the far west side of his home, the principal clarinetist of the Seattle Symphony appointed his Garden of Memories with fluted columns and other classical reminders that he managed to scrounge from thrift and junk stores and the back lots of second-hand building suppliers. It was there, seated in his Greek garden, that Oeconomacos played his last solo concerts of "living music" as the sign reads. The clarinetist was not fond of radio.

Paul Dorpat's and Genevieve McCoy's award-winning illustrated Washington state history, "Building Washington," is available for $50 from Tartu Publications, P.O. Box 85208, Seattle, WA 98145; 206-547-7678.

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