This book is a nice idea, but does a pretty bad job of execution. I don't know if it's just this one in the series or the whole of them, but I wouldn't buy them. In fact I'm glad I picked it up from the library to see if it was worth getting. There problems range from outright errors, a picture of 1st avenue labeled as 3rd which is almost exactly the same as one used of first avenue. Did the book even have an editor? Other issues are less erroneous, but overall more objectionable, including 90% of the modern photos being of poor quality, bad angles not matching the originals, or just uninteresting subjects. The only good point so far as I'm concerned are the old photos themselves, which is what I'm really looking for and have to imagine exists out there somewhere.

This is a really interesting coffee table book with great historical photographs. This book illustrates how ambitious the city & urban planners were remaking the difficult hilly terrain often interrupted with water into what is today the Seattle & the "Eastside." I disagree with the other negative reviews of this book who claim to speak from a native Seattle-ite point of view. Lets face it, the only native Seattle-ites are Norwegians & native americans. The dark nostalgic genre of illustration aptly captures Seattle's "dark" historic cultural spirit comprising "skid-road," logging, & prostitution. Today Seattle enjoys that same spirit as manifested in its rich modern culture of "depression", "non-traditional life styles", grunge and the birth place of more serial killers per capita than anywhere else. Viva Seattle !

Casually thumbing through this book at a book store one glaring error exploded off page 87. Although it is captioned as being a photo of Third Avenue, it is obviously a photo of First Avenue (note the Alexis Hotel).

Look through this book while in your dentist's waiting room, but don't use it as a resource for your junior high school history project. Instead, you should use "Seattle Now and Then" by Paul Dorpat, which is a compilation of articles written and published over many years by the Seattle Times (AISN 0961435704).