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| The crowd at Elliott Bay Book Company's anniversary bash. | |
On Saturday, Elliott Bay Book Co., Seattle, Wash., celebrated 50 years of business with a party that invited several generations of booksellers and members of the broader book community in the region to commemorate this special milestone with current owners Tracy Taylor, Murf Hall, and Joey Burgess.
Attendees were treated to a series of reminiscences by prominent figures in the bookstore's decorated history, each charting the establishment's journey from its iconic origins in the Pioneer Square neighborhood in 1973, to its current iteration on Capitol Hill.
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| From left: current owners Joey Burgess, Murf Hall, and Tracy Taylor, with founding owners Walt and Maggie Carr. | |
The evening's master of ceremonies was local drag superstar Irene "The Alien" DuBois, who was recently featured on RuPaul's Drag Race season 15. Speakers included founding owners Walter and Maggie Carr; Holly Myers, a staff member since 1980, reading a prepared statement from interim owner Peter Aaron (who could not attend); Congressional Representative Pramila Jayapal; and Rick Simonson, whose career as the events coordinator spans roughly the entirety of the store's existence.
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| Longtime bookseller Rick Simonson. | |
Elliott Bay has been an influential pillar of literary engagement both locally and nationwide. It has hosted multitudes of guest speakers and authors over the course of its long-running events series, which has featured Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama; Bruce Springsteen; Dave Matthews; Anne Rice; Annie Leibovitz; Raymond Carver; and David Sedaris. The coffee shop in the hit television show Frasier was based on the original Elliott Bay Cafe.
In 2010, the bookstore relocated to its current location, a former Ford truck repair shop building, circa 1918, at 1521 10th Ave. in Capitol Hill's Pike/Pine corridor. The 20,000+-square-foot bookstore features 19-foot-tall ceilings, rows and rows of cedar shelves lined with more than 150,000 titles, and Little Oddfellows Café.
In June 2022 the store was purchased by Elliott Bay's longtime former general manager, Tracy Taylor, along with married team Murf Hall and Joey Burgess, of Burgess Hall Group. Under the current ownership, Elliott Bay Book Co. is one of the largest queer- and woman-owned bookstores in the U.S. --Dave Wheeler