Cai Yuen Building

The Great Depression plunged the U.S. economy into an unprecedented downturn. Spokane is not immune. Workers quickly lost their jobs, and the local unemployment rate soared to 25%. Despite the dire conditions there, people flocked to Spokane looking for work. Many end up living in homeless jungles and shantytowns made of cardboard and sawdust. But not everyone is building shacks. During the Great Depression, one of Spokane's most famous buildings was the Rookery.

The Rookery Block was originally home to four buildings that formed a haphazard cluster of businesses ranging from banks to doctors' offices. As Spokane grew, speculators viewed the neighborhood as a potential investment, but existing buildings did not meet the needs of a rapidly modernizing city. In 1933, Charles Sweeney, a Civil War veteran who later became a businessman and aspiring politician, purchased the lots, demolished the existing buildings, and built some grand structures in their place.

Undeterred by the Great Depression, Sweeney began constructing new garden buildings, which were completed in 1933. It was an instant hit. According to the Spokane Historic Preservation Office, this vegetable garden "is Spokane's premier example of Terracotta art using elements of Art Deco design." Designed by Gustav Persson, the building features "lateral emphasis and stylistic design Elements include floral patterns, starbursts, chevrons and fans. "While there are hundreds of Art Deco buildings in town, high-style Art Deco commercial buildings like the Rookie are relatively rare in Spokane. ”

Although it had a beautiful debut, the Rookie did not age well. By the 1990s, tenants were frequently complaining about the building’s condition, and the owners were losing patience. 2006 , vegetable gardens were razed, leaving many Spokaneites frustrated and angry. A 2005 article described the frustration, “Surface parking lots have spread like skin lesions across downtown Spokane. Even though this is a ridiculously inefficient use of land in the urban core, these parking lots, like scars on the ceiling, tend not to go away.

Although the parking space was lost, its destruction marked a turning point in Spokane's attitude toward historic preservation. Spokane Preservation Advocates, a nonprofit group that advocates for historic preservation, was able to use the emotional lessons learned from the loss of the vegetable garden to lobby the City Council to pass a demolition ordinance. This ordinance prohibits the "removal of a building that meets historic status without a plan to replace it with a new building." This ordinance has prevented the expansion of surface parking lots, but it cannot prevent real estate developers from demolishing 100-year-old buildings to build modern high-rises.