Corner Inn auction: Memories up for bid

July 29, 2008 12:10 pm
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 |   West Seattle history | West Seattle news | West Seattle video

Your editor here has driven past the Corner Inn (California/Fauntleroy) thousands of times, yet never been inside till this morning’s auction, almost two months after its sudden shutdown. Above, you see just one video clip of many we captured during the auction’s first 45 minutes – even without any personal memories in the place, we found ourselves oddly teary at the sadness of the scene – the icicle lights and Mylar stars still dangling from the ceiling, right next to the elevated portable podium where the namesake of James G. Murphy Auctioneers cheerily (as our video shows) plowed through the list of items, from a colander, to photos from the wall, up to the piano and organ – those by the way went for a shockingly low price; that clip ahead (and we’ll be adding more as we go through our video):

Almost no one wanted to bid for the piano and organ:

You can’t see the piano/organ in our shot (they were on the other side of the podium); this page of the auction site has photos. Maybe they went for only $50 each because most of the other items were restaurant supplies, so nobody was really there for musical instruments? (Although there were other unusual items as well – such as a brass spittoon.) It was no surprise to see the bidding crowd including at least one person opening a future restaurant/lounge nearby, as well as one gentleman in an embroidered white chef’s coat. ADDED 12:51 PM: For those who like us hadn’t been in the Corner Inn before – we shot some video during the pre-auction preview period – this is the restaurant area on the south side of the space, classic diner:

Having never attended an auction before, we were fascinated by the mechanics of how it worked. In this clip from the start of the auction, check out the auctioneers’ head action:

As for what’ll happen at the Corner Inn site – still “for lease.” Work, meanwhile, is proceeding on the future lounge/restaurant in the old Beveridge Place Pub location next door (here’s the city page with all the permits).

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