Historic Kerry Corridor Was Value Saving

A few of the happiest recollections of my life occurred in Kerry Corridor. As a late teen within the late ’90s making use of to high schools as a piano efficiency main, it was a tour of the Spanish Colonial Revival constructing that sealed the Cornish deal for me. I may see myself finding out among the many terra-cotta arches and chiseled Greek muses on the facade. Or lunching within the colonnade on a spring day, maybe accompanied by a stay soundtrack from my fellow music college students. What a fantastic place to be taught issues.

All of it got here true. The lengthy nights within the studio rooms, the ethereal choir lessons, the virtuoso performances within the PONCHO Live performance Corridor, the lengthy, bizarre conversations with fellow music wonks within the stairwells and the colonnade. The broad hallways ringing with music. The sweeping territorial view of Lake Union and the House Needle past it from the dance studios on the highest flooring. For in all probability a decade after I’d run out of tuition money and dropped out, I might sneak into the observe rooms at Kerry.

Nellie Cornish, often called Miss Aunt Nellie to her personal piano college students, started educating the instrument in 1902. However she was no mere piano trainer. She held a super, revolutionary on the time, that no artwork kind might be remoted and that exposing college students to all creative disciplines was necessary to their training. The Cornish College ultimately took over the entire flooring of its unique house on Pike and Broadway, providing programs on people dancing, French, eurythmics, ballet, and marionettes amongst different disciplines—then it outgrew the area.

In 1920, after a lot campaigning, fundraising, and neighborhood organizing, a location was secured for the increasing the humanities faculty onto a brand new devoted campus—just below half an acre at Roy Road and Harvard Avenue. Floor was damaged on Kerry Corridor on New Yr’s Day 1921. Architect Abraham Horace Albertson had beforehand designed St. Joseph’s Church, the Northern Life Tower, and each Condon Corridor and the infirmary on the College of Washington.

There is a fashionable notion that Kerry Corridor was named for Cornish’s mom, however I am suspicious for 2 causes: A. In line with Discover a Grave, Jennetta Cornish was identified by the nickname Jennie, not Kerry, and extra compellingly, B. the Cornish Realty Group, assembled a number of years earlier by rich Seattleites in response to low scholar enrollment throughout WWI, raised cash particularly for Kerry Corridor’s development, and the board included lumber magnate Albert S. Kerry. (Queen Anne Hill’s Kerry Park can be named in his honor.) 

Regardless of who it’s named for, Kerry and his fellow elite Seattleites got here by way of, and in 1921, Kerry Corridor lastly manifested at 710 Roy Road, 9 blocks north of the Sales space Constructing campus. Constructed within the Spanish Colonial Revival type, the 31,900-square-foot, three-story brick constructing was later clad in stucco on three sides and garnished with terra-cotta ornaments.

Kerry Corridor got here outfitted with a 190-seat theater for scholar performances on the constructing’s east finish. As soon as a part of the now-defunct PONCHO nonprofit, the theater’s entrance sits inside a colonnade, and Kerry is considered one of few Seattle buildings to function one—you’d suppose we’d see extra of them in such a wet local weather. Within the courtyard, alongside the colonnade, cherry blossom timber and a giant pink camellia bloom variously and to very Spanish impact, with floral views peeping by way of the arches. The outside of the constructing seems nearly an identical right now because it did when it was constructed, with the one variations being its coloration—it was initially painted peach, then pink, and now white—and the current elimination of the long-lasting pair of American elms subsequent to the principle entrance, which had been misplaced to Dutch elm illness in 2023. 

When Kerry Corridor was accomplished in July of 1921 and the Cornish College moved in—together with Miss Aunt Nellie herself, who lived within the third-floor penthouse together with her adopted daughter Elena Miramova—the neighbors wasted no time in expressing their indignation. The identical summer time, a petition was circulated asking for the college to be closed on the grounds that the music pouring from the constructing was “a public nuisance to the neighborhood.” In December of that 12 months, the case of Neighborhood v. Cornish College opened in superior court docket with Choose A. W. Frater presiding. Every week later, Fraser, who had an curiosity within the arts, dominated in Cornish’s favor, telling the neighbors to maneuver to the countryside in the event that they couldn’t stand the sounds of the town.   

Enrollment boomed all through the Twenties, though the Despair hit Cornish arduous in 1929. In 1937, aged 61, Nellie Cornish resigned as director and moved to New York Metropolis to stay close to her daughter; their residences grew to become a dance studio. Cornish continued to increase, though Kerry Corridor remained primarily unchanged through the years. A number of homes on East Harvard Road had been acquired to make use of for lecture rooms. The varsity grew to become a completely accredited faculty in 1977, providing Bachelor of Tremendous Arts and Bachelor of Music levels because the Cornish Institute. In 1983, the school bought the previous Lakeside College six blocks north, subsequent to St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral. The visible artwork and theater departments had been jettisoned as much as Cornish North, aka CoNo, whereas dance and music remained at Kerry Corridor. 

Within the early aughts, Cornish bought a number of properties in South Lake Union, transferring its HQ to Lenora Sq., a freshly restored, seven-story Artwork Deco workplace constructing. It offered the Harvard Homes, which had been razed, and the Cornish North campus quickly after. Fairly little Kerry Corridor, nonetheless housing the dance and music departments, was the only real remaining Cornish presence on the Hill. 

Final spring, I received an invitation from a Fb group referred to as “Save Kerry Corridor.” Longtime Cornish professor Kim MacKay, who taught me English comp and African literature and a complete class about Ulysses from the attractive Harvard Homes again within the ’90s, was on the lookout for assist, as Cornish had introduced its plans to promote the historic music and dance constructing. MacKay had teamed up with former Cornish registrar Mags Oldman to attempt to unfold the phrase to potential benevolent patrons.

Though MacKay had since retired and moved to Europe, he taught at Cornish for a number of a long time and commenced campaigning fiercely from the southern coast of Sweden to rescue his previous office. MacKay nonetheless had a terrific community, and plenty of current and former Cornish employees and alumni popped up within the group, voicing fears that the constructing could be gutted and become condos or worse, as solely the facade is protected by its historic landmark standing. Everybody was type of freaking out. 

A scholar sit-in ensued in April 2024, and a petition was drawn as much as protect the constructing, arguing that the lack of Kerry Corridor would displace college students and native artists and threat the preservation of the constructing as a cultural landmark. Final November, with Kerry Corridor’s destiny nonetheless unsure, a preemptive open home was held for the general public, for Cornish alumni and others to replicate on their recollections of the constructing and to say goodbye. 

It wasn’t needed. The information dropped on November 25, per week and a half after the open home. Seattle Theatre Group, which owns the Paramount, the Moore, and the Neptune, had bought Kerry Corridor for $6 million. Its plans had been to make use of it as a public cultural arts heart, with arts training programs, rentable areas, and public performances within the theater. 

“As somebody who grew up in a neighborhood that lacked assets and humanities alternatives, I’m proud that STG will rework Kerry Corridor right into a vibrant place for individuals to really feel at house and have doubtlessly life-changing experiences rooted within the arts,” stated Marisol Sánchez-Greatest, STG’s director of training and neighborhood engagement. A full calendar of occasions is predicted to be scheduled at Kerry Corridor by summer time 2025.

Two weeks after the sale in early December, Cornish introduced its plans to merge with close by Seattle College, with the intention to increase science-focused SU’s effective arts packages. Members of the Save Kerry Corridor FB group rejoiced, with one calling the sale of Kerry Corridor to STG “the absolute best information for our beloved constructing,” whereas expressing somewhat disappointment in regards to the construction of the school itself being dismantled by way of the merger. 

My previous English prof, MacKay, was a bit extra writerly in his response. 

“I’m pleased with STG’s buy of the historic Cornish College—Kerry Corridor. What they’ve stated and the way they’ve proceeded up to now bode actually, rather well.… I additionally must say that this version of the Cornish Board of Trustees appears to be the primary in my expertise to suppose ‘outdoors the field’ to deal with points which were simmering for*ever* in Cornish historical past.”

“At 100+ years?” MacKay wrote. “That may be a good run, and Miss Aunt Nellie would, I feel, perceive and approve of those choices.”