By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

When it seemed as if no one in Seattle cared enough to save Pioneer Square from the wrecking ball, Ralph Anderson mortgaged his house and bought his first turn-of-the-century brick building for $30,000.

"The area was totally blighted back then," says Anderson, a Seattle architect known for his careful restoration work and custom Northwest homes. "There was no activity other than Skid Road taverns, junk shops and a few flophouses, and, of course, all these beautiful buildings."

It was the early 1960s when Anderson helped launch a movement that ultimately saved Pioneer Square's sturdy brick warehouses, grand hotels and stately office buildings.

Seattle architects Victor Steinbrueck and Ibsen Nelsen, gallery owner Richard White, furniture maker Ben Masin, investor Alan Black, Mayor Wes Uhlman and many others rallied to the cause.

As any visitor knows, Pioneer Square today is full of contrasts. It has half a dozen homeless shelters that mingle with some of Seattle's finest bookstores, clubs, restaurants and nationally recognized art and antique galleries.

The poor, the drifters, grifters and drunks are as much at home as the camera-toting tourists, artists, gallery patrons, apartment dwellers and condo owners.

The story of how Seattle saved Pioneer Square and made it what it is today is a remarkable tale. Protagonists in the chapters yet untold -- but being written today -- include professional sports interests, government and the area's biggest landlord.

Continued:

• Big changes planned in tiny area
• Pioneer Square forms its own home team of defensive specialists
• Artists fear their low rents and high ceilings will fly, fly away
• From Smith Tower to lesser lights, Samis plans to upgrade its buildings
• Out of smoking desolation, blocks of high Victorian Romanesque style