Lester Apartments

The Lester Apartments was a building on the west side of Beacon Hill, Seattle, Washington, United States.

After scandal (and women's suffrage[2]) forced Seattle mayor Hiram Gill from office, the building was converted to be an ordinary apartment house.

It met a disastrous end when a B-50 Superfortress crashed into it in 1951, causing a fire that engulfed the building.

Tupper and Gerald decided to capitalize on their situation and formed the Hillside Improvement Company to build a resort on the west side of Beacon Hill (just uphill from Sicks’ Seattle Brewing and Malting Company, the Rainier Brewery, now Tully's Coffee[3]) including a 500-room brothel, a wood-frame building so big that it required a street vacation, and which would have been the world's largest brothel.

[4][5] Gill was recalled from office February 9, 1911[6] and the 500 "cribs" were combined into ordinary multi-room apartments.

The brewery that was clipped by the B-50 Superfortress before it crashed into the Lester. Interstate 5 now runs through where the apartment building once stood. [ 1 ]