In the late 1800s and first decade of the 1900s, this corner was part of a 10-acre park that extended from People's Dock to today's Pioneer Way and included rustic tables, an outdoor dance floor, and a mineral water spring for picnics under shady trees, baseball games, and other community activities. By the 1910s, the park was giving way to new construction, much of which remains. Memorial Presbyterian Church was built in 1913 on land donated by the Gustafson family. In the 1920s, a bank and an electric company established businesses on the block, and in 1925 two hotels were built on this corner to serve harbor visitors with rooms, meals, and other services. On one side of the street, the Peninsula Hotel had a wide staircase to a spacious second-floor lobby and eight rooms, with four retail shops on the first floor and a pool hall in the basement. Across the street stood the Novak Building with its hotel. After the Narrows Bridge opened, the buildings remained, but the hotels gave way to other businesses.