| Last Exit on Brooklyn | |
|---|---|
 Interactive map of Last Exit on Brooklyn | |
| Restaurant information | |
| Established | June 30, 1967 (1967-06-30) |
| Closed | 2000 (2000) |
| Previous owner | Irv Cisski |
| Food type | Coffeehouse |
| Location | 3930 Brooklyn Avenue NE,Seattle,Washington, United States |
TheLast Exit on Brooklyn was aSeattleUniversity Districtcoffeehouse established in 1967 byIrv Cisski.[1] It is known for its part in thehistory of Seattle's counterculture, for its pioneering role in establishingSeattle's coffee culture, and as a formerchess andgo venue frequented by severalmaster players.
The Last Exit on Brooklyn opened on June 30, 1967 at 3930 Brooklyn Avenue NE[2] near theUniversity of Washington campus in a small light-industrial building leased from the University.[3] The cafe's name was suggested byPaul Dorpat, editor ofThe Helix, as aplay onHubert Selby Jr.'scounterculture novelLast Exit to Brooklyn.[4] Cisski had preferred "The New World Cafe".[4]
The Last Exit was one of the pioneerespresso bars in Seattle,[5] adding anespresso machine shortly afterCafé Allegro opened the first in 1975.[6] The cafe was known for its originalespresso concoction named the Caffè Medici – "a doppio poured over chocolate syrup and orange peel with whipped cream on top".[7] Described in 1985 as "America's second oldest, continuously running coffeehouse",[8] it was also known for its inexpensive food and as a venue forfolk music andbohemian conversation.[1]
The Last Exit was also notable as a popular destination for Seattle's amateur and professionalGo[9][10] and chess players includingPeter Biyiasas,[8]Viktors Pupols,[8] andYasser Seirawan,[11] who wrote of the venue, "Those first chess lessons soon led me to the legendary Last Exit on Brooklyn coffee house, a chess haven where an unlikely bunch of unusual people congregates to do battle."[12] Interviewed bySports Illustrated in 1981, Seirawan described the Last Exit as "Scrabble players, backgammon players, chess and game hustling ... This became my home. This was to become my family."[13]
When interviewed by Mary Lasher ofChess Life in 1985, owner Irv Cisski said, "So what if games-people turn away business. They add flavor. Chess and Go are assets to a coffeehouse."[8] The Last Exit was the subject of a 1987 retrospective inThe Seattle Times in which Cisski described his intent to "create a haven where students and the benign crazies" were welcome and where "everyone felt equal and there were no sacred cows".[4] It was later described by Seattle writer and journalistKnute Berger as
one of Seattle's great '60s landmarks, a gathering place for UW students, radicals, poets, nut jobs, chess masters, teens, intellectuals, workers, musicians, artists, beatniks, and hippies ... I remember the din, the open-mike music, cigarette smoke, impromptu poetry readings, the arguments of lefties, libertarians, crackpots, and cultists. You could hear the rhythm and roar of the counterculture as it lived and breathed.[14]
Cisski died on August 25, 1992.[15] In 1993 the University ended the lease of the building to the coffeehouse, and the Last Exit's new owners moved it to upperUniversity Way.[3] The Last Exit on Brooklyn closed in 2000.[1] The space the original Last Exit once occupied now houses staff members from the University of Washington's Human Resources Department.[14]
The Last Exit was included in Clark Humphrey's 2006 book of historical photographsVanishing Seattle.[16]
Descriptions of the interior and atmosphere of the Last Exit appear inKristin Hannah's 2008 novelFirefly Lane,[17] inDavid Guterson's 2008 novelThe Other,[18] and inMarjorie Kowalski Cole's 2012The City Beneath the Snow: Stories.[19]
Kron, who discovered his love of the game decades ago after stumbling upon the shuttered cafe The Last Exit on Brooklyn, a home for Go and chess players in the U District, said the closure of the center is bittersweet.
47°39′18″N122°18′51″W / 47.655033°N 122.314238°W /47.655033; -122.314238
