Two and three storey brick storefronts from the 1880s line a street that slopes down to a harbor below a bluff of Victorian houses.
What Water Street looks like
The street runs along Port Townsend's harbor, with only one block of buildable land between the roadway and the bluff rising behind it. Two and three storey brick buildings line both sides, built mostly in the late 1880s, with arched upper floor windows and stone trim over the storefronts below. The street slopes down toward the water at its northern end.
Near the top of the street, the Pioneer Building and the share a block front. Both are three storeys of brick, built in 1889 with arched windows across their upper floors. The sits at another corner at Water and Taylor Streets, built the same year as the farther down the block.
Some ground floor storefronts still carry painted lettering from mercantile firms long gone, faded above newer awnings for cafes, bookshops and galleries. At a narrow storefront alley keeps its own sign worn down to a few letters over a red door, squeezed between a stuccoed facade and a run of brick.
Past 900 Water Street, continues the row in two storey brick with dark green trim and arched window transoms, awnings shading the sidewalk below. Near Taylor Street, reaches out over the harbor on timber pilings, with boats moored along the working waterfront below the street. A bluff of Victorian houses rises above the street. The 's turret and wraparound porch are visible between the commercial blocks below it.
Shot in Water Street
Paramount brought a cast and crew of more than a hundred to Port Townsend in April 1981 for An Officer and a Gentleman, based at on the bluff above downtown. The production used the ground floor of the N.D. Hill Building as the Town Tavern, and Enough's production returned twenty years later to film chase scenes along Water Street.
An Officer and a Gentleman, 1982
The Town Tavern corner
The Town Tavern occupied the ground floor of the N.D. Hill Building, an 1889 brick block designed by Seattle architect Elmer Fisher. Paramount filmed bar scenes there during the two month shoot in 1981. Street View
What Water Street can double for
Ballard Avenue in Seattle, Washington
Ballard Avenue's two to four storey brick buildings went up in the same late 1880s boom as Water Street, with stone trim over ground floor storefronts and a harbor just past the curb. Water Street opens directly onto open water behind the camera, where Ballard Avenue backs onto a ship canal and locks, so a wide shot that includes the water needs to stay tight to avoid showing the wrong kind of waterway. Try searching brick storefronts over harbor now.
Columbia Street in New Westminster, British Columbia
Columbia Street's two and three storey brick blocks share Water Street's turn of the century commercial scale, both sloping down toward the water at the foot of the street. Columbia Street drops more steeply toward the river than Water Street's gentle grade, so a shot holding the full slope would need a flatter stretch of Water Street to match. Try searching brick street sloping to water now.
San Pedro's hillside grid of early twentieth century brick commercial blocks sits above a working harbor, the same way Water Street sits below its own bluff of houses. San Pedro's buildings run later and plainer than Water Street's ornamented 1880s fronts. Its container cranes and the Vincent Thomas Bridge have no equivalent here, so a wide harbor shot would give it away. Try searching hillside brick blocks above harbor now.
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