TACOMA, Wash. — "As a little child I always wanted to be a dancer," said Jane Carter, who took flight in an old courtroom, rehearsing for an upcoming show.
"For aerial cabarets it's really nice to have tall ceilings," Carter said.
Joel Markquart has transformed a jailhouse storage vault into a sanctuary for his creative design firm, Kern Collective.
"Working in this historic building is pretty amazing," Markquart said. "There's a lot of great history here and I absolutely love it."
And down the stairs on another floor puppeteer Jeremy Gregory makes skateboard videos with handmade characters.
"I take the picture of them on the rig," he demonstrated. "I slide it on the top and photoshop out just that line."
Tacoma's old post office building has found new life as Court House Square, a home for vintage markets, entrepreneurs, artists and some of the most popular places to get something to eat or drink.
"So, it's really a place for people to come and make their dreams come true," said director Jessica Johnston. "We are a little community within a beautiful community here in Tacoma."
Journey through the winding basement hallways and you might see Arthur Gottlieb working on a new fashion design between gigs as a tattoo artist.
Noble Studio's Jessenia Baker can be found coming up with ideas for a color treatment.
At the so-called Player's Club, Shawn McManus and friends are playing vintage arcade games.
"Nostalgia kind of hit hard for us and we didn't want to grow up," McManus explained. "We said 'how do we figure out how to be eight years old again?'"
On the first Sunday of every month All Star Vintage turns the old post office into a marketplace. Vendors sell clothes on two different floors
"It's kind of vintage heavy but you can find a little bit of everything," Johnston said.
That's true. We witnessed somebody scoring a sweet Billy Ray Cyrus concert T-shirt.
Some of the spaces have doubled as wedding venues.
"It's a romantic space," said Johnston, "A wonderful jumping off point to start celebrating the beginning of your life together."
Johnston hopes what's happening here inspires other city developers to preserve and repurpose.
"This was a building that was built for the community which is still being used for the community just in a different way," Johnston said.
"The building is what makes it possible," said McManus. "We've got our dreams, but without a place to put them it doesn't work."
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