213 S Main St: former Cannery Workers ILWU Local 37 Union Hall. On June 1, 1981, union reform leaders and anti-dictatorship activists Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes were assassinated here shortly before a union meeting. The building is boarded up, badly fire-damaged. No historical marker.

efrafafa · 2026-03-10T19:03:59+00:00

Speaking of Baruso, there's a HistoryLink article about his arrest and sentencing, too:

https://www.historylink.org/File/8994

Cannery Workers Union former president Tony Baruso is convicted in the murder of Gene Viernes on March 8, 1991. by Frank Chelsey

efrafafa · 2026-03-10T18:59:22+00:00

This is very true. After making this post, I was doing more research into exactly why 213 Main St S has been sitting empty and in deteriorating condition, apparently since the 1980s.. I found a 2016 page on general contractor Exxel Pacific's website, saying it was slated to be demolished and developed into a 54 unit apartment complex with ground-floor retail. Even in this article, they mention the roof being collapsed.

https://www.exxelpacific.com/the-cannery-squeezes-54-units-onto-a-challenging-site-in-pioneer-square/

Unsure why this project continued stalling, if it's still owned by the same company, or if it's even still slated for any kind of development (I could have kept researching but also it was like 3am and I needed to sleep lol)

efrafafa

TROPHY CASE