Old hippies sample hipster Seattle

Five trips into Seattle

(NOTE: Some of these blogs get a bit political, so I’d like to remind you that – even though the website says these were posted by Dave - it’s Betsy who has written this summer’s entries - so far.)

Wow. Seattle is quite the town. Although we’ve spent some time here in the past, I feel this trip allowed us to really delve into the city, which has changed a lot in the decade-plus since we last visited.

First of all, it’s spread out over so much land and water it’s hard to wrap your brain around. And the number of consumer-focused headquartered companies we encounter is mind-boggling. Think Starbucks, Amazon, Boeing, REI, etc.

I often find myself drawing a comparison between Seattle and San Francisco, and see many similarities, such as their hilly terrain, proximity to water, weather, history, food, technology and hipster feel. But the people in Seattle seem a bit friendlier and more accessible. Also, to dispel a myth, only once on our five trips into the city did we encounter rain, as we parked our bikes under an awning until it dissipated.

In a nutshell, here are some highlights of what we did while in the "Emerald City."

- Five round-trip (one hour each way) ferry rides between Bremerton to Seattle.

- A Mariner’s major league baseball game on July 4 (where there were more visiting St. Louis fans than locals).

- A visit to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic site.

- A perfunctory visit to the Pike Place Market, which we had visited on a previous trip. We enjoyed a cup of clam chowder and local IPA as we waited for the ferry.

- A view of the remnants of Highway 99, which used to be an intrusive viaduct that ran along the waterfront and over Alaska Way. Now the city plans to convert much of the opened space into park areas. Should be fun to see in a few years.

- An afternoon docent-led tour of the “Victorian Radicals” special exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. These artists had the temerity to take the art world back to “pre-Raphael” techniques. Of course, we flunked art history and had to ask for details (like who was Raphael?) but it was very interesting.

- Two visits to the Chinatown/International District. The first day we walked around and sampled food at a local noodle shop, and on the second visit we got a guided tour of a historic shop and hotel accompanying the Wing Luke museum about immigrant experiences in Seattle and the west (especially Asian-American).

- A 90-minute “Underground Tour,” which not only gave us access to the post-1889 tunnels beneath the streets, but also a humorous look at the city’s history.

- A walk around the beautiful University of Washington campus, including a bookstore visit and ice cream sampling (which was not local and not nearly as good as WSU’s).

- Taking in several Olmstead Brothers projects, including the UW campus and large Volunteer Park in the Capital Hill neighborhood. Both locations also apparently featured views of Mt. Rainier, which of course chose to stay hidden from both vantage points.

- Bike rides along the shoreline and ship channel, stopping at Olympic Sculpture Park, Fremont (to view the Lenin statue and other “hysterical” markers), Lake Union’s Gas Works park (where we watched sea planes take off), an Amazon Go store and REI’s flagship store.

- Gawking at the amazing (and overwhelming) glass artworks at the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum.

- Deciding NOT to pay $30 each to go to the top of the newly refurbished Space Needle, after an employee told us we wouldn’t see any mountains since they were socked in by clouds that day. Thanks lady.

- Attending a discussion with the author of a new book on Seattle Prohibition, at the famous Elliott Bay Book Company, after enjoying a great meal at the restaurant next door in what used to be an Odd Fellows Lodge.

- Partaking in a variety of transportation options, including the ferry, water taxi, light rail, streetcar, bikes, and the monorail left over from the 1962 World’s Fair.

That’s the summary and here are some pictures. 

We had a perfect day for the Mariner’s game against the Cardinals on July 4. Sadly, Cardinals fans outnumbered the Mariners fans on this gorgeous summer day.

It’s rare to get a photo with a major league mascot, but Betsy lucked out while on a trip to get the promotional $3 junior dogs. Not sure why it’s a moose and not some sea-themed character, but that’s above my pay grade.

Our bike ride brought us to the quirky Fremont neighborhood, AKA the “Center of the Universe.” We missed the popular bridge troll but still found several interesting “hysterical markers,” such as the ICUTV sculpture and this statue of Vladimir Lenin which sits on private property near a busy intersection. Originally intended for placement in a town square in present-day Slovakia the statue has been at this location since 1996 and it is for sale. The asking price is reportedly $250,000 or best offer. However, if you're interested, be sure to factor in the moving costs because it weighs at least seven tons.

A visitor center employee alerted us to a book event that night at the iconic Elliott Bay Book Company, where the author would discuss his new book about Seattle and Prohibition. So we went, and bought the book.

Next to the bookstore was an amazing restaurant housed in an old Odd Fellows Lodge building.

Everyone (including a glass studio owner in San Antonio) said we had to go to Chihuly Garden and Glass. It wasn’t cheap, but the craftsmanship was exceptional.

While it added up to a total 3-hour commute to and from Seattle via the Bremerton ferry, we totally enjoyed the leisurely (and scenic!) boat rides on our five visits to Seattle. All told we rode the Washington State Ferries 13 times; 10 as walk-ons, twice as bike riders (which is really cool) and once driving the truck (without, thankfully, the trailer attached).

The monorail built for the 1962 World’s Fair is still operating, and worth the ride.

We also took advantage of the streetcars.

We couldn’t take photos on the Boeing wide-body plant tour in Mulkiteo, but on our bike ride in Seattle a few days later we did spot this smaller aluminum-sheathed product ready for delivery.

We didn’t exactly duplicate our 2002 Christmas Card photo (when Tex was 13, as you can see by his expression) but judging by the background we got pretty close during our visit to Alki beach in West Seattle.

 

Our visit via the water taxi to West Seattle happened to be the day that regional tribes paddled their canoes to Alki beach. This is an annual Paddle to Lummi event. They were heading from here to the San Juan Islands.

 

This is a surreal monument; one of the last sections of the massive removal project of the Seattle viaduct, which now runs underground and no longer through the waterfront district. Plans are to convert the old highway into public space. Should be interesting to watch.

We were considering purchasing expensive tickets to the newly refurbished Space Needle when an employee told us the low clouds obstructed the mountain views we wanted to see. And, at $25 apiece, we were happy to believe her even though, as you can see in this photo, it's a clear blue sky.

Following is a bit more detail (if you wish to read on) about some key themes.

History

Here’s some history to set the stage. I copied these main points below off Wikipedia, so don’t sue me for plagiarism (my additions in parentheses):

Seattle is a major port city that has a history of boom and bust. Seattle has on several occasions been sent into severe decline, but has typically used those periods to successfully rebuild infrastructure. There have been at least five such cycles:

- The lumber-industry boom, followed by the construction of an Olmsted-designed park system (such as those at UW and Volunteer Park).

- The Klondike gold rush started in 1896, but reached Seattle in July 1897 (this was the subject matter of the National Park site we visited after the game). This constituted the largest boom for Seattle proportional to the city's size at the time, and ended the economic woes Seattle (and the nation) had been suffering since the Panic of 1893.

- The shipbuilding boom, which peaked during World War I and crashed immediately thereafter.

- The Boeing boom, followed by general infrastructure building.

- Most recently, the boom based on Microsoft and other tech companies, such as Amazon. (Not to mention our favorites, REI and Costco!)

While the town was named after Chief Seattle of the Suquamish and Duwamish tribes, it’s apparent that Native Americans didn’t play much of a role in the area’s official “white” history, other than being the source for many of the named communities and waterways (except for those who were FOGs, Friends of George Vancouver the British explorer)

Like many other parts of the west, the area was settled by the explorers and surveyors of the Lewis and Clark and Manifest Destiny era who realized the area was rich in natural resources and conveniently located on some handy water “highways.” The local lore is that Arthur A. Denny’s party landed in West Seattle (the location of one of the photos above), but then realized the depth of the sound was better on the eastern edge, so he moved to the shoreline near Pioneer Square in present-day Seattle in 1852. At about the same time, a farming family settled down south in Georgetown and built permanent structures while Denny was making up his mind. 

Our Underground Tour comedy troupe had fun telling the story of the next few decades, while the new settlers were getting the hang of tides and water levels. It sounds like the downtown was a wet, sloppy mess for years. Even the leftover sawdust from the sawmills on the waterfront during the logging years couldn’t stay dry enough to patch the epic potholes in the primitive streets.

Oddly, a devastating fire in 1889 may have saved the town. An immigrant laborer turned over a glue pot and was unable to abate the blaze, which took down almost every wood building (which was almost all of them.) The city fathers realized they had a chance to start again and do it right, so they decided to raise up the streets and sidewalks. Not all merchants decided to wait for this costly drawn-out process, so they replaced their buildings at the existing levels. Then, when the new elevated streets and sidewalks went in, the first story or two of the existing buildings ended up in the new “underground” complex. That’s the tour we took on our second visit to the city. 

Many of the tunnels exist today and are identified by purple mosaic-patterned skylights seen from the current sidewalks. Some bars and restaurants still use those underground portions of their buildings, but most of it is junked and neglected.

We learned that if we saw these purple patterns on the sidewalk, that it signified it was over the tunnel system; the squares are modified skylights to provide light underground.

The now-abandoned “underground.”

Immigration

Our visit to the Wing Luke Museum in the International/Chinatown District was especially enlightening, and a reminder of the centuries-old problem we “Americans” have with immigrants – although most of us descended from immigrants. While the African-American experience is well-known and documented where we live, I didn’t know much about the Asian-American’s travails. I’ve read some about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and of course the Japanese internment camps during World War II. But viewing timelines, personal stories and the numerous legislative actions taken since the start of our “all men are created equal” experiment hit home. I would hope we could progress from the hateful rhetoric of those days, but instead I find current conversations continue to feed into the idea that America is for whites only.

One interesting by-product of the internment debacle was that many Pike Place merchants were Japanese, and when they were trucked away, the now-iconic area was abandoned, and considered for demolition to make way for a parking lot. Local officials made other plans, however, which have turned out pretty well.

Our tour guide at Wing Luke was Ling, a cheerful 20-something ceramic artist who immigrated from China 12 years ago. Her recurring theme was “immigrants are resourceful and resilient” and I couldn’t help but think how much of that message was about her and her family. 

My observation during our five days in Seattle is that the younger generation IS more accepting of those who aren’t of European descent, and that most Pacific Northwesterners are generally blind to the hard-working Asians they work and shop with, not unlike how we consider Hispanics an integral part of our daily experience in Texas. So I continue to be optimistic, and hope we can learn from history, especially about those things we did wrong. 

To sum up, I loved this 1962 quote from Wing Luke, who died in a plane crash in 1965, just 3 years after becoming the first person of Asian descent elected to Seattle’s City Council. He immigrated at age six when his father got a merchant visa and was a WWII vet and Bronze Star recipient. But he returned to discrimination after the war, and watched his family get moved out of his boyhood home because of an Alien Land Law which limited house purchases to owners of European descent. 

Maybe inspired by that experience, he said, “Preserving the ties and institutions that are part of our cultural heritage is not inconsistent with integration and one’s duty as a good American citizen. In fact, the essential vitality of the American life is that it is constantly enriched by heterogeneous cultures. This fact is recognized in the freedoms protected under the Bill of Rights."

The Wing Luke Museum in the International District was a great way to understand the complicated history of Asian immigrants in the region. Ling, who has been in the country 12 years, gave us good insight into the experience.

The (landscaping) Olmsteads

In our trips around the country, we are delighted when we can view the work of Frederick Law Olmstead. Fred was a proponent of “natural” vs. “formal” landscaping and was lead architect for famous projects like Central Park and the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. His sons carried on the family legacy as the Olmstead Brothers, a company that had a tremendous impact on public spaces across the country. We've encountered many of them on this trip, including Spokane’s Riverfront Park, the University of Idaho campus, the University of Washington campus (and Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909), the grounds of the state Capitol and Seattle’s Volunteer Park. 

The 1909 exposition, regarded as Seattle’s “First World’s Fair,” laid the groundwork for the University of Washington campus, which is graced by historic buildings and a fabulous view of Mt. Rainier (on a clear day) from a promenade designed by the Olmstead Brothers.

 

Our visit to Volunteer Park, designed by the Olmstead Brothers firm, offered this unique southern view. On a good day (they say) we could see Mt. Rainier. Yeah, right.

Prohibition

We were curious about Roy Olmstead (not to be confused with the landscape architects) who was the central figure in a 1928 Supreme Court case about the 4^th amendment. Dave expressed his interest one morning to our hip and exceptionally helpful visitor center employee, who mentioned a discussion taking place that night with the author of a new book about the prohibition era in Seattle. The event happened to be at the Elliott Bay Book Store, which is an iconic site mentioned in many Seattle write-ups I had seen. So that’s what got us to the Odd Fellows restaurant before the discussion and signing next door.

We've both read the book and it presents an interesting take on Seattle history through the eyes of this social experiment in legislatively-imposed temperance. Of course, there were lots of loggers, prospectors, and fishing bachelors in the area, but the first saloons in Seattle were started by Germans, who sold their beer in friendly, family-focused settings (something I liked, having a lot of German blood in me.) However, many other saloons stayed open later, catering to the single male population for beer and “negotiated relationships.” That raised the ire of local prohibitionists, including prominent Presbyterian pastor Mark A. Matthews (which I didn’t like so much, having a lot of Presbyterian blood in me.)

As most of us know, the anti-drink folks eventually (albeit temporarily) won, and Washington state was dry from 1916 to 1933, having imposed its own prohibition prior to the ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919. But it’s apparent that selling, manufacturing and drinking alcohol didn’t stop; it just went underground. Roy Olmstead was a popular police officer who got caught up in the trade and had to leave his law enforcement job. He made quite a bit more money using his contacts and connections, becoming the biggest and most successful bootlegger in Seattle. The author mentioned that Olmstead was the largest employer in the area at that time, calling him “the Amazon of prohibition.”

Unlike the violent episodes in New York City and Chicago during this era, Seattle’s bootlegging operations were relatively tame. In fact, Olmstead was so nice he was dubbed the “gentleman bootlegger".

Also, continuing with our copper connection started in Butte, we learned that copper was the moonshining container of choice. When vats were confiscated by federal agents, the valuable copper was donated to the local Red Cross.

It was the “whispering wires” case that brought Olmstead down in 1924 and sent him and collaborators to prison on McNeil Island across the Puget Sound from Steilacoom. When the Federal “Drys” tapped into Olmstead’s phone conversations, they were able to identify his criminal behavior, and – conveniently – some of his scheduled drop-off and pickup appointments. When Olmstead was tipped off about the taps, he had some fun by sidetracking the Feds on several occasions, but it wasn’t enough to get him off. 

He appealed his conviction, arguing that the wiretaps, conducted without a warrant, were unconstitutional. Since this was a new technology, the debate made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where a landmark 5-4 ruling went against Olmstead. It was not until 1967 that the Court definitively ruled that a warrant is required before evidence obtained in a wiretap can be used in a criminal trial.

We were surprised to learn that, while in prison, Olmstead converted to the Christian Science religion and delivered “spiritual services” to prisoners and others; a ministry he continued until his death in 1966.

Seattle-Alaska connections

Another interesting theme for us is the connectivity between Seattle and Alaska. 

When gold seekers began rushing to the Yukon in the late 19^th Century city leaders alertly began marketing to easterners that Seattle was the best place to stock up and board a boat heading to the gold fields. Alaska, faced with thousands of men clogging up their trails and channels, required prospectors to bring one year’s worth of supplies with them, and the enterprising Seattle merchants came out with a lot more gold in their pockets than the adventurers, very few of whom found the riches they sought. 

In recent conversations, we’ve also learned that Seattle-area fishermen (like those in Gig Harbor) spend much of their summers in Alaskan waters fishing for salmon, returning home in the fall when the fish are plentiful here. 

And, of course. many of you have ventured to Seattle to board a cruise ship bound for Alaska.

So the connection is still strong today, even after 120 years.

In summary

While there were lots of fun history tours, culture, and tourist stops, I think Dave and I most enjoyed the time spent in the some of the many cool and distinct neighborhoods of Seattle, like Capitol Hill, Fremont and Lake Union. Would we come back? You bet!

And if you've read this far, I hope it was informative, and worth your time. Thanks, and here's our first Rainier shot. 

We enjoyed the view from the ferry on each of our five trips between Seattle and Bremerton, but we especially enjoyed the one when the "mountain was out".