the Urban Archivist

Georgetown brewery photographs

[ night demolition ]
[demolition revisited]
[earlier photographs]

The following was originally published on January 23rd, 2008 at Seattlest.com.

We hope this isn’t a growing trend. From the Croc to the Sunset Bowl to all of Seattle’s bars, it seems as though any place of which beer is an integral component is endangered with stifling regulation or closure or even the wrecking ball. The very latest, of course, is a portion of the old Georgetown brewery just a scant few days after the 104th anniversary of Georgetownian incorporation.

Of course we’re sad to see the Stock House go but you can’t argue with an uncooperative foundation that’s sinking below you. We’re happy the rest of the complex is staying, though Sabey really needs to get on with fixing the place up –see the bricks above and focus before it’s too late. Still, a lesson to all: perhaps cold storage is not the best adaptive reuse for a historic building.

Not all preservationists are unanimous on this issue but we’re glad the facade is tumbling with the rest of the building, if tumbling is going to be a building’s fate. We hate facadism and facadectomy. That some new building will go up in the Stock House’s place is a foregone conclusion and we’d rather it be something entirely different, though complementary, than something ultra-new partially hiding behind an old, skin-deep, context-free facade. Do we really want something like this?

But Sabey shouldn’t escape unscathed. Their demolition, rather than deconstruction, has looked a little rushed. While the exterior is nice to look at, for sure, it is the interior that is at least as, if not more, compelling. Check out This empty world’s as well as Scott Engelhardt’s gorgeous photographs of the gems inside the complex. We wonder how much of that can be and will be re-used. Judging by the way the demo was proceeding the other night, it did not look like much although Sabey has stated:

we will be able recycle or re-use a substantial amount of the demolished material (say 90%+). Exterior bricks will be reclaimed as much as possible for re-use on other Rainier Cold Storage buildings. Interior bricks are to be either recycled (if crushed) or made available to the neighborhood (if whole)… The timbers will be retained in a warehouse and reused. All metals will be recycled. Most of the simple building material recycling has already occurred (for example, Curt Thompson took quite a few old doors, Second Use came through taking plywood/fixtures, etc).

We’ve seen buildings painstakingly disassembled brick by brick, which would have been altogether fitting for a building of this vintage given that it resulted from hand-crafted, brick by brick, construction over a century ago. We feel for old buildings when they are taken down so destructively because we’re romantics and we think about the workers who originally built it with sweat, mortar, and more than a few expletives. Over the years, structures are given lives by the people within them and the activities that go on inside. Aside from mere aesthetics, this is why architecture still moves people. Judging by the crowds these last few days, the flowers stuck in the fence, and the all that has been written about them, it seems we aren’t the only romantics.

With the Stock House gone, we’d like to remind Sabey, and those who would poke, prod, and oversee them, that the remaining brewery buildings seem to have gone a long time without some basic repair. Might we suggest some repointing before you need to spend more money and social capital on demolition of the remaining buildings?

It would be nice to recycle some of the old materials in the new design but there is a limit with respect to how a new building should look. The Georgetown Community Council seems to want brick and classical design elements. Great… replace neo-classical Romanesque architecture with… um… neo-neo-Classical rounded Roman arches? JVA at MidBeaconHill blog and several of her commenters have it right: mixing faux-old brick and details with genuinely old brick is a terribly gauche. We like their idea of cladding it in metal or a mix of old and new materials. At the same time, we understand the GCC’s fright: the last thing Georgetown, or all of Seattle, needs is yet another piece of crap clad in remnant bits of mismatched metal siding (what is it with developers and their love of this stultifying style, anyway?) that lacks any visual coherence and unity.

Of course, now the Great Wall of Georgetown has been breached, allowing the filthy freeway to pierce and pollute the neighborhood’s once-pristine solitude and air. All ribbing aside, it is true. In those moments between the haunting and entirely romantic, albeit LOUD, bursts of train horns or prattling airplane engines, Georgetown has a remarkable, refreshing, and almost eerie silence. Airport Way can feel post-apocalyptically deserted at High Noon sometimes. Part of this solitude lies in its isolated location and the other part lies in its contrasts. Unlike other neighborhoods, the aural landscape here is not a constant drone. Rather, its silence is punctuated by the echoes of a distant truck rumbling along 4th Ave S, for example, or the sounds of industry. It remains to be seen how this development along Airport Way changes things.

Developers wield immense power in the definition of neighborhoods and their resultant quality of life. Like their influence, their responsibility extends beyond private property lines. Let us slay the sacred cow of private property right now and make steak from some of its fundamental, sacrosanct principles. Nothing exists in a vacuum; private property exists within complex urban zoning which exists within larger civic and social constructs. Developers are, therefore, morally bound to examine the impacts their work will have on communities and partially abide by them.

We’ve often felt that this intersection of Airport Way S and S Vale Street is the real heart of Georgetown. There are plenty of examples of ruined intersections in this town. It’s not very often that people lay memorials for buildings. Yet the Stock House even made burly dudes with tats and inserted metal weave flowers into the chain-link fence surrounding the demolition site. Sabey especially and Georgetown now have the civic obligation to do right by this crossroads.

photo courtesy of Greg Phipps in the Seattlest Flickr pool.

January 10-13, 2008
phila., penna.

I’ve always loved the old, non-standard state abbreviations. Since they were somewhat arbitrary, I remember –though I couldn’t pinpoint it to a year– when the Postal Service mandated the current and horribly bland two letter abbreviations. What with zip codes being the parts that really matter, I don’t understand why they cared anyway.

In any case, the abbreviation Penna for Pennsylvania was always my favorite, precisely because it made no sense. Abbreviating Illinois as Ill, for example, made intuitive sense. But Penna was just silly.

I first became aware of Penna’s power during the consumerist act of shopping, Mandrake. Every Friday night as a young child, my dad and I went grocery shopping for the week. I would often read labels to amuse myself. Many labels, especially those for canned goods, featured the text Reg. Penna. Dept. Agr. which was short for Registered with Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. Just like the Free Masons and the Post Office, Pennsylvania seemed to exert a disproportionate pull on the world. It must be due to the influence of Ben Franklin –a noted Pennsylvanian, Postmaster, and Free Mason.

I’ve never been to Philadelphia so I jumped at the chance to go. Lodging was mostly taken care of, so all I had to pay was airfare and food. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance check out outlying residential Philadelphia nor did I ride the subway. And there were places that I wanted to get to but didn’t get the chance. That’s OK; I feel like I will definitely be back here. I like this town thus far.

Most unfortunately, though, I have had exactly two songs stuck in my head the whole time here. The first is the theme to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the second is Boys To Men’s Motownphilly. A little more fortunately on the pop culture front, I keep thinking about Trading Places, the finest Eddie Murphy movie this side of Coming to America and a most excellent Eddie Murphy, Dan Akroyd, and Jamie Lee Curtis vehicle. I had to fight back urges to corner the frozen concentrated orange juice market.

Kate was the first to notice that there weren’t any walk signals. We later found a few at the really wide intersections. However, most of the streets around Center City are very narrow and few of them have walk signals. People wait on a red when there are cars and walk on a green. They also cross against a red when it is safe to do so. No cop hassles any pedestrian, as they like to do in various Seattle neighborhoods. Seattle could use more of a Phila. Penna. sensibility.

It seems that any city that really wants to promote walking –as the signs around Philadelphia seems to indicate– would give pedestrians the benefit of the doubt. Pedestrians can fend for themselves; they don’t need to be herded by cops who only walk infrequently, and only as part of their jobs at that. I imagine that drivers on the East Coast may just fear pedestrians, actually. A driver would hit a pedestrian only to have him/her stand up, pick up their detached limb, chase the driver down, and start beating on him/her with the dismembered appendage. The driver would then offer to take the injured pedestrian to the hospital just to stop the beating.

Aside from the oppressive weight of national history, much of the city center is like an architectural museum. The row houses, tall skinny buildings squeezed together, are positively charming. Along several blocks, they are commercial buildings with top chain retailers squeezed into relatively narrow storefronts. It’s a very refreshing sight, actually. At times, the upper floors are part of the store; at other times they are small offices or even residences. This is mixed use as it should be. It seems to be a great partnership of historic preservation and contemporary use.

My only complaint here is that the city seems to shit on its waterfronts. (Note that these are only my quick “windshield survey” observations.) At-grade highways hug both the Schuykill and Delaware rivers. Penn’s Landing attempts to make cursory overtones at engaging the waterfront but it seems to be a highly contrived and regulated space. It seems more of a semi-private commercial space than a true public space.

There are certainly plenty of docks and I’d hate to see much of the “working waterfront” go away. There is always a tension when it comes to recreational versus working waterfronts and far too many times non-working waterfront goes the way of private, luxury waterfront development. It’s sad that many cities can’t seem to find a balance of public recreational, private residential, and working commercial uses. On the other hand, a wholesale “publification” as Chicago did in the early 20th century isn’t so bad.

Of course, one thing that would have to happen is that industry would have to stop shitting in the water. The waterfront areas just outside the city are highly industrialized and the landscape, near the airport say, is pretty bleak. I have no doubt that much of the coloration and appearance of the water here is mere siltation and maybe tidal activity (as well as the time of year, perhaps) but I also have no doubt that it is polluted as well.

Regardless, I never felt connected to any water here in any local sense. I mean, I felt that, yes, I was on the East Coast and the Atlantic Seaboard –I love that phrase. However, the only connection to water that I felt was regional.

Next time that I am out here, though, I will have to test these biases and very preliminary observations. I’ll definitely ride the subway and I will check out areas beyond the city. After all, the Chesapeake and the ocean are nearby. I will also have to check out the universities and the neighborhoods. From the air, it looked as if the city had densely-packed residential areas. They were packed even closer than Chicago’s narrow lots, which is something I figure is about right for the East Coast.

I’ll definitely be back, though. I don’t know what it is but something about this place struck me quite unexpectedly. I really like this town. Maybe it is because, after having been in Chicago a week earlier, I felt I was once again in a big city. For an appreciable amount of time, I really didn’t want to go back to Seattle with its lack of meaningful transit choices, laughably paltry regional commuter rail, and stultifying insistence on consensus.

Of course, I don’t care much for Philadelphia’s very East Coast use of horns and surliness of some customer service staff. On the other hand, at brunch on Sunday we saw a fabulously Hot Chick wearing a thin and flimsy fuschia dress, wild hair that had Angela Davis aspirations, and facial hair that results from an irregular and less than meticulous shaving schedule. It was empowering to see that one can “make it work”, to quote Tim Gunn, quite well regardless of facial primping. That’s a kind of East Coast in-your-facedness that I can get behind.

[ jump to photographs ]

…still life at 11:L4 pm

october 6-8, 2007
astoria, oregon

There was a sign in the B&B warning us that we were in a remote area of the coast. I’ve never thought this area to be particularly remote seeing that there are several routes in and out and that touristy Seaside is just down the road. Still, apparently storms occasionally knock out power to the town, leaving residents to make do with alternate sources of power and light. Charmingly, the Rosebriar provided our room with a plain cardboard box. Inside was a candle, matches, and a flashlight.

There was a nice stillness inside the Rosebriar’s lobby. We sat in the part that was a living room. By living room, I mean an old-fashioned sitting room, or parlor, with armchairs and couches arranged around a coffee table. Often, as is the case at the Rosebriar, a fireplace, rather than a television, serves as a focal point, though not too much of one. The fire is mainly there to keep people warm while they engage in the primary activity of convivial conversation.

It was a wonderfully overcast day and the afternoon was giving way to evening. The drizzle outside made the stillness inside comfortable, relaxing, and contemplative. The coffee table had an open bottle of wine for guests. There were no others around and the counter was closed. Kate and I sat in the quietness and sipped wine as we pondered dinner options, both restaurant and clothing. We had come back just so that we could change from our day clothes to our evening, dinner clothes. This is how uppity life on the coast should be.

Astoria is thankfully further from the larger-city bustle of Portland thanks to the two lane highway in between. Two-lanes have more of a tendency to follow the terrain and work with or around it, whereas the larger four-lane, divided highways are more likely to flatten terrain to get where they are going. (They are still better than Interstates.) Two-lanes, then, make a more scenic route more intimately engage with the landscape. They pass through towns rather than skirting around them. They take their time. As a result, they make the drive longer and, thus, make distances seem further.

After passing in the blink of an eye through small towns, US 30 enters Astoria. Here, it properly bifurcates into two, one-way streets. This is the proper way highways should pass through larger small towns. It creates two main drags and potentially doubles the linear footage of the business district.

Astoria simultaneously feels properly coastal as well as touristy, with public accesses here and there peeking through remaining bits of working waterfront. The remnants of a waterfront railroad trestle form the basis of a new pedestrian walk along the river. One is just as likely to find restaurants and boutique-like shops on the water as one is to find warehouses. Piles from old, removed piers poke above the water line at low tide. Downtown lies just off the waterfront. Antique shops –a mainstay of touristy locales– can be found scattered among local sports bars. Residences climb up the hill behind downtown onto the bluffs.

This layout, with impressive Victorian homes leading up the bluff, speaks of a certain historicity that is absent in much of the Northwest. It harkens back to the Old Money East. In fact, Oregon’s oldest city itself is named for millionaire John Jacob Astor, whose Pacific Fur Company set up a trading post in what was to become Astoria. The city became an important port and economic hub. Eventually, the seat of Clatsop County government sat in Astoria.

Downtown, though somewhat run down, shows plenty of evidence of Astoria’s heyday. Some of the old buildings are taller and grander than what one would expect of a town of just under 10,000 residents. But when you are named after one of the country’s original millionaires, and living off his bankrolled ventures, you can afford to dream big. Nothing lasts, though, and eventually the declining or relocating fur, timber, and seafood industries left the town a sleepier place. Today, bed & breakfasts capitalize on all that sleep while antique shops sell off the surplus of finely-aged junk that mysteriously gravitates toward this neutron star of history. The result is a dense cluster of history –of the non-indigenous, white person type, that is– surrounded by a relatively young space.

I’ve heard tell that Astoria has a budding arts scene. Seeing all the little galleries and such downtown confirms this claim. Is it the location, the history, or the natural beauty that inspires artists? I think it’s the weather. It is perfect for the introspection, and even downright depression, that produces some of the most compelling art. The isolation probably helps, too.

It was October; it rained the whole weekend, as it should have. I’ve only ever been to Astoria when it was cloudy. Even last year on my visit to Seaside, where it was sunny, the day had clouded over by the time we drove into Astoria. This is probably as it should be. To an outsider like me, Astoria’s mystique and charm is partially dependent on clouds. I can’t imagine the cognitive dissonance I’ll feel if I ever go there during the sunny month. It’s certainly a romanticization on my part; however, coastal Oregon is naturally misty, overcast, and wet. I like the rainy overcast weather. I think I have the opposite of SAD.

Unfortunately, there are some downsides to this idyllic, romanticized, and somewhat isolated coastal living. Like anywhere else, Astoria wrestles with its share of issues when the tourists go home. The debate over an LPG terminal on the Columbia has been raging for a while now. While walking downhill toward downtown, we saw a flier publicizing a community meeting concerning condo development. Although Astoria’s downtown is gorgeous, it seems a bit small for the population. There is not much going on after dark, except for the bars. At the coffee shop, the barista told us of the high incidence of alcoholism and drug abuse. After three years, she was moving back up to Seattle.

Culturally speaking, I knew that I was safer letting my “freak flag” fly here than, say, in Golconda, Illinois. But still. While walking around, I noticed a few hicks looking somewhat incredulously at my outfit out of their car window. My somewhat goth-inspired look of black, lace-up knee boots, black-and-white stripey tights, a black skirt with pink piping, and an olive green Ike jacket might have passed with less of a blink in Portland, for example, so I was little more self-conscious about it in Astoria. It’s odd: sometimes when travelling and away in smaller locales, I’m more likely to tone down some of my smashing, extra-ordinary looks. Sometimes, I don’t cross any gender lines at all; it’s an issue of (perceived) personal safety. Other times, like this one, I apparently throw caution to the wind, despite self-consciousness of the counterproductive variety and with more than a little internal mental debate.

Perhaps I’m too sensitive at times. This is Astoria, for fuck’s sake, and these parts of the Pacific Northwest, unlike the Inland Northwest, are mixed bags of strange animals. The very idiosyncratic sense of individualism here can lead to strange forms of tolerance. I’ll take mere tolerance over outright mockery or threats any day of the week.

On the other hand, if there was ever a town more lubed up for heavy investment by The Gay Dollar, this one is perfect. In fact, it may have already begun! There was a gregarious gay couple at one of the downtown galleries who sounded like they lived here, at least for part of the year. What with the nice restaurants and places to sample nice wines, for example, Astoria has potential to be a regional, get-away mecca of fine taste, style, class. Coldwater Creek Cannon Beach and simultaneously family-friendly and promiscuous Seaside are both far too heteronormative. Additionally, all its natural beauty, with its outdoorsy opportunities, is a nice butchy counterbalance to it’s potentially foppish polish. Astoria could be the quintessential, idyllic, reasonably quiet, “on the coast” vacation spot.

Until such a glorious day dawns and even hopefully ever after, Astoria remains, for better and sometimes less better, further away and more isolated than it appears on a map.

My thanks to colleague and native Astorian, Shannon Lynch, for sanity-checking this post.

—[ jump to photographs ]—

One thing that has frequently dismayed me about some of my first-generation Polish family, quasi-family, and acquaintances in Chicago has been their xenophobia. A geography professor at UIUC once stated that many immigrants arrived in the U.S. exposed to one set of prejudices only to continue practicing them here. It seems, though, that too many also took up new prejudices, especially against other ethnic groups. I don’t just single out the Poles here; every ethnic, religious, national, and social group –even mutt Americans– have done the same over this country’s history.

I mention the Poles, though, for several reasons. First, I am Polish, so this is my first-hand experience. Secondly, along with Mexicans, Poles make up the two largest ethnic populations in Chicago. Most importantly, however, I have observed that –ribbing, misunderstanding, and agitation aside– the two groups are cut from remarkably similar cloth, if not from the same bolt of fabric. Whenever I have mentioned this to some of my more close-minded Polish compatriots, they looked at me like I was crazy. But the evidence does not lie: the intense Catholic faith, the popularity of soccer among even those born here, and the propensity for accordions in their respective folk music traditions.

What really convinced me, though, occurred sometime around 1998. Growing up, I had frequently heard complaints about those Mexicans… well, all the time, but more often about the time of Cinco de Mayo. “Why do they honk their horns and fly large flags out of their cars?”, “Why are they so wild?”, “Isn’t it illegal to have a flag hanging out of your car?”, and so on. Perhaps the Poles were upset that the Mexicans had upstaged their more reserved, northern-European, Constitution Day celebrations a few days earlier (May 3rd).

But in 1998, things had changed. That year, I remember walking down to my local 7-Eleven to pick up a Sunday paper; it was around May 3rd.

That stretch of Belmont Avenue (between Oak Park Ave and Narragansett) was a somewhat Polish area, though it was more Polish further east at Belmont/Central. At this longitude, Belmont Avenue enters somewhat of a transition area nearing the western city limits. As a result, it starts subtly blending into near-suburbia (which itself is more city-like than classically suburban). Back in the 1970s/1980s, this used to be a landing area for white flight. Whites fleeing the Mexicans and blacks populating the city interior moved out to these fringe areas if they did not want to go fully suburban. My family fled Cicero & North Avenues and landed near here, about a mile north, just a hair over the city limits, actually. I say this not as a boast, just as a sober assessment and matter of plain fact. Much is, and should be, talked about white flight and real estate practices and social-civic relations; at the very least, this experience gave me a chance to experience first-hand what this was/is all about.

Yet, migrations have this tendency to change over time. Sometimes, they even reverse themselves. Many of Chicago’s more central neighborhoods, of course, are gentrifying now. As a result, the ripple of affordable housing has moved outward toward the city limits. Beginning at Belmont, at this longitude (6400 West, let’s say) and proceeding southward toward Diversey and beyond, the neighborhoods are now predominantly Mexican. to the north, they are a mix of Polish and other with increasing numbers of Mexicans. Having driven and biked Oak Park Avenue (6400 West) many many times during my years in Chicago, I had begun noticing this small change in the ethnic make-up of the area.

Let us return to May 3rd-ish, 1998. I had obliviously walked down toward Belmont that Sunday morning afternoon. As I neared the 7-Eleven lot, some car horns caught my attention –they were attached to Polish flags waving precariously outside passing cars. Is it legal to have such a large flag flopping so dangerously outside your car??? What’s more, at the curbside were young kids on bicycles. They were waving at passing cars; they had Polish flags attached to their handlebars. Young children, Mandrake! Why must they be so wild??? Who are these hooligans? Oh yeah… look at the date!

I felt somewhat vindicated by the spectacle that day. But I still met with incredulous responses when I dared suggest such blaspheny as Polish-Mexican similarities. Hard core evidence would not come until I visited Chicago for the holidays last year (2006). I sat in my mom’s kitchen over the break and thumbed through a Polish Catholic weekly. I ran across an article written by a Polish mother whose son had met and married a Mexican woman while vacationing. She described how she got used to the cross-cultural ceremony, dual non-English languages, and strong ethnic customs from both sides. Given the forum, she cited the shared Catholic faith as something that helped smooth the union. Despite a different language and spicier foods, hey, the bride’s parents had very similar values with respect to family and worldview. Whadduyah know?

A few days later, I had the pleasure to take some close friends and K. on a “Tour de Tom”, a tour of places where I grew up and experienced things during my formative years. Our tour ended in Jackowo (yahtz - KO - vo), a neighborhood extending along Milwaukee south of Belmont, that has been a solid Polish enclave since Chicago’s founding in 1066AD. It’s sort of like the Ellis Island of Chicago Polonia, the first neighborhood in which a recent immigrant can find a small basement apartment, a work contact, and a slice of Polish rye.

I didn’t spend much time there while growing up, but some of the other Polish delis and groceries in other neighborhoods at which I shopped with my mom and uncle when I was a wee little one no longer existed. Furthermore, Jackowo remains the symbolic capitol of Chicago’s Polonia, on the North Side, that is. As a result, it’s so overwhelmingly Polish that it provides vivid visual and social snapshots of a Polish enclave to anyone who does not know what such a place might look like.

While walking around, I noticed the above two examples and managed to get a few half-hearted shots of Chicago’s Polish-Mexican fusion. At one or two stores, I might have even noticed intermingled Mexican and Polish periodicals. Given the published account that I read and seeing examples in the landscape, the evidence seems undeniable. I’ll need to go back and document more examples.

Of course, part of it is the sense of vindication in the face of people thinking I was hitting the wyborowa too hard. On the other hand, there is something more fascinating in play here. Go to any city’s “Chinatown”, for example, and the notion of Pan-Asian fusion is understandable, spatially anyway. The ethnicities are next-door neighbors. But here in Chicago, though, we are seeing trans-oceanic fusion. While these ethnic groups remain individual, with their own traditions, cuisines, and customs, there are examples were they are coming together and building a new identity in which some of those aspects are re-negotiated, expanded, and shared. And those unions, intersections, and broadenings of horizons –rather than fences, walls, and neighborhood flight– is what “America” really means.

So after nearly 5 years at the Blauhaus (above), I have moved out of the University District. I’ll miss walking by Scarecrow and Fire Station 17, for certain, but what with Tubs having gone under, is it worth it anymore? Next thing you know, the West Side Story-esque, middle-of-the-street fight between smokers congregating outside punk/hipster dive bar The Monkey Pub and frat bar Dante’s across the street will never materialize. And with the changing of Pete’s Pizza –the Calzone King!– to Piccolo’s a few years back, the neighborhood has just gone to pot.

I’ll miss the blossoming cherry trees along that block of 53rd Street as well as the looming landmark tower of Saint Cassius Clay Catholic Church Blessed Sacrament Parish. It always looked ominously Medieval on a misty winter night with the full moon behind it. Mostly, though, I’ll miss that porch and, especially, the lovely people that made it home for so long. It was a house periodic, though not unusual, turnover of hausmates. After a few iterations in the last few years, we finally got a nearly ideal foursome together.

For the past year, since I started working in Fremont, I felt like I’ve abdicated my self-imagined throne as mayor of the Ave. Since I walked it at least twice a day from 40th St to at least 47th, I noticed all sorts of things about that street: little things, stupid things. Most interesting to me, though, was the upper (northern) portion of the Ave, above 50th Street. I’ve always adored the twin intersections of Brooklyn/50th and Ave/50th. They are busy corners with lots of action, good and bad. But the “headwaters of the Ave” as I called, with its continuing evolution, captivates me. I enjoy exploring new developments up there; they were somewhat beyond being oriented toward campus. They were “real people” living up there mixed in with the campus crowd. As a result, the Headwaters hosted Real People things like the Saturday Farmer’s Market or the dive-y Knarr tavern.

Down in the lower portions, though, it was more campus-town, with all the trappings that some with that designation. Largely due to school, I frequently ran into people on the Ave. Sometimes it was friends and/or colleagues, other times it was just familiar faces. Whether it was a simple nod and smile or a conversation, it felt genteel and right to stop and chat with people on the street. My job in Fremont took me away from that. Luckily, this fall I’ll be on campus again, which means that I’ll ply the Ave once again. Although I won’t be living nearby anymore, I’ll still walk the Ave like I own the place. If it’s good enough for Don Kennedy and that other absentee landlords, it’s good enough for me.

I moved into the pink haus (as yet unnamed) at the top of August, just over one month shy of my fifth anniversary of moving to Seattle. My partner, K. had gotten a job back in Seattle and we decided it was high time to start living in sin. We’ve been trying to get the place unpacked and the second-bedroom closet room put in order. We’ll eventually decorate to give the place some soul.

Although it lacks a porch, the haus is downright cute. I’ve always been unable to trust places without at least two floors. Like the Blauhaus, this one has a “daylight basement” formed by the side yard sloping down to reveal a basement wall exposed to the back yard. Also, I remain on the odd side of the street. I’ve never trusted even-numbered addresses, either.

Although there is less space in this house, it is a very well layed out space. The largely unfinished basement has one finished room, a spacious bedroom. There is a laundry area as well as on open area with shelves on the three walls lining the front footprint of our part of the house. It is a perfect space for a downstairs office, one in which somebody would sequester him/herself to pound out the remainder of a novel or to bury oneself in mountains of photographs and documents. The stairs come down in the middle of space and are not walled in; I love love the raw charm of fully exposed stairways. I also like that the furnace and boiler are fully accessible and not enclosed. On the one hand, it conveys both an acknowledgment and a pride in the processes of modern living. To some extent, a basement ought to highlight the utilitarian beauty that a basement naturally possesses.

The upstairs, on the other hand, is nicely finished. There are hardwood floors. There is a nice, though smaller, bedroom, too. Being right next to the bathroom, we chose this room to be our closet room. K. and I both have lots of clothes and, especially, lots of shoes. Before moving, we decided that we would need a second bedroom just to house our wardrobes. With a little bit of construction, we’re almost done with it.

I’ve always thought that closets in most houses are utterly useless. They never hold one’s clothes just right and they are frequently afterthoughts. It would be better to give that space to the room and have people decide for themselves where/how to put clothes. they usually never offer good access or full views of your clothes. This last point is easily understood when a deep closet uses a regular portal doorway. One has to attempt to walk into a space that was not constructed to be walked into. But even closets with double doors or those cheap folding doors never seem to be adequate either. As a result, I have become convinced over the years that the only good closet is a walk-in closet. And in our case, that walk-in closet is the whole room.

As much as I am enamored with early 20th century wardrobes (especially Art Deco styled ones), and as lovely as they would look inside a walk-in closet (or a regular bedroom, for example), we just can’t afford them. So, for that reason, we built some utilitarian closet racks and shelves. Overall, a much better solution to sorry state of clothing storage in 20th century housing.

—[ View some pictures ]—

Editor Dan posted a piece today about water and, essentially, the cult of bottled water. The subject was covered nicely by a very good Fastcompany article.

The article delves into the history of bottled water, stating that the phenomenon is hardly new:

We are actually in the midst of a second love affair with bottled water. In the United States, many of the earliest, still-familiar brands of springwater–Poland Spring, Saratoga Springs, Deer Park, Arrowhead–were originally associated with resort and spa complexes. The water itself, pure at a time when cities struggled to provide safe water, was the source of the enterprise.

In the late 1800s, Poland Spring was already a renowned brand of healthful drinking water that you could get home-delivered in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Chicago. It was also a sprawling summer resort complex, with thousands of guests and three Victorian hotels, some of which had bathtubs with spigots that allowed guests to bathe in Poland Spring water. The resort burned in 1976, but at the crest of a hill in Poland Spring, Maine, you can still visit a marble-and-granite temple built in 1906 to house the original spring.

This makes a lot of sense. The turn of the 19th-to-20th century was a heyday for the sanatorium movement. Resorts and health spas were sprouting up all over the country. Frequently, they were situated in locales where some natural feature, usually the water, was purported to have restorative, medicinal properties. Some emerged as a result of the fight against tuberculosis. Others, like the infamous Battle Creek Sanatorium, were founded to promote rest, healthy living, and temperance. In Battle Creek’s case, the ulterior motive was to promote the cereals produced by religious zealot quacks and sadists, the Kellogg brothers.

But it wasn’t just an American phenomenon. Europeans, and presumably cultures the world over, had been revitalizing themselves with healing waters for centuries. The waters of Baden Baden, Germany were even known to the Romans. Coming from a Polish background, I am quite acquainted with the concept of healing waters and resort spas. My family come from an agricultural background. Naturally, understanding water chemistry is fundamental to understanding its effects on crops. However, as with any type of non-industrialized agriculture, there is also a fair amount of folklore, superstition, and junk science involved. I believe that, as a result, my mother is a firm believer in such “water[s] of life”, be they secular or religious in provenance.

Belief in bottled water does require a leap of faith. It is crystal clear, after all. We must somewhat blindly accept, then, that there are quantitative differences between clear Evian, clear tap water, and clear Propel Fitness Water. To help us, ad copy on the labels may give us graphs and charts or pseudo-scientific buzzwords. It all wreaks of late-night infomercials, though. It reminds me of an Onion article entitled “Revolutionary New Insoles Combine Five Forms of Pseudoscience”. The end result of such faith is that the sources of the water, natural and human-made, become sacred places. After all, liquid water is the key to life as we know it and the Earth is its reservoir. Regular water can be gotten anywhere but the sources of mystical water are the temples of life.

Closer to my current Pacific Northwest home, there is the central Washington town of Soap Lake. It is named for a body of water that possesses an extra-ordinary amount of some sort of fish-like oil, minerals, and exquisite mud. This, according to native locals as well as Native Americans, endows the lake’s waters with healing powers. Even the Chamber of Commerce is on the take. A large sign at a parking lot near the visitor’s center says the lake

…contains 17 minerals and an Ichthyol-like oil. The only comparable water in the world is Baden in Baden, Germany.

Cowboys and settlers learned of the health-like qualities of the bouyant water from the Indians, who, for ages past, sent their ailing to bathe in the great spirits “Smokiam” or “Healing waters.”

This was a favorite campsite for Chief Joseph & his people. White men named it Soap Lake because of the soapy feel of the water and the “Suds” that formed along the shore.

This is indeed a God-given body of water for the ills of mankind.

I remain dubious of the water’s restorative powers. IT’S JUST KINDA OILY WATER, PEOPLE! On the other hand, I whole-heartedly agree that Soap Lake’s mud is truly exquisite. I have a fond affection for mud. It is one of the finest substances on Earth. Soap Lake mud’s wonderful texture may just very well be a result of the lake’s unique hydrogeology; with that I can agree. Whether or not it possesses any powers is irrelevant to me; it just feels nice. On my sole visit, I enjoyed wading in the lake and feeling the mud between my toes. Meanwhile in the distance, an older man was sitting in it with only his chest and head poking out. Was he just cooling off and relaxing? Or was he hoping that the healing waters would restore his manly vigor as they washed gently over his tired genitals?

Perhaps that is what is driving our desire for The Water. Optimistically, we are like Fox Mulder: we want to believe. More pessimistically, though, we need to justify the expense. Yes, we’d rather pay for water than drink free tap water because, look, it has ludicrous amounts of vitamins and minerals! We are quite willing to pull the wool over our own eyes.

What we see in Soap Lake, then, is an unfolding, embellished narrative. It is simultaneously plausible yet epic. There is no other water on Earth like it! Agreed; there is also no other water exactly like the agricultural run-off enhanced Mississippi River either. The basic legendary narrative of Soap Lake is similar to that of Poland Springs, Baden Baden, or any of the numerous other places where mundane water is somehow miraculously different due to some hydrological nuance. That singular detail makes the story compelling. We can’t entirely explain the why so we ascribe mystical properties to it. Finally, we extend this narrative onto the place that is its source.

Some feel compelled to make pilgrimage to these great temples. This helps explain the sanatorium movement. It also helps explain Lourdes. But these days, that is not what the super-majority of bottled water consumers desire. Most just want the proverbial t-shirt. After all, why flock to some boring place out in the middle of nowhere in these modern days of freight-shipping and FedEx when you can just buy the active ingredient at the grocery store or, better yet, have it delivered to your home? One can always take the 360 degree virtual tour on the web. (One can even buy holy waters at discounted prices!) The nice thing about bottled water, at least, is that it is an actual, physical artifact of the source. The image of place that the label and adverts hawk comes with a genuine, carefully-harvested piece of that place.

Or does it? According to the Fastcompany article:

Our desire for Poland Spring has outgrown the springs at Poland Spring’s two Maine plants; the company runs a fleet of 80 silver tanker trucks that continuously crisscross the state of Maine, delivering water from other springs to keep its bottling plants humming.

This underscores the sham-potential of place. We are buying the idea that this is Super Awesome Bottled Water X directly from its mystical source. It is the Disneyfication of water. Brilliantly, it operates on this basic building block of life itself. An absolute slam dunk, as they say, for marketing. Moreover, it scales nicely. Not only do we have natural spring water these days, but we also have “fitness water”, vitamin water, super-oxygenated water, and ozonated water.

Snake oil and flim-flam is alive and well. I once had a skin condition for which my mom took me to see a homeopathic-like person. She sold us some Enhanced Colloidal Silver Liquid that claimed to contain the optimal ppm (parts per million) of pure elemental silver. It looked and tasted a lot like tap water. Being a night owl, my mom went shopping several months later at her local large chain grocery store where she saw this woman, who claimed to buy only organic straight from farmers, doing her grocery shopping as well.

I must admit that I myself have indulged in a little bit of flim-flammery myself. It is, however, non-profit and personal flim-flammery, so that makes it acceptable. Due in part to my undergraduate background in the natural and earth sciences, I have cultivated my innate draw to rivers, seas, and other bodies of water. From about 1994 to 1999, I had made an effort to bring back with me a bottle of water and sediment from the various places to/through which I traveled. My acumen spans Maine’s Atlantic ocean to San Francisco’s Pacific, a bit of Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico just south of New Orleans. When others have asked what I wanted as a gift from their travels –well, as a result I have a nice flask of water from a French river.

Aside from amassing eclectic bottles and sediments, as well as waters of interestingly and vastly differing clarity/turbidity, I suppose that I possess a somewhat unique collection of place-based souvenirs. But these don’t really mean anything outside their natural context. The uniformly placid water in these bottles does not convey the mid-continental immensity of the Mississippi, for example, or the cold waves pounding the rocky Maine coast or the freighter-swallowing aloofness of Lake Superior. Moreover, the waters and their sediments are often not even representative of the areas they come from. In the end, their only worth lies in aggregate: they represent (a small fraction of) the places I have been, nothing more.

These natural trinkets are a bit troublesome, too. I have not been able ship them by air from my native Chicago since that would probably not be a smart idea. On the other hand, surface shipping might result in mass breakage. But the most annoying thing about it –something I had not thought of when I began the collection– is that, being unpurified and unfiltered, the bottles contain organic matter mixed in with the fluids and sediments. Organic matter decomposes. Periodically, I have to “burp” or vent the bottles to relieve pressure build-up.

I once vented Great Salt Lake. In it’s normal location, where I collected it, the lake contains lots of dead, organic matter. The entire house, both floors of it, stunk for the better part of an hour before it finally aired out. I’m considering pouring the Great Salt Lake, maybe even the entire collection, down the toilet. After all, I am perfectly capable of generating saline water of disagreeable odor myself, on demand.

Perhaps I’ll even start my own sanatorium. I’ve somewhat secretly harboured this desire for a number of years now; I’m positively enamored both with frightening-looking, fin-de-siecle machinery and the outlandish purposes for which it was built. It’s the charming combination of Rube Goldberg and steampunk that tickles me. Unlike the sadist Kelloggs, however, my sanatorium will be devoted to healthy indulgence, tantalizing fetish, and “moral pollution”. For those into that sort of thing, there will be peeing! For others, different fluids of life! As for nutritional fluids, I will stock more representative examples: beer from Baden Baden, wine from France, and vodka from Poland.

This post is a synthesis of two posts and a few e-mail conversations. One post contained preliminary field notes that I penned while in Seaside. The other was a post to Seattlest in which I wrote of a specific incident. As always, I used it as a vehicle to work in additional observations and irreverent tangents. The e-mail conversations took place after my Seattlest post had received some responses in defence of Seaside.

field notes

April 27th, 2007
21:17h

checked into hotel… people wandering hallways… drinking Coors… being loud… please advise

mystery solved; new mystery queued

April 29th, 2007
01:25h

We have confirmed that the Coors-swilling people are some sort of marching-band-like drum corps or drum and bugle corps or drum and fife band. We sideswiped them in town earlier when we were on the beach and they were walking around the promenade. Some of them were playing as they were walking. They have now returned and are occasionally tooting a horn or crashing a cymbal out in the parking lot. Musicians are trouble; out-of-town tourists are even worse. Woe befall the mixing of the two!

Tourism is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, tourists bring in the money. On the other, tourists bring themselves. Too many, it seems, leave their manners at home as if spending money on attractions gives them the additional right to disrespect others’ homes and act boorishly.

In another mystery, today seems to have been some sort of Sylvester Stallone marathon on two, if not three, cable channels. We had the TV on before going out to breakfast and on the town and there was a bunch of Stallone on. Later, when we came back for a late afternoon lounging, there was even more Stallone. We changed and left for dinner and more towning only to return to yet more Stallone. Finally, Tango & cash just ended. What gives?

On the other hand, this did give me a chance to realize something about Stallone. He must, obviously, be a deeply misunderstood person. After all, all of his roles –from John Rambo to Judge Dredd to any of the other roles he’s done– involve ostensibly one-dimensional characters whom the script tries to paint as more complex. I do not feel qualified to answer whether or not it fully succeeds so I leave this exercise left for the viewer.

in Seaside

re-written May 16th, 2007

Before I moved to the Northwest, I was in Seaside for a fraction of a beautifully cold and grey December day. I knew I had to return someday. Ever since my first visit to the Oregon coast as a Northwest resident, I have loved every linear foot of it. In September of Aught-Two after a trip to Newport, Oregon, I wrote:

The Oregon coast is more beautiful than the pictures that I have seen: broad swaths of beach, lush forested headlands projecting into the sea, stout moss-covered conifers shooting up to ridiculous heights. We alternate between overcast and sunny skies. In some places, the clouds inch up the cliffs and spill right onto the road. I find particularly unique the aerodynamic shape which much of the flora around here has adopted to better withstand ocean breezes. Though as someone with a natural science background, I know that the real reason for this is not that the flora has adopted this shape in advance to spite the winds but, rather, in order to look just as stylish as its neighbors.

Since moving here, however, I have wanted to experience more than just the natural beauty of the coast, of which Oregon has hoarded a disproportionate share. Informed by my East Coast experiences of New Hampshire’s three inches of coastline, I wanted to get more of a taste for what I have come to call slutty seaside towns. These are towns that are largely supported by tourism and, as such, build neon-lit, scantily-clad, and syrupy-sweet traps to cater to the crass whims of visitors –because natural beauty is not enough to keep attention. More accurately, it doesn’t generate sufficient cash influx.

Despite previous teasers, my first real taste of Northwestern slutty seaside towns occurred in, I believe, Long Beach, Washington –or perhaps somewhere else up the peninsula north of Ilwaco. Subsequently, I’ve visited Westport, WA and Ocean Shores, WA. I have also visited Port Angeles on a number of occasions, although I don’t consider it a slutty seaside town. Each of these places is different in the details and I’ve been hooked ever since trying to discover their nuances. Coasts need both secluded natural beauty, population centers with industry, and population centers with tourist amenities.

I’m happy to see that Seaside turned out to be the place that I expected and wanted it to be. True to its name, it is the archetypal slutty seaside town replete with an arcade, candy stores, souvenir shops, and snooty beach-fronting hotels that will be the first to go when the tsunami hits. From the sno-cone-shaped sno-cone booth to the scenery-blocking large hotels at the top of the beach, this place is worth its thread-count in cheaply-manufactured beach garments. Shops that sell plastic jewelry, kites, and muscle t-shirts seem to flourish while, at the back edge of downtown, a fabric and notions store announces that it is going out of business.

On the other hand, Seaside is more than just cheap trinkets and elephant ears. We have made a habit out of getting dressed up and dining in nicer restaurants, usually for dinner, in addition to delicious greasy spoons. On Saturday night, we eat at Girtles Lounge where we dine on steak and seafood, their specialities. Sunday evening, following our tradition of splurging on one $100 dinner (for two), we take in a sunset, superb beach view, and a bottle of wine at the Shiloh Inn’s restaurant overlooking the Promenade. At this time of year, just outside of the peak season, the quieter streets and the Promenade make for a nice evening walk.

Other local businesses also flourish outside of the tourist zone. I like the general layout of this place; it is simultaneously utilitarian and aesthetic. On the side of utility, Highway 101 brings one into town a little further inland. Here we find the McDonalds, Safeway, auto repair shops, and greasy, off-the-drag, burger joints and bars where mostly only locals eat. This strip is where one finds the practical necessities, at reasonable prices, for both townie and tourist. Here, we were met with genteel hospitality. When I popped into the Safeway for some ice cream and drinks to take back to our hotel, I ended up with the same cashier I had the night before. We had a nice chat during the transaction.

At Hwy. 101’s intersection with Broadway is the city hall. Though not out of the tsunami danger zone, it would hopefully better ride out one of the killer waves that those “worst case scenario” shows frighten us with. After all, vital institutions like city government, Herb’s Burgers & Beer, and Napa auto parts must be preserved at all costs. Is there any small town that can survive without a Napa?

forebears

Off the highway and closer toward the water, the downtown area is a mix of new construction and older structures which have managed to hang on nicely to the present day. The Promenade at the head of the beach was built around 1920. These bits and pieces of vintage construction bestow some historic pedigree to the area, which is only befitting given Seaside’s claim to a significant chunk of Lewis & Clark’s legacy. There seems to be a significant historical discontinuity in the landscape, though, representing the period since their arrival in the early 19th century and the early 20th century back to which some of Seaside’s physical historicity takes us. That gap is preserved more in the area’s historical agencies than in the built environment. Still though, at The Turnaround where Broadway Street ends and intersects the Promenade and touches the beach, there’s a statue of old Meriwether and William and their dog. They look out onto the vast Pacific Ocean.

Although Seaside proper very much symbolizes White history in it’s built environment, the surrounding natural environment reverberates with the echoes of the region’s Native American legacy. The south end of the beach, for example, is bookended by Tillamook Head, named for the nearby Tillamook Indians. Moving onto the Clatsops, for whom this county is named, the names and features of this busy corner of Oregon reflect the interactions of white and native cultures. Additionally, the buried remains under Seaside speak with the voices of its Native past:

The site of Seaside was first inhabited by the Clatsop Indians whose ancestors had lived for thousands of years before the coming of the white man [sic] in the far northwest corner of present- day Oregon…
Fourteen Clatsop villages are known to have existed. One, Quatat, stood at the mouth of the Necanicum; two others, Ne-ah-coxie and Ne-co-tat, were nearby. Indian artifacts and skeletal remains continue to be unearthed in and around Seaside. Building excavations have brought up draw knives, gouges, implements, wampum, and other trading and personal effects. A portion of Seaside west of the Necanicum was once an ancient Indian burial ground.
(Source: Clatsop County Reference Information)

There is power in naming and, at the very least, the names of First Nations predecessors have been retained in our modern geography and consciousness. (Insert standard disclaimers and post-colonial discussions of the treatment of Native Americans here.) This seems to be quintessentially Oregonian –and Pacific Northwestern, for that matter. Qualitatively speaking, there seem to be more reminders of the Native past here than many other areas of the country.

The end result of this extensive native history, white history, maritime past, and its built environment is that it feels less of a disjunct, incoherent, and culturally shallower place like Ocean Shores, for example. I appreciate that Seaside has a proper downtown, too, unlike Ocean Shores which seems more of a loosely aggregated collection of buildings spread out over an area that is less than walkable. Seaside’s downtown is smartly tight, pedestrian-friendly, and readily identifiable as a business center. Rather than being just a playground on the ocean, Seaside evokes the feeling of a small ocean-front town, first and foremost. Subsequently, it is a town that has continually flirted with tourism during its history. One can imagine visitors in the 1920s strolling down this same Promenade. Unlike the present day’s casual schleps, though, these forebears were probably wearing their Sunday best, as was the mode of the day, every day.

archetypes

In addition to the high-minded history and urban planning, though, I love the lower-brow carnival atmosphere what with its video arcade, bumper cars and tilt-a-whirl, ostensibly out-of-place tall hotels, and ice-cream shops where one can get a soft-serve in a waffle cone. It is appropriately seedy and trashy, though oddly family-friendly. It seems as if one day during a bust cycle it woke up and realized that the path to economic viability involved pimping out its natural beauty and aggresively sleeping around with tourist dollars. This coquettish courtship with the tourist’s wallet is partially what I mean by slutty seaside town.

It likely does not come across when I say it without further context –and certainly the conventional wisdom would deem it negative– but I do not mean that phrase in a negative way. Rather, it underscores the fact that a slutty seaside town can put on different faces and acts to attract different people in order to tease money out of their wallets. It is the old-fashioned carnival superimposed onto a permanent, albeit seasonal, setting. The whirling electric signs, the music spilling out of shops, the bells and alarms of arcade games, and the chatter and yells of tourists are the barkers and the callers enticing people to step into each storefront.

In addition to the nostalgia, curiosity, and other positive aspects, it does call attention to the concerns –petty theft, drunkenness, and disorderly conduct– that can sprout up when banking on tourism. On the surface and to an outsider such as myself, Seaside seems to play this balance well. For both the positives and the negatives, then, Seaside is thoroughly befitting of its eponymous, archetypal name.

My Hot Research Associate pointed out that there is another balance at work in seaside towns in that there is room for every thing and everyone. During the daytime, these places are completely family-friendly. As the day winds into the evening, however, a somewhat different face emerges. As parents lay children to bed and settle in for a movie on the hotel’s cable TV, the streets outside become a time for roving groups of teenagers and young adults.

In a conversation with one of my post’s respondents, she pointed out that recently, Seaside has been trying to shed a more “slutty” image in favor of family-friendliness. There’s nothing wrong with creating a family-friendly atmosphere nor with addressing issues of safety and crime, for example. Yet I would caution against too much sanitation. I remember my family trips to Niagara Falls, for example. After spending the daylight hours going to various gardens and the Cave of the Winds with everybody, my cousins and I would split off in the afternoon and go to the tacky attractions we wanted see while our parents would go off to their boring ones. This is the essence of the slutty seaside/tourist town: it can please everyone. Make it too sanitized and you not only lose the teenagers and the young adults, but you also make the place clean and boring quiet and sleepy like other places down the Oregon coast.

cannon beach

Unlike its northern neighbour, Cannon Beach insulates itself from Hwy. 101, letting it skirt the edge of town. Here, the highway is lined with trees and beautiful glimpses of mountains and the sea. One must turn off to see that a town exists, lest one miss it entirely. As a result, it is quieter, more upscale, and ostensibly snootier than Seaside. Cannon Beach is Seaside’s nouveau-riche cousin, looking down at what it feels is the latter’s gaudy excess. Its downtown features more uniform architecture that tries to be quaint. While it largely succeeds in that respect and is, in truth, rather charming, it can be a tad boring. Moreover, it seems a little forced, a little too overdone, and too deliberately andstrictly planned.

Nowhere can this be illustrated better than to compare to the two towns’ Pig ‘N Pancakes. In Seaside, the PnP is on the main drag; it is a proper diner through-and-through — right down to the vertically-curved windows facing the street(there has to be a name for these). As an added bonus, it has a built-in souvenir shop. If your mother smokes cigars and whacks you on the back of your skull for being insolent, you take her to this PnP. If, on the other hand, your mother shops at Coldwater Creek and has croched door-knob cozzies in her home, you take her to the PnP in Cannon Beach. The PnP in Cannon Beach is up the main street a bit and strives to emulate that barn-like Americana style. It succeeds in the most sanitized way possible.

Needless to say, I entirely prefer Seaside’s busy, hectic, chatter-infused PnP.

Except for perhaps the beach itself, the town of Cannon Beach is better enjoyed on an overcast day. In full sun, it seems too idyllic, too uniform, and too much like it is striving for perfection. But on a cloudy day, with a stiff breeze coming off the ocean when one crosses a street perpendicular to it, walking into, say, Morris’ Fireside Restaurant for a hearty dinner during the fast-receding daylight of evening is cozy and inviting.

sedition

One of the great blessings of writing for a site like Seattlest is that I write for a much larger audience. As a result, I am fully aware that many people reading my wry commentary are not familiar with the context of me or my irreverent character. Thus, it becomes easier for my intentions to get misinterpreted. Having said that, I never shy away from making preposterous claims, subtle digs, or pushing the edge here and there. This is the occupational hazard of writing satire –as well as being prone to tangent.

Thus, in my Seattlest post–largely to counter the fluffy, saccharine, and over-optimistic marketing propaganda typically pumped out by boosters, chambers of commerce, and the like– I provided a more cynical and edgy summary of the differences between Seaside and Cannon Beach:

Seaside broadcasts cold, tacky density run amok. It is the natural outcome of the great march of progress that old Meriwether and William brought with them from the East Coast to this end of their journey. Conversely, Cannon Beach consoles you with warmth, shelter, and safety –like death.

I’m accustomed to the locales in which I live –from dirty gritty cities to sleepy university towns– getting maligned by outsiders and residents alike. I roll with the punches, defending my burgh at times and attacking it at other times. Whatever the case may be, any umbrage I express is entirely melodramatic theatrics. Dish it and get dished, I say, as long as it remains relatively civil and well-reasoned, or at least entertaining. So while I appreciate people responding in defense of Seaside after my Seattlest post, I couldn’t quite understand people being hurt by it. My comments were unfortunate, yes, insofar as I should have provided more context for liking the slutty nature of such towns. But uncalled for? That’s certainly debatable. Despite citizens’ best efforts, there will be people who denigrate it. Furthermore, irreverent, snarky, or downright nasty comments about one’s town are unavoidable. There is not a place on Earth that hasn’t been vilified. For what it’s worth, my alleged swipe at Seaside was far benign compared what others have said.

resolution

In retrospect, however, my elevator-ride summary was perhaps a bit too glib and did not offer the context that I appreciate both the tackiness as well as the sincerity of slutty seaside towns. Perhaps there is also the issue of the terminology of slutty seaside town. No matter how much I explain and define my own use of the term, it certainly has a negative connotation in general usage. I’m willing, then, to jettison the wonderful alliteration of my original phrase in favor of the phrase promiscuous seaside town. I’m not willing to abandon my central argument that tourist towns are economically promiscuous.

In any case, I was both surprised and impressed by several Seasiders’ rapid responses. Does civic pride run deeper in Seaside? Are Seasidites more sensitive to criticism? Are they tired of others dumping on the town? Or is it compensation for the ignominy of being lawfully unable to pump one’s own gas?

Never one to let sensible facts stand in the way of entertaining commentary, I suspect the answer is far more sinister. Clearly there is either a vigilant Seaside Anti-Defemation League in operation or the town is a mob front (perhaps they are the same?) and I have been given warning –albeit gently, as this is the Polite Northwest, after all. More frighteningly, I’ve yet to hear from the Cannon Beach delegation. Maybe they are actually the mob front quietly planning a hit?

In private electronic conversation, one Seaside resident confirmed our mutual suspicions that I had struck a nerve that neither I nor residents knew was exposed. Several other public comment-ors had penned properly visceral reactions. As a proud Chicagoan by birth, I certainly appreciate the great mobilisation that took place in defense of Seaside. This corroborates my assertion that, in this virtual age, place still matters deeply and that people take great pride in their physical locales.

Seattle, my own filthy waterside shanty-town, takes its fair share of hits. It rolls on in spite of them. Seaside is not beyond reproach! My advice: Buck up, little shangri-la, and let this experience toughen you up!

As to the coffee at Pig ‘N Pancakes, for the record, it is not that their coffee wasn’t fresh. Rather, it just wasn’t flavorful nor slightly caustic, like coffee should be. It was the skim milk of coffee: more water than what it advertised itself to be. I wasn’t going to be a snooty Seattleite boor and make preposterous demands for stronger coffee (after all, many people like watery coffee) but, as an analogy, it made for a nice literary device in my post.

In any case, I know for certain that I shall be back to visit more of this Oregon coast. On my proverbial plate, certainly, is a trip to Herb’s. Perhaps I will also buy a 10mm bolt at Napa, for if a car possesses any metric bolts, they are sure to be 10mm. Unfortunately, unless another store with an equally good selection of notions takes its place, it looks like I will have a compromised selection of buttons and zippers from which to choose on my next go.

Fortunately, as I seem to have consigned myself to several years of near-poverty, it looks like I will be vacationing in the off-season quite a bit. I generally like to visit tourist-ridden places both during peak and, especially, off-peak times. It is during the off-season that one gets a better flavor of what real life in a given town is like. Like Sylvester Stallone, towns like Seaside are often quickly painted as one-dimensional but, with a little bit of digging around, they frequently turn out to possess unsuspected depth.

—[ Jump to photo album ]—

During one of my very first photographic outings to Pioneer Square, I shot the following ghost sign. Notice the sign underneath the brown Duncan & Sons sign.

Duncan & Sons is apparently still in business though they have moved further south down on 1st Avenue.

That was in January of 2004.

Fast-forward three years to the other day. I went out into the field with an undergraduate Comm major to shoot some images of graffiti and ghost signs as well as some commentary for a short short film that he’s working on –Paul over in the Comm lab suggested he do something Urban Archives related (thanks, Paul!). So we went down to Pioneer Square and 1st Ave because I knew we’d likely find all sorts of interesting things.

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as we were walking up to the former Duncan & Sons building when I saw temporary chain-link fence set up in the adjoining parking lot. Fortunately, the large ghost sign painted on the side (north) wall was still there. The sign on the building’s facade, though, was another story.

It had been taken down and the underlying sign had finally been revealed:

I suspect that this must be the same as the extant Badger Meter Inc. with an office currently in Tulsa in addition to its Milwaukee, Wisconsin headquarters. Badger, get it? I more thorough internet search yielded the following historical sketch from Hoover’s, by way of answers.com:

Badger Meter, Inc. was born on the afternoon of March 8, 1905, when four Milwaukee businessmen incorporated the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company to fabricate frost-proof water meters for measuring water consumption in Midwestern homes. Badger’s innovation was a meter with a soft, replaceable cast-iron bottom plate that ruptured when the water in the meter froze, thus relieving pressure on the meter and safeguarding its mechanical parts. Since frozen water pipes were an all too common occurrence in Wisconsin’s bitter winters, Badger found a ready market and by 1910 was selling close to 3,700 eight-dollar meters a year.

…In 1919 Badger moved to a new facility that included the company’s first foundry. Now able to fabricate its own metal components, Badger was soon taking on job shop work for other Milwaukee manufacturers, including bronze castings for A. O. Smith Corporation and auto hubs and fingers for Milwaukee Automotive Supply. A year later it transformed itself into a national company by appointing sales agents for Chicago, Kansas City, Brooklyn, Denver, and Portland.

Presumably, that expansion made its way up to Seattle. What more fitting (har har) place for a fluid meter and valve company than the perennially soggy tidal flats of Pioneer Square? Without further digging into the dusty old city directories at SPL Central or UW Special Collections, I don’t know when Badger left the building and Duncan & Sons moved in. Apparently, the Great Depression hit Badger, like many companies, pretty hard. Yet, they persevered and business picked up during WWII so perhaps it was not the Depression that did them in in Seattle.

In any case, the motive and opportunity for archival research excites me as I bide me time before diving back into doctor(al) skool this autumn.

After nearly 13 months of Washington’s smoking ban, this week’s birdcage liner has written a front page expose on the proliferation of butts littering our public spaces. The feature article is worth perusing although it is somewhat light fare for a feature. After reading, file subsequently under “The Obvious — Mastery of — Tell Us Something We Don’t Know”.

There is a good reason for my snark that goes well beyond the Seattle Weekly bashing that is the height of Emerald City fashion these days. Way back at this time last year, we had a stellar undergraduate student work on an independent study project to document and investigate the effects of the then-only-months-old smoking ban. With more initiative and resolve than I would have had, she gave up sleeping in on Sundays and investigated several bar-heavy neighborhoods on the mornings after weekend debauchery –most notably Ballard, Capitol Hill, and Pioneer Square. Additionally, she took a ton of photographs. And unlike the Weekly, which spoke to only some deputy vice-komissar at King County Public Health, Beth went straight to the top and contacted Roger Valdez, head butt-snuffer himself.

I found his comments particularly telling of the bureaucratic mindset and of the militant zealotry that prevented anyone from actually thinking about the implications of the ban:

[Mr. Valdez] told me that most of the planning had been around how to deal with the expected onslaught of complaints about violations concerning the 25-foot rule. The number of complaints, however, turned out to be far fewer than expected. Valdez admitted that an increase in cigarette butts on city streets was never a consideration but acknowledged that it (as well as increased noise issues) is, indeed, a problem. Interestingly enough, Valdez noted that an increase in cigarette butts could be a positive thing because it shows that people are following the law.

Her full reflection and selected photographs can be viewed on the project web site. I can’t really criticize the Weekly’s skinny article too much cuz nobody cares what us academic types say, so it gives us a chance to piggyback our work on the popularity of a mainstream media piece while saying “we told you so” at the same time.

Personally, the execution and the draconian mean-spiritedness of the ban rubbed me the wrong way, which is why I, as a non-smoker, vehemently opposed the ban. The entire campaign was run on a very emotional –rather than factual– level reminiscent of the way certain presidential administrations run shop. With relative impunity, the majority felt free to run rampant over the minority. Furthermore, as Philip Dawdy so masterfully analyzed, it was a divisive campaign to vilify and dehumanize smokers themselves. Moreover, such dubious legislation resulting from a flawed initiative could easily be transferred to run any rights-curtailing campaign. The day that municipal units decided to redefine outdoor bus shelters as enclosed public spaces warranting protection of the 25-foot rule, I knew that the long arm of the law had reached too far.

At one time last summer, I had written a polemic piece about this whole debacle. And that was long after I had the chance to cool down a bit. I was annoyed by the nagging feeling that Mr. Valdez et al. despised smoking so much that providing ashtrays seemed verbotten for fear of encouraging smoking within the 25-foot zone, or breaking the law somehow by providing a venue for people to light up. It was mystifying how quickly any ashtray had been Stalinistically purged from the public sphere.

These days, though, we are trying to be more constructive. Therefore, we’ll end on a positive note by pointing, as usual, to the forward thinking of our neighbours to the Nourth, who realize that you can have your smoking restrictions while still providing for the needs of citizens who smoke.

Mr. Valdez, let us have some ashtrays!