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Between 1920 and 1960, Seattle grew from a backwater lumber town to a major center of manufacturing, retail, and commerce. The numbers tell the tale. In 1920, the population of Seattle was 315,000. By 1960, the city was 557,000 strong.
The rapid population rise was no doubt fueled by the rise of the aerospace industry leading up to and through World War II. But it was also fueled by a growing national awareness that the Pacific Northwest was a beautiful place to live with abundant water and wonderful access to nature, and was a nice base of jobs with growth potential.
It’s hard to imagine what living in Seattle was like in those critical four decades. There was no freeway, for one thing, but also no Seattle Center or Space Needle or professional sports stadiums. The tallest building in the city during those years was the Smith Tower.
It’s hard to get a feeling of the physical appearance of the city at that time by looking downtown; the landscape has simply changed too much. And historic photos don’t give you a sense of how people lived.
A great way to get insight into the life and times of the average Seattleite during those years, and to get a nice view of how the city expanded at the same time, is to take a tour of residential architecture.
The SunBreak Historical Architecture Team has plotted out a three street tour of three distinct mid-century neighborhoods in North Seattle.
We start in the 1920s and 1930s with a tour of a street in Ravenna. Start at the corner of NE 80th St. and 21st Ave. NE. From there, head south for one block.
The first thing you’ll notice is a wonderful sense of scale and beauty. This is the kind of street that real estate agents would describe as "Storybook." Nearly all the houses on this block were built in the '20s and early '30s, and few here have changed much in the last 80 years.
The prevailing style in residential architecture at the time was "revival," designs that mimicked earlier styles such as Colonial, Renaissance or Gothic. The houses on this street are brick Tudor style and they are charming. Most have three bedrooms, one or two baths and a full, unfinished basement.
Most do not have second floors, and, in the ones that do, the second floors usually have a slightly smaller scale in terms of ceiling height or door frame height: door frames here might be as short as six and half inches. The reason for the lower scale is that the architects, or more likely the builders, designed houses that had high street appeal, then fit the rooms in where they could. Check out the rooflines and the design embellishments like turrets, archways and high-peaked roofs.
You can’t help but admire the quality of the workmanship throughout the block. These homes saw families through the depression, helped raise the soldiers that went off to fight the Second World War and have served generations of families since.
One thing to notice: there are no street-facing garages. This was among the last of the pre-car eras and garages were very small, tucked away on back alleys, up the end of long driveways or absent all together.
In the 1930s, Seattle’s city limits weren't that far from here. Drive north from the starting corner and a half block up you see an abrupt change in house styles and even the line of the street: It takes a jog to the left and it's like you are in a different place.
Now, head up to Wedgwood and start at NE 82nd and 31st Ave. NE. This street has a totally different feel from 21st Ave. NE. Following the end of World War II, Seattle had an influx of returning veterans. Many were returning home, but others were new arrivals hoping for work or a safe place to raise a family. Some were soldiers who were trained or stationed here during the war and were impressed enough to come back to live.
Seattle wasn’t alone. There was a large Western migration after the war. Men in the war had traveled out of their hometowns and seen the country, maybe for the first time. After the war, they spread out around the country.
Seattle was in a bit of a pickle finding room for all those veterans. Almost overnight, Wedgwood was born. What you see on this street are the cute little VA homes, mostly built in the 1940s, that were originally built for returning Veterans or newly-mobile families looking for a new start. There is a wonderful similarity to all the homes, which are in a style that is often called "Cape Cod."
These are small homes, usually two small bedrooms, a small kitchen, a dinning room, a living room. one bath and maybe an unfinished basement. Because these homes, which are all over the North part of Seattle, are so small, many have been vastly remodeled, or torn down to make way for new larger houses. But this is not the case on 31st Ave. NE. This street looks about the way it must have looked in 1946, or '47. The wheel chair ramps on several homes suggest some people have been in these homes for some time, perhaps even original owners.
You’ll quickly notice how different they are from modern homes. There is a small, narrow one-car garage; post-war families were not wealthy and a car was a luxury. Inside, closet space is small because men usually wore a grey, black or navy suit and woman had a small wardrobe.
The men and woman who put Seattle on the map in the '70s and '80s were raised in such houses. They were beneficiaries of a lifestyle that took pride in modest ownership, hard work, and clean safe neighborhoods. These were children of the austere--the kids shared the extra room. These are the kind of homes that George Bailey made in It’s a Wonderful Life, the foundations of the baby boom.
As men returned to work, and as woman slowly, painfully joined the workforce, good times ensued. The 1950s saw swift but hard won economic growth and prosperity.
As the tour continues, head over to NE 73rd St. and 44th Ave. NE to see residential life as it was lived in the 1950s and early 1960s.
On this beautifully maintained block in the View Ridge neighborhood, you get a feel for the utopian, American Dream homes of this era. Nearly all the homes on this block and the surrounding blocks are in the "California Ranch" style of architecture. Three nice-sized rooms up, two bathrooms, generous living and dining rooms, and, compared to the houses on the previous two stops, a nice-sized kitchen. Most had a finished "rec-room" basement, probably wood paneled.
Outside, you’ll quickly notice that carports are more common than garages (the garages you see are most likely later additions). Owning a car in the 1950s was a status symbol that you wanted your neighbors to see. Your car said a lot about you.
Façade brickwork is ubiquitous, and many of these homes have some original landscaping which favored large lawns and smaller scaled plants and shrubs.
These were the homes of professionals who gave birth to the '80s and '90s entrepreneurs that currently define our city.
What might strike you about this three-block tour is how residential needs have changed so drastically from these homes during this time. Buyers now, fed a diet of insanely boring shows like House Hunters on HGTV, want giant closets, huge bathrooms, and enormous kitchens, and are indifferent to formal dining rooms. Today, most families grab a meal here and there.
For most of the past century, a bathroom was a place to quickly get in and out of. No one expected a home spa experience. You did your business, got out, and got on with your life. And families didn’t have the excess money to buy the goods that would fill the storage demanded by today’s buyers. Current consumers have so packed their closets and crawl spaces that their possessions have spilled over into a massive storage locker industry, something that no one dreamed of in the 1940s or '50s because no one needed it.
As these trends continue, it will put pressure on buyers in these three blocks to expand or rebuild these homes, and that is a normal process and not something to be scared of. None of the homes are, or should be, on the historic register. Most of them have long outlived their expected lifetimes.
But they tell us a story of how Seattle came to be the city it is. They speak of the hopes and dreams, and hard work that won the day here. Head out on a little trip, and pay homage to life as it used to be, before something else takes its place.
Pablo Picasso was the world’s first truly modern artist, and not solely in terms of technique. Before the term "branding" was a gleam in a marketer's eye, he understood the commercial importance of an artist’s public persona, actively pursued PR opportunities (he was constantly featured in Life and Look magazines), raked in money from appearances in movies and on TV, used the mass production of art as a way to scale his output, and created a complete, complex mythology around his life and art.
However, judging from the Picasso, Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris exhibit now at SAM (on view from October 8, 2010 to January 17, 2011), he never committed an artist’s worst sin: He never bought his own myth, or let it rule him.
The staff as SAM worked countless hours bringing this exhibition, the first to ever travel from the Musée National Picasso (which is being renovated) and the largest exhibition of the artist’s work in this country since 1939, to Seattle.
It is a testament to Picasso's prodigious talent and output that this blockbuster show, which you would expect to show signature works, or works from a particular period, presents you instead with more personal glimpses of the artist. Picasso’s strength as an exhibition is that it is a collection of works that were in the artist’s personal collection, works he never sold, works he held near, works he couldn’t let go. The exhibition is great not so much for its celebration of his iconographic fame as an artist, but in its celebration of Picasso the man.
Works from every phase of his life are on view. The exhibition includes 150 works, 75 paintings and sculptures, in 12 rooms, each room dedicated to a period of his life.
Picasso is noted for his frequent changes in style and artistic direction. He had a blue period, a rose period, a cubist period and so on and so on, and it’s fascinating to see how these changes were not due to his need to follow fashion, but were forced on him by personal joy, such as marriage and love, and tragedy, such as war and the death of family and friends.
Picasso was, for the most part, a figure painter; there are few landscapes in the exhibition. The artist loved the human figure and he loved to mess with it, transform it into strange shapes, pose it in freakish but revealing positions.
The beauty of Picasso is that the figures in this exhibition are his friends, family and, most importantly, the loves of his life. He had a luscious, exotic cadre of muses and they are all here: Fernande Olivier, his Bohemian first flame; Marcelle Humbert, whom he called Eva; Olga Khokhlova, the ballerina he married and repeatedly cheated on; Marie-Therese Walter, a 17-year-old he had a long affair with; Dora Maar, the seductive, mysterious woman whom Picasso shared the most tumultuous time of his life with, and who documented Picasso working on his undisputed masterpiece, Guernica; Francoise Gilot, who was 40 years younger than Picasso when their affair started and later wrote a book about him that, briefly caused a scandal for the artist; and later muses Genevieve Laporte and Jacquline Roque.
Picasso lavished great love and joy in his paintings of these women, particularly Maar who is the subject of a stunning collection of portraits in this exhibition. He clearly loved her, loved them all, and it’s obvious that he never wanted to give up any of his paintings of them. He kept these visions of his great loves with him until his death in 1973.
Best of all, this exhibition features multiple self portraits, starting with a nude self-portrait of 1906 and a cubist self-portrait of 1907 all the way to a wonderful self-portrait from 1953 which features only his shadow falling on the works in his studio. No artist in history, save van Gogh, has painted a more revealing series of self-portraits.
As a collection of personal art, the exhibition features many oddities, one-shots and curiosities. A small oil from 1917 features two woman running on a beach. It’s unlike anything else he ever did. Painted on a family vacation, it’s filled with wonder and joy. Bather Opening a Cabana (1928) and Bathers Playing with a Ball (1928) are also small oils that are lovely. There are works done in homage to Renoir and Velasquez as well as studies for larger, more famous works.
Many will be surprised by the many sculptures in the exhibit. The Jester (1907) is marvelous as is a strange sculpture of a woman from the 1930s made with the flotsam and jetsam around his studio. Two kitchen pasta strainers make up the head. Best of all is a wonderful head of a bull made from the seat and handlebars of a bicycle.
There is also a gallery of revealing, personal photographs of and by the artist. The best is by the famous photographer Robert Capa, who visited the artist in his studio after France was liberated from the Nazis in 1944. Picasso had stayed in France during the German occupation, and he was no doubt a thorn in the Nazi sides, a degenerate artist that was untouchable. After France was freed, everyone stopped by to meet the great artist, including the likes of Bradley and Patton. He was the center of the world then, the survivor. Capa’s portrait of him sitting in his studio surrounding by adoring onlookers tells the tale.
Make no mistake this is a major show. In a preview earlier in the week, staff from SAM and Museée National Picasso, Paris used the following words to describe the exhibition: milestone, landmark, thrilling, important, massive, stunning, awe-inspiring, and extraordinary. But don’t go expecting to be blown away by spectacle. The genius of this exhibition isn’t the way it screams to the heavens about the greatness of Picasso. Instead, the joy comes from seeing a lifelong, intimate portrait of a man at work, in love with his art, and his subjects.
Tickets are $23 for adults, $20 for seniors and military with ID, and $18 for students. Children under 12 are free as are SAM members (it has clearly never been a better time to become a SAM member). This coming weekend through Monday, the first 100 people--wearing blue--get in free. Your ticket comes with a time to enter the Picasso exhibit, to regulate the number of viewers at any given time, so don't buy in advance and show up late.
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When Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl presented her Proposed 2011 Budget of nearly $1.1 billion to the Sound Transit Board on Thursday afternoon, she had a sobering message: Faced with a 25-percent revenue shortfall since 2008 (amounting to $3.9 billion), Sound Transit will not be able to meet all the objectives in the planned 15-year time frame for Sound Transit 2 approved by voters in 2008.
The good news is that Sound Transit's project management toolbox no longer includes hiding under the bed and waiting for bad news to go away.
"No organization can confront an expected 25 percent reduction in revenues without asking--and answering--hard questions about priorities," Sound Transit Board Chair and Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon was quoted as saying in a Sound Transit release. "It is important that we address these issues now and continue to move forward with expanding the region's mass transit system as rapidly as we can."
Earl outlined a series of program realignments designed to keep Sound Transit moving forward, albeit in a trimmer, adaptable way. In a PowerPoint presentation given to the board, she broke down the projects in the ST2 15-year plan into five categories: Design & Construct, Keep Moving, Retain Only Limited Funding, Suspend, and Delete.
The shorthand is if a project is currently under construction and contract, it will move forward as expected. Below that, if a program has been planned, but is facing cost uncertainties, it will move forward if and until unforeseen obstacles or circumstances make changes necessary. Below that level lie real belt-tightening measures: Funding might be limited to studies, or projects put on hold pending funding partnerships or other funding options, or simply deleted (from the ST2 framework).
Tax subareas (north, south, and east King County, Snohomish County, Pierce County) are being looked at differently based on their available funding. But riders will still see increasing levels of regional express bus service, 78,000 of a planned 100,000 service hours.
As might be expected, projects and services in Seattle and North King County are the least affected by the revised budget--our portion of tax revenue is down "only" 16 percent. The U-Link line, already under construction in Montlake and on Capitol Hill, will continue as planned, as will the extension of the Link line from the U-District up to Northgate, though it will be delayed one year until 2021. The line north from there, planned to Lynnwood, faces more uncertainty.
To the east, the fraught debate over East Link (see also Seattle Transit Blog) has pushed that section into the "Keep Moving" category, allowing for more scheduling risk to enter the equation.
The Link line south from the airport is more deeply affected. Earl said the Link to South 200th Street was moving forward (though since planning was in the early stages, she could not promise scheduled completion or rule out cost uncertainties). More importantly, all Link south of the South 200th Street Station falls into the let's-study-the-costs-some-more category.
Other cost-saving measures according to Earl included a one-year delay in bringing four new Sounder commuter rail round trips on line and cuts in administration, research, planning, and insurance.
On one subject, Earl was resolute: "We will not decrease maintenance levels and we will keep our assets in a state of good repair." She pointed out that other agencies around the country had cut maintenance levels, but she felt such tactics were short-sighted.
As the effects of the recession linger, Sound Transit is holding the line, while wringing efficiency from every possible source. Earl confirmed that decreased construction costs and lower than expected bids for major projects could lead to cost savings. That said, she is, the rest of the Sound Transit team are hoping for, and projecting, region wide economic grow sooner rather than later.
In other Sound-Transit-budget and it-rains-too-damn-much news, Beacon Hill Station is leaking, and Sound Transit is having to repair the post tension cables at the Auburn Station garage and the Federal Way Transit Center. (Post tension cables entered our vocabulary with the announcement that their failure would bring down Belltown's McGuire apartment building.) In both instances, "Removal of failed grout pockets and replacement of the grease filled caps are necessary to extend the life of the support infrastructure." Repair for each structure is budgeted at $525,000.
Open any coffee table book of historic photographs, particularly one with old photos of your hometown, and the experience as you flip through the pages is always the same.
First, it’s whimsically nostalgic as you wonder how people could have every lived in such an age. Then, it’s curiously nostalgic, as you look closer at the workings of life in earlier times. Finally, it’s painfully nostalgic as you come to realize what has been lost forever, a building, a mindset, a way of life.
Turner Publishing Company has just released a new coffee table book that, for any long term Seattleite, has equal doses of all three types of nostalgia. Historic Photos of Seattle in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, with text and captions by David Wilma, is an excellent black-and-white trip down memory lane. And like all such trips, there are some good and some bad memories.
First of all, kudos to Wilma and Turner for selecting pictures from the recent instead of distant past. Pictures from the Victorian era are, for me, too hard to place in context. The city they represent is long gone, paved over and lost.
The photos in this book feature earlier lives of buildings, streets and festivals that are still close at hand. And by choosing this era to document, Wilma creates a much more evocative series of images.
Pike Place Market Street Fair, 1975, courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives
The book documents Seattle’s rise from a coastal hub of timber and fishing to a powerhouse city that flourished after the Second World War. Companies like Nordstrom and Boeing really came of age in these thirty years and this book does a nice job of reflecting the city’s rapid economic rise.
Wilma has selected a large number of photos from various archives reflecting the construction of the interstate highway system through Seattle, including our two floating bridges. It’s interesting to see how these roads dissected our city and reshaped it and it’s poignant to reflect that, just 30 to 60 years later these are the structures that we are currently arguing about replacing and repairing.
The book is heavy on images of the 1962 World’s Fair, and that is completely justified. The Century 21 Exposition made Seattle. It thrust the city into the national spotlight (including the cover of Life Magazine) and attracted such luminaries as John F. Kennedy and Elvis Presley.
It’s this section of the book that is painfully nostalgic. The ’62 Fair set out to showcase a glorious future where Monorails would whisk commuters around cities and winged cars would defeat all traffic. We’d be living and working on the moon in the 21st Century, cities would be streamlined, slender and bold, and space travel would be plush and common.
The Ford Company's "Adventure in Outer Space" is from the UW Libraries Special Collection.
One of the hands-down best photos is a shot of the Ford Motor Company’s “An Adventure in Outer Space” where visitors, in crisp vinyl airline seats, took a 15-minute space journey to Saturn, Mars and distant galaxies. I’d give anything to take that ride.
Unfortunately, the world hasn’t really happened that way and looking at the pictures of the fair reminds you that nothing ages faster than our view of the future.
There are also errors of inclusion and omission in the book. Seattle was a hotbed of dissent and protest in the late '60s and early '70s. In 1970, over a week in May, protests on the UW campus spilled over into the U-District and downtown and marchers, (including a 10-year-old RvO) closed down I-5 in response to America’s secret bombing of Cambodia and the death of four students at Kent State. Only one picture in Wilma’s book focuses on this fascinating time of social upheaval: a shot of a Gerberding Hall after a bomb explosion (no one was harmed).
There are also no shots of the wildly creative dress code of the sixties and seventies. Couldn’t we have a few shots of hippies on Capitol Hill? Blurry pictures of rides at the Fun Forest are no substitute.
Last days of the Seattle Hotel, from the Seattle Municipal Archives
Wilma also has selected an oddly large number of static shots of old buildings around the city, many of them still standing. There are six or seven shots of University Street (the Ave), but it doesn’t look all that different. Most of the buildings are still there, there are just more teriyaki and pizza joints. What’s missing is a sense of the culture of the times or an acknowledgment that the city’s population grew amazingly fast from 1950 to 1980, making the city more diverse, but also more divided.
Probably the best thing about Historic Photos of Seattle in the 50s, 60s and 70s is that Wilma hasn’t selected many too-familiar or over-used photos. It’s possible this is the first time many of these photos has ever been published. Flipping the pages is satisfying and informative. Perhaps a Volume Two could tell us less about how it looked to live in Seattle over three mid-century decades and more about how it felt to live here.
To fully understand the city of Seattle's economy, character, and beauty, you sometimes have to head out on the water.
The Port of Seattle has been conducting educational tours of key Port facilities to alert community leaders and media to the importance of Seattle's maritime industry and the many issues challenging that industry.
This past Wednesday, the Port hosted Ship Canal 101, an afternoon cruise from Fishermen's Terminal to the Fremont Bridge, then to the Hiram Chittenden locks, and back to the Terminal. The tour was narrated by many of the business owners and employees of the--surprisingly--large number of businesses in this short, narrow corridor.
There's no doubt that such tours are good PR, but that aside, there's plenty to learn.
Leaving from Fisherman’s Terminal, you get a great view of the size and scope of the city's Pacific fishing fleet. For all the talk of Seattle as a biotech center, a software empire, and aviation powerhouse, a large chunk of the city's economy is still tied up to the docks at the terminal, one of the major fishing ports along the coast prized for its protected freshwater berths (salt water is murderously tough on steel hulls), access to repair facilities, and transportation to waiting markets. The Port estimates that the activity at the port annually generates 4,000 jobs, half a billion in wages, $200 million in business revenue, and $37 million in state and local taxes.
Peter Philips, editor of Pacific Maritime Magazine and one of the tour's narrators, estimated the Bridge-to-Locks route of our tour was home to more than 22,000 jobs and nearly four billion in revenue.
Fisherman's Terminal is also home to the Fishermen's Memorial, a stirring statue dedicated to the fishermen who have died in the icy Pacific waters. Nearly always surrounded by fresh flowers, it is a stark reminder of the dangers faced by men who work the seas.
On Saturday, September 25, from 11:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m., Fishermen's Terminal will host the Fishermen's Fall Festival, which celebrates the return of the North Pacific Fishing Fleet. The festival features live entertainment and demonstrations on two stages, a salmon BBQ (narrators on the tour testified that Warren Aakervik, owner of Ballard Oil, makes the best BBQ salmon on the planet), educational booths, a beer garden, and several odd games including a lutefisk-eating contest and an oyster slurp contest. Proceeds from the festival go to the Fishermen's Memorial Fund for families of lost fishermen.
Moving east along the cut, we passed Foss Maritime, one of the nation's largest tug, tow, and barge businesses. Spokesman Ron Sykes pointed out that Foss has recently won awards for the company's commitment to environmental safety, and indeed two of the company's dry docks were covered with plastic tarps to contain the flow of particulates from sandblasting the hulls of two ships in for repairs.
Seattle often talks about its nation-leading businesses like Nordstrom, Amazon, and Boeing, but Foss is seldom mentioned as an industry leader. Part of the reason is that its corporate offices, off Nickerson Street near Seattle Pacific University, are not visible from the land--only on the water can you see the scope of their activities.
Across the cut is the Western Towboat Company, owned by Ron Shrewsbury, who pointed out a wonderful camaraderie among the businesses along the cut. "Foss often helps us launch our tugs," he explained, "and we often work on projects together."
Shrewsbury also mentioned that the wheelhouse of one of his tugs was made by his neighbor to the east, Kvichak Marine (pronounced "KWEE-jack"). Owner Brian Thomas is a genuine local entrepreneur. Working as a boat designer for another company, he and several associates struck out on their own in 1981 with a plan to build aluminum boats and aluminum ship structures. Nineteen years later, after moving from a one-car garage to a two-car garage to a small warehouse on Stone Way, he has a successful business employing more than 100 people.
There was a nice example of his company's work docked right beside the construction facility: A strange-looking craft he build for Seattle City Light to be used on the Diablo and Ross lakes behind the North Cascades dams that supply so much of our city's power.
Thomas mentioned that his company had recently built 35 oil-skimming boats in 60 days to help clean up the Gulf after the recent spill. It's a demonstration on the importance of the businesses along the tour, not just to the local economy, but also to the national and international economy. Ron Sykes pointed out that Foss had eight tugs in the Gulf. When the country needs emergency or ongoing maritime services, they call Seattle.
Seattle has been a gateway to Alaska since the gold rush in the early 1900s, and the ties between our two states are still strong. Doug Dixon, owner of Pacific Fisherman Shipyard pointed out several Alaska-bound fishing boats were in his yard for maintenance, as was an Argosy boat that recently caught fire.
Nearby, the Wizard, a low-slung crabbing boat, well known to viewers of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch, which details the incredible challenges of Alaskan crab fishing, was docked. Also close by were two odd-looking cargo ships which fill an important, but niche, function: they are the total supply lifeline for several remote Aleutian islands.
The tour was also an education in the political challenges that this particular stretch of the cut is facing. One after another, the business owners on the tour lamented the continuously narrowing of local streets. According to them, the city "road diets" interfere with ability to bring supplies in and ship products out. So far as the Burke-Gilman's "missing link" goes, "We also have to question the safety of putting bike lanes through working industrial areas," said Phillips. Maybe they are right. Perhaps establishing a separate route away from industrial operations is an idea to consider.
The ship canal is hemmed in on both sides of the cut by the approach of a growing city. Housing, shopping complexes, Seattle Pacific University, recreational boating, and bike lanes are squeezing industry into a narrower and narrower band close to the water throughout this part of the canal. There are skirmishes all along the line, and the business owners reminded tour goers that jobs and industries were at stake. They made a compelling case that maritime industries are vital to our city's economy.
But you can also see that there is a toll in making the water a highway for commerce. Oil booms surround many of the ships, most troubling on several ships in what the tour narrators called a "ship graveyard" where ships go into dock and don't come out.
At stake is the entire maritime industry of Seattle. The speakers made the point that it's a delicate business ecology--if one or two keystone businesses pulled up piers and left, we'd likely see a string of other industries move to other, less congested locations on the Sound.
It is generally acknowledged that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to summit Mt. Everest, a feat they accomplished on May 29, 1953.
But for many, their accomplishment, as bold and brave as it was, has always come with an asterisk because of something that may, or may not, have happened on June 9, 1924. That’s when a British team consisting of George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine set out for a summit attempt and never returned.
Whether or not Mallory and Irvine could have or did in fact make the summit that day is the subject of an excellent IMAX documentary, The Wildest Dream, currently showing at the Pacific Science Center's Eames IMAX Theater. [Ed: That's the theater to your west, if you're facing south at the ticket gate.]
Narrated by Liam Neeson, Dream is a fascinating look into what has come to be known at the Golden Age of Exploration. Mallory was definitely a man of that age, when men became obsessed with conquering some unknown territory or physical obstacle.
Mallory was obsessed with being the first to summit Everest. It was he who, in answer to a reporter’s question on why anyone would want to climb Everest, memorably answered, "Because it’s there." Mallory participated in three expeditions to Everest in 1921, 1922, and 1924 and the first surprise of Wildest Dream is that National Geographic Society filmed both the 1922 and 1924 expeditions.
The grainy, black-and-white footage is amazing. You are transported to a time when the Earth was filled with unexplored places and man was reaching out to close those gaps, sometimes at fearsome cost. There is a certain, tangible sadness in Mallory’s story, but his desire and bravery is also compelling. It’s amazing this story has never made it to film before.
Wildest Dream also documents a 2007 expedition led by Conrad Anker, a skilled mountaineer who set out to follow Mallory and Irvine’s path to determine if they could have reached the summit in ’24.
Anker is a handsome man with a brilliant track record of successful climbs above 26,000 feet. Earlier, in 1999, he led a successful team that found Mallory’s body on Everest. That discovery is shown in the first part of Dream and it’s fascinating. Because the body rests above 25,000 feet, there has been little deterioration.
Mallory’s body and possessions were sufficiently preserved to allow Anker’s team to read his nametags, personal letters and the time on his watch. (One of the strange aspects of climbing on mountains above 26,000 feet is that the bodies of anyone who has died above that level are still there; survival at that height is so tenuous that energy cannot be expended to remove the bodies.)
When Mallory was found, his possessions told researchers a great deal. His watch had stopped after 5 p.m. (possibly as a result of his 2,000-foot fall) and his goggles, absolutely necessary to prevent snow blindness, were in his pocket. Mallory, it seems, was on his way back to camp in the dark when he fell and died. But back from where? How far did he get?
Wildest Dream is, first and foremost, beautifully filmed. One can hardly fail to send an IMAX camera to the Himalayas and not get beautiful footage. Mallory’s expeditions approached the mountain from the Tibetan side because the Nepal side was closed to Western travelers in the 1920s. The situation was reversed when Hilary and Norgay climbed Everest from the Nepal side. That route is the more commonly traveled to the summit; the Northern route, Mallory’s route, is the harder climb, and that fact is central to the question of whether he could have made it and the focus of Ankor’s attempt to prove he did do it.
Mallory’s route features a steep stone cliff at 28,000 feet, known as the Second Step, which blocks the route to the summit, at 29,000 feet. On June 9, he was spotted by team member Noel Odell near that spot and “moving expeditiously,” though clouds rolled in after that and blocked Odell’s view. Could Mallory and Irvine have conquered that step with rudimentary equipment, at that height, on their summit attempt?
It’s a good question, and one that’s complicated. Since 1975, no one has had to climb that step because a Chinese expedition lashed a ladder to it and every subsequent attempt has used that ladder to make an ascent. Anker recounts that it is a question that has obsessed him for over a decade.
The central part of Wildest Dream juxtaposes Mallory’s 1924 expedition with Anker's 2007 expedition. Ironically, it’s this section that is the film’s biggest weakness. Lining up shots to echo the same shots in the 1924 footage is cumbersome and distracting--and occasionally macabre.
So is Anker’s plan to use replica equipment from the early attempt, an idea that is scuttled so quickly that it hardly warranted any mention at all. Suffice to say, the 1924 equipment offered limited protection. How the earlier teams made it so high with such equipment is an astonishing tribute to Mallory, Irvine, and the other 1924 team members. It’s hard to believe they could have made it as far as they did.
Anker and the filmmakers have strained to match the other team’s attempt in other ways. When Mallory chose Irvine, he picked a young, strong man with no mountain climbing experience; his use to the team was his knowledge of the oxygen apparatus that the team would use, his youth and his overall strength. Trying to mimic that, Anker also picked a novice climber with no high altitude experience, Leo Houlding.
Such moves might heighten the similarities between both quests, but you have to wonder about the ethics of the situation. After all, Mallory and Irvine died on Everest and Anker surely doesn’t want that close a match. Also slowing Dream down early on is Anker’s questioning why he’s climbing mountains in the first place.
The movie also builds up Mallory’s image as a man of destiny a bit too much. His story is poignant enough without the talking heads gushing. He reached at least 28,000 feet with a gabardine climbing suit and leather boots. You don’t need to convince us that he was courageous in the extreme.
At the film’s climax, Anker does climb the second step without using the ladder, something which he states proves that Mallory and Irvine could have done it. To me, Anker’s success demonstrates that Mallory probably couldn’t have done it, particularly with a partner that had never climbed that high, equipment so low-tech that Anker abandoned it and a final camp much farther from the summit than current climbers use, meaning a longer, harder climb on summit day. But, one of the beauties of this film is that you are free to make up your own mind.
Wildest Dream is a wonderful film that gives you both the beauty and danger of climbing Everest. It also gives you insight into the powerful pull this peak has on the adventurers that want to stand on the roof of the world.
NOTE: The Wildest Dream is the last film credit of the late Natasha Richardson, who provides the voice of Mallory’s wife, Ruth. Richardson died shortly after recording her narration. Ironically, she too died after a fall on ice and snow.
If there's a vanguard for the back-to-the-future, "Victory Garden" era in horticulture and landscaping, Colin McCrate is leading it. As the recession stretches out, garden-happy Seattleites are switching flowerbeds and shrubs into edible greens, fruits, and vegetables. At McCrate’s Seattle Urban Farm Company, the requests for residential farm landscaping (and chicken coops) keep increasing.
"It’s definitely true," said McCrate, atop Ballard's Bastille restaurant (5307 Ballard Ave. N.W.), where he's installed a prototype rooftop garden. "More and more people are taking advantage of yard space to supplement their food needs. The sale of vegetable seeds has gone through the roof."
Seattle’s climate, even in a cloud-shrouded summer like the one we are currently experiencing, is perfect for cultivation of greens, herbs, vegetables and fruit, particularly native apples, cherries and plums. Rain and peek-a-boo sun makes for perfect growing conditions.
Some local gardeners have always made a sport of growing food products, and Seattle’s P-Patch network has been flourishing since the hippie-intensive 1970s. But now, people are farming for keeps, both residentially and commercially.
"Our customers are constantly surprised at the yield from even a small plot," McCrate commented.
A few years ago, Bastille's James Weimann and Demming Maclise purchased a building on the resurgent Ballard Avenue. (If you haven’t been over there recently, make plans. It’s as nice a mix of retail and restaurants in the city). Their goal was to create a restaurant that adhered to the strict demands of French cuisine, namely the use of fresh ingredients. They succeeded in spades, but not before an intensive remodel and some bold thinking.
Weimann and Maclise hit on the idea of a rooftop garden. What could be fresher than the harvest from a two-flight walk-up garden?
McCrate, who designed the innovative rooftop beds for Bastille's produce, estimates that with 800 square feet of garden, the restaurant is currently meeting about 30 to 40 percent of its needs for fresh greens and herbs, including red leaf lettuce, Miner’s lettuce, arugula and peppercress. "They are, however, getting 100 percent of their basil and rosemary needs, which both do very well in Seattle."
Weimann and Maclise may not see a positive return on their investment for a number of years, but patrons get an immediate, positive return in every bite. And as innovators in the rooftop garden field, they've been raking in the media coverage. The garden is "poised to become a Seattle landmark," said Eat, Drink and Be.
Bastille is not the only restaurant or urban enterprise doing a bit of intensive farming. Venerable Canlis has a terraced garden in its North Queen Anne Hill location, and, two years ago, Maggie McKelvy, a manager of HomeStreet Bank's Ballard branch, led an effort to turn a bed in the bank's parking lot into a vegetable-producing space.
McCrate believes efforts like these are just the first steps of a widespread movement to reclaim food. It’s hard to argue with him. Just two years ago, separate incidents with contaminated lettuce and cilantro generated a great amount of fear about the safety of our industrial-strength food chain, and the quality of produce like greens, fruits and vegetables that should be served as fresh as possible.
"Producing your own food allows for a measure of security," said McCrate. “Anyone can plant a vegetable bed or a fruit tree. It takes no more water or soil than a flower bed, looks almost as beautiful in the yard, and produces a tangible and edible benefits."
George Tsutakawa's Centennial Fountain, in Seattle U's Quad
As a relatively young city, Seattle doesn't have a large number of major art collections in public or private hands. Though our art benefactors have been generous and shown a fine eye for great art, Seattle can't stand up to the magnificent art collectors and collections in cities like San Francisco, New York, or even Los Angeles.
So local art lovers have to do a little more legwork to enjoy the pleasures of seeing art. One great source for viewing art is to take in the fine art collections in the corporate or organizational world. To take in one of these fine collections, start at Seattle University's central campus on Capitol Hill.
Seattle U has done a great job of integrating art into the public areas of many of its buildings, and a tour of some of the best art is both fulfilling and easy; it won't take more than an hour to see the best works. All buildings are open weekdays during business hours, and most are open outside of that, even on the weekends, so there really isn't a bad time to go. After, pop into Cafe Presse or Stumptown for refreshment and post-viewing conversation.
Start your tour at the far north end of the campus, just off Madison. The first work of art is a building, the award-winning Chapel of St. Ignatius designed by Bremerton-born architect Steven Holl.
The chapel is a magnificent work; surely one of the finest examples of modern architecture in the city. Holl followed his brief closely on this building. It subtly draws you in with clean, simple lines, and then invites contemplation. It's a spiritual house, but not overly tied to any one religion. Seattle U is a Jesuit school, but the chapel invites all to worship and pray.
Light pours in from colored windows, then deflected with walls that throw color around the room. The building is a prism, and justly so, since religion is a prism of life.
Don't forget to stop by the small sanctuary at the far north of the building [the work of artist Linda Beaumont]. Stunningly decorated with a tree holding one lantern, the walls are coated with a soft wax. The room feels alive with silent motion.
Leaving the chapel, head south along the central campus walkway. Off to the right is the Albers School of Business and Economics building. Don't go inside just yet.
Off to the left is a small garden area with a golden monolith punctuated with images of faces. It's a monument to the eight Jesuits who were brutally murdered in El Salvador on November 16, 1989. In many ways, the world has moved on from those murders by the U.S.-trained army of El Salvador, but this monument reminds us that the world is often not safe for those who wish to teach and worship. Unfortunately, Seattle U, like many universities, doesn't have the time or resources to identify the artists of all their campus art. This fine piece carries no obvious attribution.
Inside the Albers building, the viewer is welcomed by a good Chihuly, Accendo (2006). Chihuly is ubiquitous in Seattle, but Accendo, in deep reds and yellows, is a nice piece of work, and well placed in the lobby.
Up on the second floor, there is rotating gallery space currently exhibiting work from the "Seeds of Compassion" exhibition. Not all the works here are great, but there is a nice spirit in all the works. Back outside, continue heading south until you reach Sullivan Hall to the left. Sullivan Hall is home to the School of Law and is currently serving as the interim library. The visitor is met at the door by Jacob Lawrence's Lawyers and Clients, a serigraph from 1994.
A former Dean of the Law School oversaw the construction of the hall and insisted on art being an integral part of the building. Take some time in here to walk around. Two excellent copper statues on the ground floor, a man and a woman looking up through some mechanical contraptions, stand in silent, awe-inspiring guard over the building. Alas, the artist is not named for these two fine pieces.
On the main floor, Nancy Mee has created Themlis, a beautiful representation of the scales of justice. Made out of sandblasted glass, copper plated steel, and steel, it's a beauty. Wander around and take in the numerous other works in the open atrium.
Save the majority of your time for the art in the Student Center. Someone had a great time putting together a whimsical, witty, and poignant collection of art. Nary a weak work in the bunch. Right as you come in, you catch a glimpse of J. Michael Walker's large piece, Seven Social Sacraments. Seattle U is a Catholic university, but those responsible for putting the art collection together have been anything but slaves to dogma. There is a healthy questioning of religious norms and a focus on faith.
Witness Maria Proges' Storyteller (2000), a fragile collection of glass bottles coated in beeswax and lovingly labeled.
A short walk on (you can pass quickly by David Bates' oil Sacred Heart Church) and you come upon Edward Burtynski's unusual, oddly lyrical photograph Shipbreaking #30. A lonely cargo ship is being cut into scrap on a beach, its hulking presence still dwarfing the men who will, piece by piece, cart it away.
In the conference room, Julian Opie has a simple, fun, colorful series of still lives of fruits. Walk up the stairs to the second floor and who should you see but Chuck Close. His Self Portrait, a silkscreen, is a perfect embodiment of a colorful artist.
Close by, three works by Roger Shimomura cast poignant light on the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Though small, these three works are powerful.
Seattle University is, first and foremost, a center of knowledge, and the inclusion artwork to both inspire and inform students and faculty is both revealing and educational. Give yourself a treat and spend a little time with some great art, spiritual, awe-inspiring, and just plain fun.
Ivan Doig (Photo: A. Wayne Arnst)
The author Ivan Doig lives near Richmond Beach, just north of Seattle, but his heart is always in Montana. [Ed: Doig reads at the University Bookstore tomorrow, July 14, at 7 p.m.]
"Mississippi was William Faulkner's muse," Doig said, when we spoke by phone. "I guess Montana is mine."
Montana, specifically the Butte of 1919, is the setting of Doig's newest novel, Work Song, his tenth work of fiction over twenty years. It's a skittish, fast-moving novel that follows the exploits of Morrie Morgan, a dapper dandy with a bit of the scalawag in him. Morrie narrates the story in the best Dickens style; it's the musings of a rogue, and the reader can delight in Morgan's victories both intimate and large.
Doig's novels are impeccably researched and filled with intriguing characters. In Work Song, his portrait of a frontier Butte is close to perfection. If the Butte of 1919 wasn't like this, it should have been.
"When researching books," he told us, "I like to go where Google doesn’t go. For Work Song, I went to Butte's old archives and dug through the nooks and crannies."
At the Butte Historical Society, he found an old photograph of the Butte Public Library in the early 1920s. That image, he said, "Went off in my mind like a firecracker." The library is a central location in Work Song, a place where Morrie finds a job and learns the town.
The reader follows Morgan as he weaves his way into the city, charms his landlord, the widowed Grace Faraday, and lands odd jobs here and there. He is a wholly original character, at once a walking encyclopedia and a brass-knuckle-carrying hard case. You can feel Doig's love of the character, who first appeared as a secondary player in Doig's earlier novel, The Whistling Season.
"Readers fell in love with him," Doig said. "When he's around, unexpected things happened. Morrie has flights of inspiration. I thought it would be interesting to see things through his eyes."
Doig is clearly a devoted storyteller. When he talks about the characters in his books, he speaks of them as living and breathing souls. Morrie Morgan is a particular type of early-twentieth-century characters. At times, he's a step or two away from the Harold Hill of The Music Man, but you feel he is also a provocateur who likes to stir the pot, not for personal gain, but simply to see how it'll work out. He's restless, easily bored.
In Work Song, Morgan gets involved in a labor dispute involving the miners who embody the socioeconomic heart of Butte and the Anaconda Mining Company. "The company grudgingly paid good wages when unimaginable millions of dollars flowed in from its near-monopoly on copper, and slashed the miners' pay the instant those profits dipped. [...] There had been strikes and lockouts. Riots. Dynamitings. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company bringing in goon squads. A lynching..."
When Doig takes the readers into a mine, you can feel the heat, the sweat, and it's both exhilarating and frightening.
Every so often, the light caught a gleam where water dripped down a rock wall. The stammer of drilling followed us at first, gradually dropping to a distant murmur that was simply in the air, like the metallic smell that smarted in my nose. I kept waiting for where this burrow led to, some larger cavern, timbered and more secure, where actual mining was done. [...] It was hellishly hot; I would not have been surprised to see lava oozing out at us. Every so often, small rocks dribbled down disconcertingly beside us.
Doig believes Morrie is a survivor and he says the character "likely will be back."
Work Song is a excellent book, and one is captured by the characters who all have a simple love of work, a value that seems particularly timely. "People in this book are dedicated to their jobs," says Doig. "It's a validation of labor. With so many people shut out of work right now, I really wanted to include a theme extolling dedication to work."
Doig is a rare man of American letters: he is a non-genre based writer of fiction, and a popular and talented one. He first attracted attention more than 20 years ago with the release of his first novel, The Sea Runners. He was labled a wunderkind, a notion that draws a chuckle from the author. "It was said that I was an overnight sensation, but it was nine years of hard work, writing stories, non-fiction, anything I could get paid for. At one point, I thought I was going to be a journalist."
He credits a supportive wife for sticking with his dream and assisting his work in many ways from research to editing. He takes about two years on each book, writing and researching, and he told me he's nearly finished his next novel.
Does he have any advice for hopeful fiction writers? "Keep writing. I recommend that writers keep a journal, a daily diary. Make a habit of working with words. Everyday. But be aware that you’re never finished evolving as a writer. I'm still figuring it out at times."
The legal wrangling over the relocation of the Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma City is finally coming to an end.
This week, 2007-08 Sonic season ticketholders--those enrolled in a marketing program called the Emerald Club--started to receive settlement checks as a result of their participation in a successful class action lawsuit against the Professional Basketball Club LLC, the former owners of the Sonics and the current owners of the OKC Thunder.
To date, and likely forever, these checks are the only direct payment to former fans for the loss of a beloved sports franchise that had been in Seattle for 40 years. (Disclaimer: I was a former Sonics season ticketholder, a member of the Emerald Club, and a member of the class in the lawsuit. My wife and I received our check yesterday.)
When former Seattle Sonics owner Clay Bennett announced that he intended to move the team to his home state of Oklahoma, he and his co-owners were challenged with lawsuits. The City of Seattle sued to enforce a lease that would have held the team here until this year. Howard Schultz claimed that the new owners he'd sold to had lied about their desire to keep the team in Seattle.
The City's case, which seemed like a slam dunk, fell apart at trial when former Mayor Greg Nickels was dismantled on the witness stand. (Sherman Alexie's testimonial that the NBA players were "Greek gods" was of limited legal utility.) The City’s case turned what should have been a perfunctory contract enforcement proceeding into a circus and the city, probably wisely, folded the tent and settled without ever learning the court's decision. Schultz quietly canceled his lawsuit shortly afterward.
That left only a strange little case that resulted in this week's delivery of checks to former ticketholders. Robert Brotherson, Patrick Sheehy, and Carolyn Bechtel, the three Sonics ticketholders named in the suit, had, as it turned out, a legitimate case.
In early 2007, the Sonics sent out a renewal package to all season ticketholders. In the brochure, which featured a letter signed by Clay Bennett, the Sonics made an offer to all ticketholders that if they bought tickets for the 2007-08 season, they could buy tickets for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 season at the same price. They called the program the Emerald Club.
The three plaintiffs took the offer at face value and bought the tickets, believing that the offer meant the team was staying for the final two years of the lease. One year later, while the lease fight was heading for court, the Sonics emailed all Emerald Club members and said that, with the lease up in the air, they would not send out renewal packages, but would notify them when the case was settled. The Sonics never called back.
The plaintiffs claimed the failure to offer them the right to buy season tickets at the 2007-08 price, even if the team was in Oklahoma, was a breach of contract. And attorney Mark Griffin, from Keller Rohrback, agreed.
Griffin proceeded on the case despite the fact that, historically, season ticketholders lawsuits are generally unsuccessful: "I was a Sonics fan."
"This case was different," said Griffin. "The Sonics had given Sonics ticketholders in the Emerald Club a specific offer that they could buy tickets for two additional seasons. They gave the ticketholders specific rights. That was the key to the case, and, obviously, a successful key."
Reached by phone today, Griffin is humble about what is a very rare win. Not only is he the only attorney in Seattle to bring a successful suit against an ownership team that moved a franchise, he is the architect of a winning ticketholder suit, which, one of the court documents in the case points out, is almost unheard of.
"When we first started on the lawsuit, the Professional Basketball Club owners basically laughed at us," Griffin told us last year. Griffin held firm.
The case landed in the court of the Honorable Richard A. Jones in the United States District Court. Jones left intact the plaintiffs' claim that the Sonics entered into a contract with ticketholders and then broke that contract. He ruled that all season ticketholders in the Emerald Club were a class for the purposes of the suit. He further ruled that the plaintiffs had suffered damages and decided that a jury should decide the extent of the damages.
Clay Bennett and his co-owners, unwilling to face a Seattle jury, decided to settle.
"I feel gratified that we were able to get some money for the class," said Griffin. "The members of the class were true fans." But is the settlement enough to take away the sting of losing the Sonics? "No," said Griffin. "The plaintiffs would have preferred that the team stay. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do that."
The Sonics are gone two years now. The money extracted from the Thunder owners is negligible; no pain was extracted, only a little annoyance. The Thunder has plenty of cash: the team just gave star forward Kevin Durant a huge contract extension.
What's strange is how little the Sonics seem to be missed outside a precious few fans. Currently, there is no public effort to bring back an NBA team (private discussions are possibly in the works), and no public support for a new arena suitable for professional basketball or hockey.
Perhaps it's better to not have an NBA team. The NBA tends to breed a special kind of heartbreak--just ask Cleveland. We have professional football, baseball, and soccer. Then again, I think many of us miss watching those Greek gods out on the hardwood court.
