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.

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 ]—

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!

Originally posted to Seattlest.com on November 29, 2006
[ Link]

With the closure of yet more businesses, the Ave’s storefront streetscape is treated to more vacant storefronts. We’ve given up thinking that such things are harbingers of the end of the world or, more locally, the Death of the Ave. People in this town, or any town for that matter, love talking about and citing evidence for the Death of insert business district. We believe that commercial turnover is just another one of those cycles that happens. Unless the UW decides to up and move, the Ave will very likely remain the area’s “campustown” commercial and restaurant strip–through better and through worse.

Off The Wall was one of those cheesy head shops that sold pot accoutrements and incense to the masses. It was the place to go if, as a college kiddie, you wanted to show off your rebelious individuality by getting a Bob Marley poster or a t-shirt with the likeness of Che Guevara on it. As such, it always had slightly less character than the other, more cramped tobacco shops up and down the street.

This is a shame, since the physical store itself had a charming spatial configuration. It was one of those old-style storefronts in which the entry was recessed into the facade. The doors were centered on a U-shaped front window. As one turned off the sidewalk and headed for them, there was a 15-foot stretch of roofed, enclosed space transitioning between public sidewalk and the private property of the store’s interior. On either side of you, then, there was a windowed display area where, in the romanticized past, the merchant could show off his or her finest and newest wares.

More importantly, however, it was one of those nebulous semi-private or semi-public spaces–it was technically private property but it was open to the public and not really part of the store. It was an enclosure–a separate transition space. It was a place where a homeless person could reasonably and comfortably sleep out of the elements while offending nobody, visually or physically. It was also a space into which Chas. could duck out of the rain as he serendipitously ran into Hal, his chum, walking down the street the other way. The two would converse there for a few minutes without obstructing the sidewalk. During the conversation, Chas. would spy a piece of fine haberdashery in the display and then buy it after Hal excused himself to run off to an important appointment at 11:15.

Seattlest mourns the loss of such genteel public spaces.

So it was with a certain amount of nostalgic malaise that we looked on as the new owner of the space demolished the recessed entryway and proceeded with construction of a new, flat, characterless storefront. We certainly don’t wish to challenge the inviolable right of private property and the self-determination that comes with it, but we are apprehensive about these developments. Far too many times in recent years, we’ve watched a vacant storefront on the Ave re-emerge as Yet Another Pho place or Yet Another Thai place. Don’t get us wrong, we lovelovelove both pho and Thai. However, we’ve had it with the lack of culinary diversity we’ve begun seeing on the Ave. And we’ve already watched a decent Greek place, a sub shop, and a Creperie close up shop.

Some day soon, we’d like to dig into the new owner’s plans, so that perhaps we’ll get some indication of what will appear. In the meantime, there are two additional vacant storefronts on the street level of this building. Our greatest fear is that the Asian Hegemony will continue to squeeze the strained gut of the Ave.

If we’re lucky we might get another Starbucks. After all, there is not one currently on this end of that block– why bother when Sureshot is across the street and Trabant is just down 45th–and the only other one is down at 42nd–right across from Cafe on the Ave and Bulldog News.

On the other hand, what with the Ave’s commercial turnover, it’ll be just a few months before whatever opens here goes out of business and is replaced by that new WalBartRite that we so desperately need.

Originally posted to Seattlest.com on November 29, 2006.
[ http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2006/11/29/good_morning_ice_world.php ]

NE 52nd Street, University District, Seattle

Back when we lived in the periodically-frozen tundra, we dutifully shoveled our sidewalks because, personally, we hated walking across others’ snowy sidewalks which subsequently froze over to resemble the desert of Arizona a jagged lunar surface. And after shoveling, the procedure called for sprinkling one’s walk with automotive-floorboard-eating, soil-poisoning rock salt to melt any ice. Thankfully, these days there are some less harmful alternatives that will not harm our verdant metronaturality Emerald City.

We utterly failed in our civic duty the other day. Good Pedestrians and Perambulators, we do apologize! On the other hand, aren’t leaves frozen in ice kinda pretty?

Well, it seems that the folks over at Getty Images would have none of this prettiness –what do they know about pretty imagery anyway?– and duly de-iced their sidewalks. Getty is located in a two block stretch known as the Fremont Tech Ghetto; this district includes other luminaries such as Adobe, Google, and, most importantly, a small company what empowers librarians.

Needless to say, a lotta highly important shit goes down in this area, day in and day out. There can be no tolerance for people succumbing to the whims of weather and the compromised physics of reduced traction. But being the visual connoisseurs that they are, the building stewards at Getty threw out a colorful twist on the old, boring, white pellet de-icer…

600 block, N 34th Street, Fremont, Seattle

It has become one of those pleasant, little, semi-annual surprises since taking up residence in the Pacific Northwest. It is that one day when one realizes that a change of season is coming. It is sudden; it is as abrupt as the flip of a switch. It jolts you out of whatever you were contemplating while walking. After that moment, “you just know”.

The switch from summer to fall has always been visual for me. It was signified by the rolling in of clouds after a long string of consecutively cloudless summer days. After that point, subsequent sunny days would shine with that autumnal shine: cooler, crisper, more filtered, and at a shallower angle. This has usually happened in middle to late September, though. This year, however, the cue came earlier. And it was not visual.

I was walking down 35th Street from downtown Fremont to the Aurora bridge. I remember seeing a few leaves on the ground as a bicyclist whizzed past me going the other way. As this happened, and moments before I turned the corner up Troll Avenue, I caught a whiff. The smell that I picked up was solidly that of autumn. It was dry and crinkly. It was also cooler and more definite, unlike the fuzzy, lazy smells of summer that waft over on an occasional breeze. I though of wearing jackets and sweaters; I wanted apples.

Now, my sinuses being what they are — chronically conjested — this was a big deal. If my substandard olfactory sense could pick autumn out of the rich, full-bodied Fremont airspace, then there must be something there. And it seems that I wasn’t the only one who noticed… and that I noticed it yesterday as well. I was going to write a quick post about it for Seattlest, the metroblog for which I have recently become a contributor but I was beaten to the punch. Fellow Seattlest, Courtney wrote the following:

Degrees of Change
originally posted 25 August 2006 at http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2006/08/25/degrees_of_change.php

Temperature is a skilled communicator, even in small doses. Under normal circumstances, minute changes we might not notice are essential for sparking bird migration; more extreme fluctuation is the very heart of concerns regarding what long-term havoc climate change could wreak on our environment.

Yesterday evening while walking our dogs, we tuned into temperature. The quality of the air had shifted, but nearly imperceptably so. Our neighbhorhood was bustling with the usual activity of football practice in Judkins Park and as we set out, it felt like any other day. Twenty minutes into the walk, as we turned to head back home, facing towards the western view of city and sound, time slowed down by just one tick. The sound of our own footsteps, clicking of dog nails on concrete, echoes of yelling children, and bike gears whizzing by were all simultaneously amplified and stretched out. The park we bisect almost daily, while shaped in high relief by setting sun against crisp blue sky, softened as we passed through; we were cushioned, comforted.

Perhaps just one degree colder, and we’d have thrilled at the familiarly nostalgic feeling of fall encroaching, but strangely this wasn’t the familiar pang we know so well which accompanies that seasonal shift. Not fully realized yet, this was a stage before the annual recognition of the snap which we’d never detected before. Soon, we thought, it is going to feel like that point where we recognize fall is coming. But not quite yet.

Trabant Chai Lounge

Some time ago, I speculated about the affiliation of the Ave Hot Dog: whether it was an advertising agent of Matt’s or just an independent wiener.

Tonight, I walked into Matt’s because, while past the other day, I noticed that they were once again offering a Chicago-style for the very Chicago-like price of $1.99. When I walked in, the locally-famous, down-on-her-luck, trans woman who hangs out on the Ave was inside talking to the two, young, post-fraternity gentlemen working behind the counter. I started putting my stuff on the counter, thinking nothing of her being there except that I have seen her in a while — and that I’ve not been on the Ave much in the last 6 weeks. By the time I had taken off my jacket and approached to order, she had left.

It wasn’t until after I had paid for my order and sat down to wait that the light of Divine Providence shone down upon me and illuminated me with an answer to my question.

At the back of the restaurant, in the little nook that led to a supply room or some-such, on top of a waist-high stack of cardboard boxes lay the red and yellow pelt of the Ave Hot Dog! It was horizontal with its head pointing toward the dining area. There was a big red X atop its bald, meaty head where the fabric came together. Though lying neatly, it was a bit deflated since nobody was inside. It looked very similar to the discarded skin of some animal that molts and leaves behind the skin to look like a somewhat smaller copy of itself.

To tell the truth, it seemed a bit eery. I am so used to seeing the Ave Hot Dog extremely animated, even athletic what with how that woman was always running in place while wearing the pelt. So seeing it so lifeless did not invoke sadness, mind you, only caution and mild trepidation. It looked like it was sleeping — or maybe like it wanted me to think that it was sleeping. Whatever, the case, it certainly did not want to be disturbed and I was certainly not going to walk over and get a close-up peek. I half expected it to spring to life on its own.

Some time ago, Mr. Cthulhie relayed to me a story in which he overheard the woman speaking to somebody on the street and telling that person that she just lost her job. Was it the Hot Dog job that she lost? If so, what was she doing inside Matt’s today? More importantly, what is the story of the pelt? Is it possessed? Does it subsume its wearer and cause him/her to perform unseemly acts? Whatever the case, I know that I am going to be extra cautious as I peek into the shop on my walk home later.

It seems that a couple of U-District neighborhood residents have taken matters into their own hands. The following story comes courtesy of The Stranger (Vol. 15 No. 46: Jul 27 - Aug 2, 2006).

Striking Back
UW Neighbors Rain on LaRouchies

by Sarah Mirk

On Friday, July 21, two recent University of Washington grads struck a blow on behalf of Seattle residents: They staged a water-balloon attack on two crews of those ubiquitous, aggressive Lyndon LaRouche campaigners.

Ashley Miller, 22, lives in an apartment above Bulldog News on University Way. Every weekend, volunteers for the LaRouche campaign set up tables along University Way. The LaRouche campaign is known for tying traditional left-wing rhetoric to psychedelic conspiracy theories involving Nazis, Dick Cheney, supertrains, and Satan. On Friday, the LaRouche folks had a table on two corners of the intersection at Northeast 42nd Street and University Way Northeast. “You couldn’t even cross the street to get away from them,” Miller says.

That evening, she and her friend Kevin Mock, 29, filled six water balloons and lobbed “warning shots” out the apartment window. One balloon hit a volunteer in the chest. Another exploded on a stack of pamphlets. Soon, the police showed up and the self-styled hooligans hightailed it out the apartment’s back entrance. After the police left, Miller and Mock returned and hurled six more balloons down at the LaRouchies. The campaigners left soon after that and have not returned since, Miller says.

The attacks were motivated by previous encounters with LaRouche campaigners and a desire to “give back to the community,” according to Mock. “When I was a freshman, I made the mistake of giving them my phone number,” says Miller. “They called me every other day for six months.” Miller has already stockpiled a stash of biodegradable balloons to leave no trace of their next attack.

I like this. This seems a little like the British pie in the face method to express displeasure with a public figure. Now, one can argue whether or not this is technically non-violent but I believe the most important point here is that it is both non-lethal and non-scarring. Even though many LaRouchies deserve a good bop on the head every now and again, I wouldn’t want them to be targets of actual, physical violence.

I can’t argue against their right to set up sidewalk tables and preach their point. In fact, I rather like to see people, even and especially extremists, handing out literature on street corners. I only have two complaints against the LaRouchies: first, they lack creativity and flair of the local counter-Illuminati and, secondly, they are rude, aggressive, and abrasive. I hate bullies.

This is the same reason that I both love and hate campus preachers, for example. I enjoy seeing their signs and am frequently entertained hearing the tone of their hellfire and damnation. But lately, they have gotten more nasty. It seemed, back in my days at Urbana-Champaign, that some quad preachers knew not to take themselves too seriously. However, in the extremely politically divisive atmosphere of the last few years, all of today’s quad preachers have gotten more militant. Thus, I have often wanted to smack some of them.

So this, then, seems like a more palatable way to express disagreement with a little more… zeal. Whether I would actually do this or not I’m not certain. However, looking at this from the receiver’s end, I would much rather get soaked with water balloons than, say, eggs and bottles and rocks — which is what gay pride supporters in Warsaw, Poland faced last year. Heck, for any subsequent outing, I’d make sure that I was packing some water armaments too.

One: Undergraduates Nara Barrows, Arin Delaney, Edith Fikes and Ingrid Haftel won the 2006 UW Library Research Award for their project, Aurora Avenue: Highway Culture in Transition. This project was a collaboration between Urban Archives and CHID 270 Photography: Theoretical Reflections and Ethnographic Applications.

Congratulations! Do check out their project, it is visually superb.

Two: Emily Fischer and Sarah Rosenfeld finished their collaborative Communication Honors Thesis titled Graffiti and Public Space: A Semiotic Analysis of Graffiti in Seattle’s University District. This is the first Honors Thesis originating from Urban Archives. Sarah and Emily contributed many images to the database and used them in their compelling analysis.

Congratulations Emily and Sarah! …among our brightest and most enthusiastic students.