August 2009 Archives

My neighborhood: I sit in front of the coffee house, Bedlam, and listen to the mariachis across the street at Mama's. Or sit in Mama's and request Guantanamera, the lovely rendition of which brings tears to my eyes, although it doesn't have the meaning I thought it did; or watch the Lullaby Moon costumed players go by, happy followers and balloon-tied children in tow. Sit and watch the people animating the sidewalks, and yes, sometimes the local eccentric behaving oddly, or the roaming gang member staking out a drug turf. That incredibly old wood frame building that houses the Funky Belltown Studios, like something out of a Popeye cartoon, leaning at all angles with crazy attitude but still defying gravity atop the Noodle Ranch, Lava Lounge and Juju, has a spacious terrace over the street with young hopefuls who look happy to be there, watching the street life.

Occasionally someone puts to use the sidewalk chalk at Bedlam, or artists put together a CreateLive session inside. Or a guy with a dream and a passion buys the historic Lorraine Hotel and gives artists a free hand in every room, before opening it first to the public and then as a hostel. The slow-paced demolition of the Recovery Cafe provides weeks of entertainment. A new business, bar and pool tables, opens and someone is promptly shot. There is so much flux in the neighborhood, a symptom of a gritty vitality, a synergistic vortex of creative impulse with which destruction goes hand in hand.

The neighborhood grows in popularity. New businesses come in, business rents rise, some are displaced. Spa Noir moves down the street. The Dog Lounge moves out; Wags moves one alley east. The life of the street and sidewalk is so very appealing. When the weather is fine, I sit by the front door of Mama's and watch all the people come in, one after the other, all wanting a seat outside. They sit and wait for someone else to leave. Via Tribunali, who I so admired for having an alley-only entrance, breaks down the street wall and installs a roll-down door. People get air and view of the street, but entry is still off the alley, along with the relocated Wags. The rear common space of Funky Belltown Studios is here. The Regrade dog park is at the end of this alley, where Mama's also seems to be expanding, and I have great hopes for it, the alley and the neighborhood. I also worry about it, the chances of the booming creativity increasing the possibility of destruction. What if Funky Belltown finally concedes to gravity? Could all of these small old buildings, cheap studios, and attractive, vital businesses be displaced by a shiny new building with chain stores at the base?

We can only act as if what we love will remain. I talk to the wonderful and personable host at Mama's and ask about the past. Will the Angel of Belltown be replaced on the roof? What happened to the animated heart that was on the wall outside? Did you know the Virgin Mary got knocked over and is gone again? I chat with the guys at Bedlam - where did you get your old photos of the 2nd Avenue streetcar? How is the petition to preserve the Belltown Needle going? Ben has gotten its creator to reproduce the saucer for the top, which has not returned yet and is missed.

  

Jesse and others write about Belltown businesses and events and things we should be aware of or even act on as citizens. Igor of Hideous Belltown keeps a visual record and history of the neighborhood, with cynical commentary that I can't help but find oh so amusing. And there are so many choices to make. The Garden Tour (and yes our high-rise condos and apartment buildings have some amazing gardens, practically the Hanging Gardens of Belltown)? Or CreateLive at Bedlam? Music and baptism at Myrtle Edwards? The Great Urban Race? Any number of foodie events? All going on within hours of each other. I know better than to try to do it all, but it's fun to catch the bits and pieces of it, to participate a little, just to watch people and the different things they do. They don't all live here, but they help create the life of the neighborhood that makes it such a great place to be.

                

*This is the title of a poem by Graham McGarva in Vancouver B.C. It speaks of the life and industry of the Duwamish River and the Seattle waterfront, especially as expressed through tidal mudflats. That mud, as was noted by esteemed Vancouverite Gordon Price in the recent Great Urban Debate: Seattle vs. Vancouver, was carried to Seattle from Vancouver by the glaciers, which came this far south and then receded. We are indeed one region. (Disclaimer: The firm I work for sponsored the debate, and Graham is one of the partners in the firm.)

Graham was reminded of the Turning Fish by a photo I took of Turning Basin, a salmon habitat restoration site at the upriver end of the channelized Duwamish Waterway. I have sort of adopted this site as a volunteer for People for Puget Sound, who manages the restoration and maintenance of this and other sites on the Duwamish. What does this have to do with citywalking, you might ask? A lot of dirty stormwater washes off of the pavements that I walk daily, for one thing. I advocate for better stormwater infrastructure (and fewer cars on roads) but it will takes time for that to happen. In the meantime I do my small part for mitigation by planting native plants at restoration sites and removing invasives. I get up close and personal with some of the creatures that share this region with us; salmon jumping, ospreys nesting, bald eagles, seals and sea lions, otters and beavers. And lots of birds of all kinds. I get to play in the mud, and at the same time worry about what toxins it contains.

Another tie to citywalking is that we will be making a new Central Waterfront soon, with a new seawall at minimum, and possibly many other changes besides, such as recreating more near-shore habitat for salmon and other creatures in our bay. This new waterfront design should take a fresh look at how we and our city interact with the resources we treasure. Think about how stormwater from the city reaches the bay, about creeks that disappeared so long ago that no one remembers where they were. How might those be reimagined and given a functional life in mitigating our stormwater flows? How would our waterfront look if it were penetrated by the flowing mouths of creeks? What if there were new places where people could touch the water, and would want to? Where the native life of the bay would appear close at hand because it was invited and made welcome and comfortable? Where the kinetic sculpture of cargo, cruise ships and ferries continued to delight the eye and the imagination and feed the economy? What if the salmon were to again return in such numbers that a person could walk across the mouth of the Duwamish on their backs, and the orcas were fat and happy and increasing in number?

This is what I think about when I go to pull weeds at the river, and relax into the meditative mindless rythms of work. It's what I think about when I draw maps of the waterfront, studying where things might change, and imagining what it might be like. I walk, in the city, on the waterfront, on the river, enjoying what's there, hoping for and dreaming of how it can be better. The Turning Fish is that dream of what could be.

The Duwamish Waterway is the last few (four) miles of what was once the Duwamish river and estuary. It was dredged, straightened, channelized and filled early in the last century to support an economic juggernaut of water-dependent industry. The Duwamish was once fed by several rivers; The White and the Black have been diverted and only a reduced Green river still exits to the Sound via the Waterway. It is still an important salmon river; it is also a Superfund site.

The Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition and the local chapter of the Sierra Club organized a Rock the Boat river cruise to help educate people about the history of the industrial Duwamish, cleanup plans, and the vision for the river in the future. The sediments of the waterway carry a variety of toxic substances, PCB usually being at the top of the list. The toxins get into the food stream, making resident sealife unsafe to eat. It also contaminates migrating salmon, which are eaten by orcas, and by people. The toxins accumulate at the top of the food chain, making our resident orcas the most toxic animals on earth. People are affected too.

The EPA and the various entities involved in the river cleanup identified seven early action sites, which were part of the tour. Because of recontamination issues the cleanup efforts are on hold.




At Harbor Island Marina, where the East and West Waterways split off to Elliott Bay, by the Ash Grove cement plant. The Port of Seattle owns, operates and maintains the waterway and manages a multi-billion dollar economy.




Industry and recreation on the Duwamish waterway.




Boarding the Admiral Pete, a restored Mosquito Fleet passenger boat, for an educational and recreational cruise of the Duwamish.




Unloading a gravel barge at the Ash Grove cement plant on the Duwamish.




This is the site of the first attempted cleanup of an Early Action site, at the Diagonal CSO outfall pipe, which is barely visible above the high tide, just to the left of the white pipeline warning sign, right of the electric tower. The cleanup was done with inefficient open bucket dredging, which set loose several pounds of PCBs to float free and contaminate other areas. The dredge site was capped with clean sand but has been recontaminated by PCBs, phthalates and other toxics that are still coming in with stormwater. Because of what was learned here about recontamination, the rest of the cleanup is on hold.




This green treed inlet is Diagonal Marsh, a salmon habitat restoration site managed by People for Puget Sound.




The trees here are at a tide flat by the GSA facility, another restoration site which is reached from Diagonal Marsh. The Port owns narrow strips of land along all along the waterway and has been designing different types of salmon habitat that might fit in the different narrow strips, to try and get connective habitat throughout the waterway.




Here by the doomed South Park bridge is Boeing Plant 2, location of another PCB hotspot and early action site. No longer in use, this plant built planes for WWII. Pipes under the floors were leaking PCBs for years. Across and a little upriver is Terminal 117, site of the former Malarkey Asphalt plant, another PCB hotspot and designated early action site. The community got involved and convinced the Port to test and mitigate the upland soils, not just the river sediments, because the toxic soils were affecting the neighborhood.




Fishing on the industrial Duwamish. It's advised not to eat resident sealife at all; migratory salmon are caught and eaten here but people are recommended to limit their intake. It's the same salmon that make the orcas so toxic. This is Slip 4, another PCB hotspot and early action site. This site can't be cleaned because PCBs are still leaching in from an upland source at the north end of Boeing Field (King County Airport). The salmon were jumping in the river, but we were all hoping these people weren't going to eat any fish.




The LaFarge cement plant at night. The waterside industries are vital to the economy, and have become an intrinsic part of the local landscape. Our working waterfront is part of the Seattle identity and is akin to art or kinetic sculpture. It's even integrated into the Sculpture Park design. The trick now is integrating it all in a sustainable way.




The lime kiln at the LaFarge cement plant. The burning of the kiln emits mercury into the air. The neighboring community complains of bad smells that cause headaches and other side effects. This is an old plant that is not covered by new regulations.



These silos at the LaFarge plant are at the south end of Kellogg Island, a natural preserve at the last remnant meander in the lower Duwamish. There are salmon habitat sites along the meander, at Puget Creek (near LaFarge), T-107 and Herrings House.




Bridges across Harbor Island. Once this was tidal estuary and mudflats that could be walked across at low tide.




The Ash Grove cement plant at night. This is the Duwamish waterway today, and is also part of the vision for the foreseeable future.

As refreshing as an iceberg in July... The Oslo Opera House was indeed refreshing. I was last in Norway before it was planned and I very much wanted to come back to see it. I wasn't in any way disappointed.



You might wish for good sunlight for the best photos, but the sun in July is pretty fierce at high latitudes. Maybe it gives a better photo of the building, but the genius of the building is when it is covered with people, and in how they are able to use it.



Sited at the end of the Oslofjord, the building becomes a feature of the landscape. It has a beach, where you can actually get to the water...






And it has slopes and high plateaus. The slopes are gradual enough for accessibility, and the designers actually hoped that skateboarders would make use of it and designed accordingly. The more activity, the better.







Looking down into the lobby. The people in the lobby are watching all the people going by above, too.



Enjoying some time at the summit, which is a favorite pastime in cities that are built against mountains, or fjellets, which this resembles.



It's a fractured landscape. We could never do this here in the States, with all the little trip hazards. There are simple warning signs that you might slip or trip on the building surface, and that's enough. It doesn't meet ADA either, but people seem to manage. There are accessible routes to the top.



The Opera House is part of the Oslo waterfront redevelopment plan called Fjord City. It is the catalyst for the waterfront district called Bjorvika. There are a lot of high rises (comparatively) going up next to it; the project was called Barcode but is now called Operakvartet. The new Munch Museum will be going on the water behind the Opera House, and there are tons of other waterfront developments underway or planned. Like Seattle, Oslo had highways along the waterfront, separating it from the city, but the highways are being put into tunnels.

Another interesting thing about this building is the architecture firm that designed it, Snohetta. It started with four Norwegian architects. In Norway young architects get something called an Establishment Stipend when they are starting practice. I think at the time they could get enough to live off of for three months; so the four of them supported each other for a year that way. When they decided to compete for the Opera House commission, they got together with Craig Dykers, who was practicing in LA at the time. He is a fellow alumnus of the same architecture school I went to, although we weren't there at the same time. They got the Opera House, and the Library at Alexandria, and continue to get a lot of other work, including one of the Barcode buildings which they call Isfjellet. I think that means "little ice mountain".