Submerged in Seattle

by Dennis Goza
April 2003

Like everyone else who's been there, we have fallen in love with Seattle, Washington---three times, in fact. For the same reasons as everyone else, and perhaps for some different reasons as well. It's rich in history and scenic beauty. If you like winter recreation, the opportunities are close by. If you like fishing or seafood, you're really in heaven here. The ethnic mix is diverse, the arts are booming, and the city holds its own against San Francisco and New York as a mecca of progressive (or "liberal" , if you will) sociopolitical activity. And there's just an atmosphere of hearty, colorful wackiness that defies definition.

But let's face it, Seattle is REALLY paradise if you happen to like coffee and/ or rain. Both are in abundant supply---in just about equal measures, it seems. Makes you wonder if the coffee shops don't just collect the rain in huge funnels and process it right into pots of joe. The rain keeps the "Emerald City" green, and the caffeine keeps the people in the pink. The area is, in fact, where Starbucks originated; but just between you and me, there are many other brews available here that quench the java jones more satisfactorily.

On our first trip to the city in the spring of 1999, it seemed to us that there was a café on every corner, and that their aromas clashed in the streets as they vied for the attention of passersby. We made good use of them, too, as we were pulling some long hours. We were in town as participants in the annual Seattle Fringe Festival, a ten-day hullabaloo of independent theatre companies from all over the world. (And our first performance STARTED at 11:00 p.m.) It's modeled after the original Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland (founded 1947) as are a number of similar events that have sprung up across the U.S. and Canada. In fact, Kimberly got the ball rolling in establishing the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 1992; she and two other young ladies did virtually all the organizing. We performed in that festival during its first three years, and then we got too busy touring---although we did return there after doing Seattle in 1999. (Yes, this is officially a tangent, but that's just my style, so please bear with me.)

Now the productions we mounted on those occasions were not, in style or content, anything like what we do for primarily young audiences at schools and libraries. They were intellectually challenging, and dealt with some rather esoteric topics and techniques; moreover, we hired other San Francisco actors to perform along with Kimberly. (I wrote and directed but did not perform---which is the way I'd always envisioned my theatre career.)

But for the Seattle show, it was up to the three of us to do all the performing and production work. So we put together a project which, though still not really a family outing, was silly and light-hearted. The audiences also thought it was a great deal of fun, and so did the critics. The only unfavorable review we received was from a weekly tabloid called The Stranger; their reviewer laughed harder than anyone during the performance, but in print felt morally obligated to trash us because we were "from" Los Angeles.

This, we found, was a common attitude among many fiercely proud Seattleites toward Californians encroaching on their territory---either residentially or professionally. We'd long heard that the Seattle theatre community, to an even greater extent than the San Francisco theatre community, is rather resentful toward Hollywood for siphoning off some of the most talented performers with the lure of big bucks. When I telephoned the manager of the theatre where we were booked to try to arrange more rehearsal time, he informed me only half-jokingly that he would grant my request "if you promise never to move here."

Anyway, with all the rehearsing, prop construction and attending as many other festival shows as we could, we really didn't have much time for sightseeing on that initial excursion. One attraction that we did investigate was the Space Needle---which, in deference to a tradition begun by Kimberly's young cousin, we always refer to as the "Space Noodle" ---a remnant of the 1962 World's Fair. A few years ago, I forced myself, somehow, to ascend in the similarly-shaped CN Tower in Toronto, which is about three times as high, so you might think it would be no big deal to go up into the Space Noodle. But with my fear of heights, it was still an ordeal; and it didn't help matters any that while we were at the top, the fire alarm was triggered. But in spite of it all, I did enjoy the impressive view of the city.

You might need some such overview to get your bearings here, because street names can be rather confusing. They might include such designations as South 200th St. NW or West 200th St. SE, and every other possible combination of number and compass point you can imagine. For all their inventiveness in other areas, the founders don't seem to have bequeathed a legacy of imaginative name-conferring. A community halfway between Seattle and Tacoma bears the name SeaTac, with both capitals retained.

We returned to Seattle and vicinity in 2001 when we were contracted by both the Seattle City Library system and the King County Library system---as well as several schools---to offer a series of performances for National Poetry Month. We again had ten days to spend in the region---but we had 32 performances scheduled during that time! Before and after, however, we managed to see the aquarium, stroll around Pike Place Market, and watch boats transfer between the ocean and Lake Washington (which is at a higher level) at the locks in Ballard.

And after another two-year lapse, we returned to Seattle this year, again for National Poetry Month. This time, we didn't have nearly as many performances, but we also only had a week to stay. We did manage to arrange one free day, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. Having obtained a bird's eye of the city from the pinnacle of the Space Noodle, and witnessed some of her marvels at street and sea level, what I'd been wanting to do for some time was to descend to a lower level---on the Seattle Underground tour.

Actually, "underground" is rather a misnomer. They didn't tunnel passages under the ground; they built the ground up over the passages---which were once streets. And this was done primarily to give the residents better plumbing. It's a strange tale with as many twists and turns as the Underground itself, a saga more suited to an absurdist play than a history book. Fully appreciating it requires taking the tour yourself, but I'll try to mention some salient points here.

Once upon a time, the area of downtown now known as Pioneer Square was underwater. But some of the settlers got the notion to fill it in and build on it. Trouble was, they decided to use an abundant byproduct of a major industry in the area: sawdust. It didn't provide a very solid foundation, but they persisted in using it anyway. Our tour guide, a retired red-haired musician in his sixties who's still lean, fit and energetic, says this exemplifies the "Seattle spirit" ---the drive to form a plan and stick to it no matter how idiotic it may be. It's the same spirit, he noted, that later led to the establishment of the Seahawks football team.

With all the downpour, it wasn't long before the streets began forming huge sinkholes---enormous enough to swallow a horse in some cases. Not only that, but there was a terrible problem of sewage from the uphill neighborhoods washing away and collecting for the benefit of folks downtown. To remedy this problem, a series of drainage pipes was constructed; actually, they were more like drainage troughs, being square and wooden---and above ground. And since they deposited waste directly into the ocean, there were two times of day when the pressure from the tides caused them to backfire, belching a volcano of raw sewage straight up and all over any unwary user of the facilities.

Then it occurred to someone that this bug could be eliminated if gravity was made to carry the material down with greater force by elevating it higher at the high end. So they hatched up a scheme to build up the streets at successively higher levels just so they would have a suitable angle at which to drain waste. But city officials had a hard time agreeing to a timetable with the city business owners, and the latter decided they weren't going to bother with raising the ground under their shops. So the city said okay, fine, just keep the shops where they are, and we'll raise the streets around you. And that, believe it or not, is what they did.

After the landscape was restructured according to this plan straight out of Dilbert, pedestrians walking the streets of Seattle could look down at the sidewalks, which were as much as 35 feet below them. In order to access a business---or even cross the street---they would have to climb ladders. It was like a scene from a science fiction movie. Some of the heavier merchandise from the shops below would be stacked up on the edge of the street, and every now and then some object---a keg of nails, for instance---would topple and plummet straight down with no warning to anyone who might be underneath. Furthermore, an occasional pedestrian would fall from the street to the sidewalk---there were no streetlights then. And more than a few deaths resulted.

With such a setup, it might seem that the most merciful thing would be for the whole city to burn down so the builders could start all over. Which, as it turns out, is exactly what happened. After the great fire of 1889, the powers that were decided it was time to bring everyone up to the same level again. And they did, using the debris from the fire as filler, and initially installing stairs at intersections to replace the ladders. (Why didn't anyone think of that sooner?)

Revenue for the maintenance of the city was raised by levying taxes; and although Seattle was essentially a city of males at the time, a large portion of the taxes came not from the lumberjacks and fishermen, but from the 2500 women in town, virtually all of whom listed their occupation as "seamstress" , or some such. Judging by the amount of income on which they were taxed, the guys must have worn out a lot of clothing.

In any case, what you ended up with was a city that sat above several blocks of underground passageways. And that presented a number of concerns. First, a few savvy criminals would use the passages to enter businesses from underneath, rob them, and then literally go underground for a quick, if not necessarily clean, getaway. During Prohibition, the submerged former streets became a haven for bootleggers and other lawless characters. And then when rats began moving in and bringing bubonic plague with them, city officials had had enough. They sealed off the entire underground with the exception of three blocks---an area later opened for public tours.

As of this writing, the tours cost 9 dollars for adults and 7 dollars for children. They depart approximately every hour 7days a week, but the schedule varies, so you might want to call before you show up. (There are no reservations accepted.) Tours officially last 90 minutes, although the first half hour consists of an informative and entertaining introduction while seated in Doc Maynard's a tavern that dates back to the nineties (that's EIGHTEEN-nineties, kids.)

After crossing the street, you enter the first of the three open sectors, which contains a couple of authentic pieces of décor from the era: a bar and a toilet. Walking through other "rooms" , you notice how much the floor has collapsed and sunk since the concrete foundations were laid. And our guide tells us that it will continue sinking several more inches until the sawdust underneath finally has compacted enough over the years to do the job for which it was placed there.

Leaving this part of the itinerary, we cross the street and go into an alley to find the entrance to the next leg of the tour. We cross paths with a couple of fellows removing some paintings from a building and loading them into a station wagon. Not to worry, their scruffiness establishes that they are indeed artists rather than art thieves.

We stroll through the other subterranean passages, but there is little to see except in our imaginations as our guide spins out his rich supply of anecdotes. (We learn, for instance, that the term "skid road" originated right here in downtown Seattle.) The few relics on display include an antique cash register and discarded elevator mechanisms, grotesquely out of proportion by today's standards, now lying in jumbles. Once we emerge from the underground, we find quite a number of fascinating artifacts and photos from the era on display in the free mini-museum.

After the tour, everyone in our party (we were with the woman who had been our gracious hostess during our stay in town, along with her daughter) was feeling a bit hungry, so we went strolling on the waterfront in search of suitable grub. Well, if we'd been seafood consumers, we really would have been in luck; the bountiful harvest of Puget Sound was everywhere evident in the little restaurants and cafes we saw--- but there was virtually nothing that was NOT tainted by aquarium life. Finally we found a place that offered freshly baked sourdough bread and corn-on the-cob roasted over an open fire. The latter still had the husks on, which the vendors deftly peeled back and snapped off while placing the ear of corn on a paper plate, untouched by human hands. The combination of bread and corn really hit the spot, providing just enough to hold us over until we could go obtain a full meal. Like just about everything else we've experienced in Seattle, this little snack was quite appealing, and whetted our appetites for more.