Over past two decades, removal of the highway has led to substantially positive environment and public health outcomes, increased business activity along the corridor, redevelopment, and improving traffic flow. Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes showcases what Cheonggyecheon is like today, including newer improvements in recent years, and discusses the pros and cons of Seoul’s approach.

The post Sunday Video: Seoul Removed Highway, Restored River, and Traffic Got Better first appeared on The Urbanist.

The post Sunday Video: How Did We Create the Housing Crisis? first appeared on The Urbanist.

The post Sunday Video: Why Is The Public Land Survey System So Important? first appeared on The Urbanist.

In this video from the Seattle Municipal Archives, created in the 1980s by the Seattle Engineering Department (which became SDOT), narrator Ward Collier walks through what it took to make the regrade happen and touches on some of the plans for the city that Seattle’s past generations considered and rejected, including the Bogue Plan. Completed at a time before environmental review, the Denny Regrade ultimately represents a very different kind of public works project than is possible now, but also the type of significant undertaking that Seattle has been pursuing ever since.

The post Sunday Video: Seattle’s Long-Forgotten Hill first appeared on The Urbanist.

Liveable Kirkland’s vision is to create homes for everyone while improving sustainability and quality of life. The key to achieving this vision is focusing growth into people-oriented, complete communities, where people can meet their routine needs without needing to drive, all connected with efficient transportation.

The post Sunday Video: Kirkland’s History of Exclusion and Opportunities to Change That first appeared on The Urbanist.

The post Sunday Video: Could Toronto’s Kensington Market Be A Solution to Gentrification? first appeared on The Urbanist.

Correction – Use Correct Titles

In May, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority CEO Marc Dones announced they would be stepping down. This week, Sound Transit CEO Julie Timm announced she would leave the position in the new year. Senior Deputy Mayor Monisha Harrell left the Mayor’s Office in June. Arts leaders including Amanda Cruz from Seattle Art Museum and Christina Scheppelmann of the Seattle Opera announced their departures this year also. 

There’s a feeling that 2023 has been a turnover year for leadership of the region’s most difficult spots. Add to that the rightward flip of the Seattle City Council. Just the departure of long-tenured Socialist Alternative council member Kshama Sawant moved the needle a lot. Then five new council members of varying centrist credentials took the November election.

Our expectation of continuity may need correction. In the future, we may add “Imminent Former” to all titles of regional appointees. 

Regret – The Blue Angels Have Always Been Problematic

This summer, guest contributors Barbara Clabots and Rachel Heaton published the opinion that Seattle Needs To Cancel the Blue Angels. Something about the sentiment led to a lot of feedback ranging from “yes, please” to “Who do you think you are?” Variation on terminology in both cases covered a lot of space between polite and profane.

The nerve hit by this article is interesting and profound. Clabots and Heaton wrote from their view as parents raising kids under polluted, carcinogen filled skies. Many responses skipped past any points made by the article and straight to “Why are you taking away our fun, [spoilsports]?!?” The [spoilsports] was often replaced with some anatomical part. This response doesn’t address the issues or answer the question of what airshow boosters will do when the view of pretty blue planes is obscured by the choking smoke caused in part by, say, airshows. 

We regret not questioning the place for air shows earlier and louder. Perhaps as loud as the deafening roar of spectator militarization.

Correction – Spell Check! Always.

In my December 8 article about the Seattle Library’s Strategic Direction, I made a spelling error. Seattle’s Chief Librarian is Tom Fay, not Tom Ley as I wrote it. In the title. Insert crushing embarrassment here.

A full weekend of lingering mortification drove me to post-mortem what happened. I misspelled Tom’s name once – once! – when I added speaker notes to the computerized transcription of our conversation. The app propagated the misspelling through the document. By the end of editing, I had re-read the misspelling so many times that it looked right. Artificial Intelligence did not make this mistake, I did. I regret the error and the reliance on AI, and think there’s a lesson there for us all. Skynet doesn’t need to be murderous, only fatally embarrassing to get the job done.

Regret – Escala Innuendo

In 2023, we got a look at the way a handful of residents of Downtown Seattle’s Escala luxury condos have used Design Review and lawsuits to block thousands of apartments and millions in Mandatory Housing Affordability revenue. Andrew Engelson combed through public records to come up with eight years of Escala slow rolling the Seattle Process to preserve their views and suppress neighbors. 

The Escala Building happens to be the setting for the erotic farce 50 Shades of Grey. Engelson is too good of a journalist to insert any BDSM references in his article. Appropriate innuendo could have included “dominating neighbors that ball-gaged development,” “cost the city more than a luxury sex dungeon,” “supplements to maintain the tallest erection in the neighborhood,” or “baseless lawsuits spanked by the judge.” The prospects are titillating. 

We regret not finding more bookcases to hide a few secret rooms behind. 

Correction — Resume Updates

About a year ago, I responded to a help wanted ad. The Seattle Times posted an open position for an editorial writer. I may have submitted a writing sample that was critical of the paper’s long history of profiting off of exclusion and redlining. Kinda wanted to see if such a critique would get me an interview. To no one’s surprise, it didn’t.

The person who did get the position didn’t hold it for long. In July, David Volodzko took the standard Seattle newcomer affront to Fremont’s Lenin statue. Fine for a kickoff editorial, if amateur weaksauce, given the statue is for sale, on private property, and regularly improved with appropriate graffiti. It was Volodzko’s second act on the topic that raised questions, as he decided to succumb to some Twitter ridicule in a way that looked like a defense of Adolf Hitler. 

Unfortunately for Volodzko, his misstep occurred before Twitter’s complete disintegration into a right-wing booger-eating contest more useless than a Cybertruck. The Times canned him.

The correction here would have been to my initial resume to the Seattle Times. I omitted the line “I won’t defend 20th Century dictators on Twitter.” Might be useful in pursuing one of those Imminent Former regional appointments.

Regret – Can’t Make It Out Alone

We didn’t spend enough time listening to The Pogues this year. Or any year. And we listened to a lot, yelled it even more, but it was never enough. The Pogues are family cacophony as musical poetry. They carried forward the best Irish tradition of overstating the sorrowful depths and the rollicking heights to tease out one essential truth: We’re all we’ve got and that’s pretty good. It’s so traditional, it’s punk.

Now, lead singer Shane MacGowan has joined Sinead O’Connor and Ronnie Drew, and we’re left with memories. We regret the omission. Hopefully, the bells are ringing out wherever you are this holiday.

The post The Urbanist’s Corrections and Regrets of 2023 first appeared on The Urbanist.

The post Sunday Video: Freiburg Is A Lesson In City Building first appeared on The Urbanist.

Will we have enough water in the Puget Sound region as the population grows? What does today’s drinking water in the Seattle area, the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, Spring Street downtown, migrating wild salmon, and a river that changed directions have in common? Watch the video for answers.

I admit it. I am concerned about the Puget Sound’s changing climate. When I moved to the region in 1990 from Ohio it seemed to be drizzling for months on end in Seattle. That type of weather is rare now. And it’s clear that glaciers in the region are also disappearing. How is the region adapting to these changes?

This featured video explains where drinking water comes from for Seattle, the history of municipal water for the area, and ways that the managers are adapting to changes. Additional links are also here so that those who are interested can review water availability reports and other facts related to the values of fresh water.

It is important to also look at the history of water and to be respectful of Tribal values related to it, to wild fish and to forests. The more mindful and aware that we are of how important this water is for all life in the region, the better we will be at adapting to changes and practicing the conservation of it.

You’ll find more information about water quality and availability for your community online, and suggestions for ways to conserve it.

The post Sunday Video: Seattle’s Urban Drinking Water is Sacred first appeared on The Urbanist.

Inside the limited access door at 911 Pine is an elevator lobby. Trimmed in carved, fluted columns and mosaic marble tiles, it begs for fedoras and doormen. The narrow double elevators sit below embedded analog clock faces showing the car’s current floor. The one-time mail alcove and concierge station is now a welcome desk with security monitors. The closest thing to a bellhop is Stanley, the distinguished elderly Basset Hound and office pooch. There are patches of discolored repairs in the ceiling and wireboxes for electronics. 

What is now the offices for Seattle Theatre Group and several other arts organizations was once an apartment building attached to the front of Seattle’s Paramount Theatre. It has the same fundamental allure as the venue, but unpolished and unpreened for the public. Like the building’s entrance, the apartments’ history is attached to the theater, but unseen in the glare.

Together But Separate

For over 40 years, David Allen has worked on the operations of the Seattle Theatre Group, the non-profit ownership of the Paramount, Moore, and Neptune theatres. Allen has stepped away from his long time chief operating role to hold the mantle of special projects manager. It allows him to “pay special attention to these historic buildings,” as he puts it.

Allen said the original builders envisioned the 48 residences as living spaces for the artists who would be performing in the attached theater. These roughly 32,000 square feet of units across seven floors were the city’s original live/work artist lofts. The apartments opened with the theatre in 1928.

Newspaper accounts from the time of opening the ornate new building touted the possibilities for having the creatives so close to the venue.

“In the Paramount Building, Ninth Avenue and Pine Street, now nearing completion, Seattle will have the first apartment building designed exclusively for aesthetic activities,” the Seattle Daily Times announced in an article on October 23, 1927. “In the nine stories of commercial and apartment space constructed over the Seattle Theatre there will be accommodations for the musician, artist, sculptor and photographer.”

For the next 20 years, the building shows up in the apartment listings. “Delightful, modern apartments. Clean, classy, fine view, inviting rates.” No specifics are given on those rates. One can presume the nearby ads for $40 per month are comparable. Somewhat less than the Paramount’s neighbor, Premiere on Pine, which is currently offering a 1 bed/1bath apartment for $2450 per month.

Through the middle of the century, the Paramount’s studio apartments were operating as designed, though it is unclear how many teachers actually resided in the building. Into the 1950s, the Paramount Building appeared in music and acting teachers’ advertisements. From piano to voice to accordion from Walter M. Schlep, the classifieds had a variety of lessons advertised at either 907 or 911 Pine Street or “Ninth and Pine.” A full page circular in the October 17, 1937 Seattle Sunday Times featured “Prominent Teachers of Music Dance and Drama.” Eight were located in the Paramount Building.

Unfortunately, these ads tapered off through the 1950s, until the last mention of the residences in the newspaper was an April 11, 1980 apartment estate sale. Officially, the building stopped being used for apartments in 1998. “I’ll take a lot of the blame for that,” Allen laughs. The historic features became too tempting for some residents and began to disappear. There was not an appetite in the organization to continue replacing them. By that time, the building had also started to show its age in other ways.

Separated But Together

The structure of the apartments, and some of its issues, may be most visible when walking toward the theater from loud, congested I-5 intersection to the north. From Pine or Ninth, the building appears to be a solid brick edifice. However, working down the hill on Pine, one can see there are two structures. At the bottom, there are two floors of commercial space that connect directly to the auditorium part of the Paramount, but mostly lack windows on that side. Above is seven stories of narrow, even pairs of windows. These are the former apartments, and they’re separated from the venue building by a 10-foot air gap.

The gap is a light shaft that comes directly out of tenement building 101. It allowed space for mechanical equipment such as a smoke stack for the boiler and windows that made several units into usable space. The current fire code frowns on such shenanigans. Windows to the light shaft from the interior stairway have been sealed and the fire rating on the stairway doors has been doubled with sheetrock. 

To illustrate the layout of the building, STG let me borrow their fire escape plan. To the north end, the hallway is single loaded with four studio apartments featuring windows onto Pine. The opposite side of the hallway is the interior stairway, the elevators, and a second stair open to the air on the north face of the building. The south end of the building is four larger apartments. These start on the fifth floor, above the theater’s lobby. All are now offices and conference rooms, mostly for Seattle Theatre Group.

STG is most recognized for bringing shows and performers to Seattle. (I tried to schedule this tour/interview to coincide with a performance of Six, but alas.) Their actual charter with Washington State starts with “operations of a historic theater.” That can be a heavy lift for a nonprofit. As David Allen puts it,  “It depends how you look at it. Part of the fun is if you like what you do. Preserving these buildings is what we do and what we enjoy doing.” They enjoy doing it so much that they also steward the historic Moore and Neptune theaters.

Restoring the building as a residence would require significant expensive changes, beyond the wiring and plumbing necessary to come up to modern likes. The buildings survived the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake with only cosmetic damage in part because the gap between the apartments and theater allowed them to resonate separately. Returning the buildings to residences would require thickening the common wall, extending the floor plates through the air gap, and other pricy changes.

For this reason, Allen does not see the exit of resident musicians and actors as a precise loss, more of an evolution. A different type of artistry is now at work in the buildings, one that has the capacity to maintain and manage Seattle’s history. “We are preserving a skill set. A technical staff of young people loving and taking care of the older buildings.”

Together And Apart

Such older buildings are few and far between in this corner of downtown. Changes to the movie industry impacted the Paramount in the 1960’s, as theaters went from grand to suburban. The neighborhood changed too. Interstate 5 barreled through the city in the late 1960’s, ripping a scar that displaced 40,000 people. Into the 1980’s, when Allen began working with STG, a third great upheaval was underway to reshape the neighborhood.

“This was an older residential neighborhood,” Allen recalls. Then the original Seattle Convention Center on Pike Street began construction in 1985.

A 2007 oral history of the rise and fall of the Pike/Pine corridor from The Stranger (then an equally historic print edition) speaks to this latest change. Singer Anne Bonny and owner Spencer Moody fingered that construction as the point of many downtown ills. “I think the start of all this and the very worst was when they put in that whole Convention Center area, because a huge part of the city disappeared all at once… I guess people want to live in the city, but they don’t want the city.”

Since the original Convention Center opened on the east side of Pike Street, it has expanded twice. First was the 1999 development to the west side of Pike, including hotel and skybridge. Second was the recently opened Summit expansion on the west side of Pine. Now the Paramount is surrounded by the convention center on three sides.  

Such development makes it look like The Paramount has always stood alone. That was not totally the case. While towards the edge of downtown, there were a number of theaters for movies and plays nearby. The Coliseum Theater on 5th and Pike became the Banana Republic store. A United Artists theater was displaced for the convention center. And the 7th Avenue Theater was just down the block on 7th and Olive. 

It was the demolition of that 7th Avenue Theater in 1990 that stoked calls and interest to preserve the Paramount. While the venue had been surviving on rock shows and concerts, it was in need of a significant update and preservation. The Paramount’s precarious position in light of the loss of other theaters caught the eye of Ida Cole, who led the effort to preserve the building.

As with all preservation, the Paramount’s present comes with the question of what has actually been preserved. This opulent old theater attracts tremendous shows, but it does so alone with few of the neighbors that grew up around it. Even Seattle residents going to shows find the venue among convention hotels and tourists. If the Paramount is Seattle’s, it starts to feel like a favorite chair in the guest bedroom.

Allen takes the most recent changes in stride. He laments the loss of the views to Lake Union, those mentioned in the classifieds for the apartments so long ago. But in general, the change “doesn’t bother me, you get used to it. They brought a lot, a lot of good neighbors.”

Whatever the future holds for the Paramount, it is unlikely to be outshone by its neighbors. Unlike the theater’s marquee obscuring the one-time apartments attached to its front. These old apartments are a historic footnote to a building, and a neighborhood, that remains in the spotlight. 

The post The Paramount’s Apartments: 1bd/1ba, Showstopping Location first appeared on The Urbanist.