Goin' Underground

Hello campers.  Hope this finds you all having a rip roaring good summer. Summer is just really starting here in Seattle and I've kicked it off by going to the Seattle Underground tour with Mrs. Hotlanta. 

First - update on the job situation. I was really REALLY hoping for a job at a shoe company here in Seattle. It would have been a fantastic job for me. Sadly they chose the other candidate - according to the recruiter it wasn't that they didn't want me they just had two GREAT candidates and one job opening. There's a chance they'll call me back for a PM job, though no timeframe. So I'm still searching.

I've had some great leads and a good interview with another group. I'm hoping that something pans out before July 31st. While I'd love to take the month of August off, I'd prefer to do it on my terms and with enough $$ to not stress out.

Ok. Back to the tour.

The Pergola in Pioneer Square. This structure has been restored, hit by cars and trucks, restored again.  Its iconic to Pioneer Square and had there not been a bunch of homeless chaps standing around I would have taken more shots.

 

Mrs. Hotlanta asked me a while ago if I'd be interested in doing the Seattle Underground Tour. I had heard about the tour, but truthfully, I sorta joked about it being a cheesey tourist tour.  And it was, but it was a good cheese.

I'm not a fan of tunnels, or being in closed spaces, or tunnels...so I laughed at myself as I was standing in Pioneer Square waiting for Mrs. Hotlanta as I realized this entire tour would be "underground".  How that escaped me before I was standing there waiting is beyond me. I figured I could suck it up and just ignore the fact we were under ground.

The first stop was in Doc Maynards bar - shut down during the tour hours - where our "host" told us a bit of history about Seattle in the old days.  I ... LOVED... The history they told us. True or not, it was very interesting. After about 15 minutes of them yammering on, they split our group into 4 groups and off we went. 

Underground Seattle circa late 1800's. That garbage can - circa 2013.

 

Did I mention I'm not a fan of tunnels? Yah, first stop, long, musty smelling tunnel - or underground walkway.

 

So it turns out that back in the late 1800's when Seattle was starting out, they built the city on tide flats not thinking about the - well - tides. The city would flood twice a day.  Eventually the city burns down (The story was told to us as in 1889 a cabinetmaker apprentice overturned and ignited a glue pot. When he attempted to put it out with water it spread the burning grease-based glue. Conveniently the fire chief was out of town in San Francisco, and although the volunteer fire department responded they made the mistake of trying to use too many hoses at once. They never recovered from the subsequent drop in water pressure, and the Great Seattle Fire destroyed 31 blocks and they have to rebuild.)

 

When they rebuilt they decided to put the city higher. They put the roads higher which meant you had to climb up steps or ladders to go across the street. From street level, up a ladder, across the street, down a ladder. Not very convenient.

 

Eventually they "filled in" and built on top of it.  There are urban legends about what was found when they city started digging out the old city.  Things like bath tubs and small boats. The city workers were throwing anything they could in as filler.

 

The entire time I was underground I kept saying over and over in my head, "Please don't let there be an earthquake right now."

So in order to add light on the subject, the city planners put in these sky lights.  On the current street level of Seattle, these little gems look like sidewalk art and you'd never know they were sky lights.  Though at the time glass apparently had a coating of something...magnium?...and apparently there's a reaction when that and sunlight comes together and cause the glass to turn purple. 

This hallway cracked me up. It was the hallway of old mechanical things. I wondered if the stuff in his hallway was actually from the 1800's or if it was just crap they found laying around rusted and tossed it down here. No rhyme or reason to any of it.  Still it was interesting to see the different machinery stuff.

 

This little gem was on the wall as we left the tour and entered, you guessed it, the souvenir shop. As we approached it I thought it was a cement sculpture of some sort.  Turns out its tin.  Still pretty cool looking and worth a photo.

BIG story about the flushing toilet and gravity and muck and sewer. I'll spare you. But suffice it to say the founding fathers of Seattle learned a lot about physics thanks to the crapper.

If you're ever in SEattle, I highly recommend this tour. It's touristy, but fun. A lot of Seattle history is told. Probably most of it true. The tour guides were all amusing and had nice little puns throughout to, I'm sure, help me keep my mind off the fact I was underground. Oy vei!