Opinion
Seattle Didn't Need to Become a "World-Class City." It Already Was One.
Over the past week or so, we asked local notables C.R. Douglas, Stephanie Pure, Shannon Stewart, Mike Seely, and Feliks Banel to weigh in on an open-ended question: How has Seattle changed---for better or worse; on a grand scale or on a personal scale; in the last 10 years; or in the last 10 minutes?
Today, PubliCola reader (and 2010 Bumbershoot essay contest winner) Cara Vallier offers her own take on how the city has changed in the decades she's called Seattle home.
Seattle was a place, in the '70s, where you could enjoy the funky, unique oddities---large and small---that made the city what it was. There was the Bubbleator, a see-through plastic domed elevator at the Seattle Center House. There was a drive-in restaurant called Bar-B-Q Chuckwagon by Greenlake, off Aurora, with life-size cowboy cutouts and metal trays for your window, right by the Twin Teepees. There was the REI that was nothing but a cavernous warehouse full of ski gear near the Comet Tavern. You could drive north on I-5 (not “the Five,” okay? stop saying that already) near the Olive exit and see a real waterfall (through a glass window! On the freeway!). And the only icon we needed was the Space Needle.
Neighborhoods like “Madison Valley” and “Tangletown” didn't exist. Far from being a hipster paradise, Ballard was the place where older people drove mammoth American cars with the belts of their raincoats (sensible, water-resistant, non-wicking raincoats that were navy blue on the outside and red plaid on the inside) dragging outside the driver's side door. To me, growing up here, Ballard was “the place where Grandma gets her eyeglasses fixed.”
Now, the contrived neo-oddity movement of Seattle can be best summed up by the “funkyTM” building in Fremont, a condominium awash with “weird” shapes and bright colors---or, more painfully, the EMP. No one who ever stepped foot on the Flight to Mars, the garish and hokey amusement ride the EMP replace, will ever forgive our civic leaders for tearing it down. Yes, it was cheesy. It was also awesome, even if the scariest thing I ever saw in there was the pimply teenage ticket-taker surreptitiously smoking a joint behind a flaming Styrofoam planet.
Today, the vernacular is not organic in the style of George Tsutakawa, arising out of natural elements, or even kitschy, with places and buildings rooted a sense of purpose and an expression of place. It is the forced theme of a city yearning to figure out what it wants to be.
When Seattle set out to be a “World Class City” in the late 90s, it doomed itself to inauthenticity. What makes a World Class City? No one actually bothered to ask if we really wanted to put those wheels in motion. It was dictated by a series of ballot initiatives---first a stadium (wait, no, we need TWO stadiums to be a WCC) then for a (terrific) library system. Flash forward: A lot of shopping, a lot of condos, and a lot of trendy restaurants—now we've got 'em all.
In my mind, though, Seattle didn't need to become a World Class City, it already was one. It didn't need to “grow up” with a urban planning version of Toastmasters. Seattle had its own voice. It wasn't necessarily sophisticated, or very polished, but neither was it screaming out for attention all the time.
I miss Seattle of the 70s, when I grew up here. Seattle was a small town. Now that it is a World Class City, I still love it, but I hardly recognize it anymore.
Cara Kadoshima Vallier grew up in Seattle in the 1970s, and lives in Ravenna.
Today, PubliCola reader (and 2010 Bumbershoot essay contest winner) Cara Vallier offers her own take on how the city has changed in the decades she's called Seattle home.
Seattle was a place, in the '70s, where you could enjoy the funky, unique oddities---large and small---that made the city what it was. There was the Bubbleator, a see-through plastic domed elevator at the Seattle Center House. There was a drive-in restaurant called Bar-B-Q Chuckwagon by Greenlake, off Aurora, with life-size cowboy cutouts and metal trays for your window, right by the Twin Teepees. There was the REI that was nothing but a cavernous warehouse full of ski gear near the Comet Tavern. You could drive north on I-5 (not “the Five,” okay? stop saying that already) near the Olive exit and see a real waterfall (through a glass window! On the freeway!). And the only icon we needed was the Space Needle.
Neighborhoods like “Madison Valley” and “Tangletown” didn't exist. Far from being a hipster paradise, Ballard was the place where older people drove mammoth American cars with the belts of their raincoats (sensible, water-resistant, non-wicking raincoats that were navy blue on the outside and red plaid on the inside) dragging outside the driver's side door. To me, growing up here, Ballard was “the place where Grandma gets her eyeglasses fixed.”
Now, the contrived neo-oddity movement of Seattle can be best summed up by the “funkyTM” building in Fremont, a condominium awash with “weird” shapes and bright colors---or, more painfully, the EMP. No one who ever stepped foot on the Flight to Mars, the garish and hokey amusement ride the EMP replace, will ever forgive our civic leaders for tearing it down. Yes, it was cheesy. It was also awesome, even if the scariest thing I ever saw in there was the pimply teenage ticket-taker surreptitiously smoking a joint behind a flaming Styrofoam planet.
Today, the vernacular is not organic in the style of George Tsutakawa, arising out of natural elements, or even kitschy, with places and buildings rooted a sense of purpose and an expression of place. It is the forced theme of a city yearning to figure out what it wants to be.
When Seattle set out to be a “World Class City” in the late 90s, it doomed itself to inauthenticity. What makes a World Class City? No one actually bothered to ask if we really wanted to put those wheels in motion. It was dictated by a series of ballot initiatives---first a stadium (wait, no, we need TWO stadiums to be a WCC) then for a (terrific) library system. Flash forward: A lot of shopping, a lot of condos, and a lot of trendy restaurants—now we've got 'em all.
In my mind, though, Seattle didn't need to become a World Class City, it already was one. It didn't need to “grow up” with a urban planning version of Toastmasters. Seattle had its own voice. It wasn't necessarily sophisticated, or very polished, but neither was it screaming out for attention all the time.
I miss Seattle of the 70s, when I grew up here. Seattle was a small town. Now that it is a World Class City, I still love it, but I hardly recognize it anymore.
Cara Kadoshima Vallier grew up in Seattle in the 1970s, and lives in Ravenna.
