Post by Ampersand on Oct 23, 2021 20:52:32 GMT
Hi, all! With the latest edition of Collision taking place in the Seattle Underground, I thought I’d give you all some background on this location.
First of all, is it real?
Indeed! Those of you who have perused the Writing Resources board may recall me mentioning it in the Seattle Settings: Locations and Landmarks post.
Okay, so how did it get there? Was it Mole Men? I bet it was Mole Men.
In this case, it was, sadly, not Mole Men. On June 6th, 1889, the Great Seattle Fire broke out as a result of a glue pot overturning at the Clairmont and Company cabinet shop. It completely destroyed the central business district of Seattle, though no human lives were reported as to have been lost as a result of the destruction. After the fire, the city quickly rebuilt, regrading the streets and creating brick structures 20 feet above the original foundations. Seattle already had an unstable foundation that was causing parts of the city to sink. The city was built largely off of the lumber and logging industry (in fact, the term ‘skid row’ originated in Seattle because of this), and for some reason, the people who had come to live there looked at the sawdust and other by-products of processing lumber and decided, ‘Yes, good! Organic filler would make a fine foundation for a city!’
That seems like a bad idea.
And how! Pioneer Square was built mostly on filled-in tidal flats that often flooded.
...That seems like a really bad idea.
Oh, you bet! Let’s just say the sewage system in those early days was...imperfect. The local newspaper would publish charts of the tidal cycles to help people avoid sewage related horror, and they say you could tell whether or not a man was literate by looking at the condition of his pants hems.
Gross.
Extremely! Anyway, for the regrading, they lined the streets with concrete walls that formed narrow alleyways between the walls and the buildings on both sides of the street, with a wide "alley" where the street was. At first, pedestrians could use ladders to climb between the street level and the sidewalk. Brick archways were constructed next to the road surface, above the submerged sidewalks, and pavement lights - clear glass prisms that created a walk-on skylight over the gap from the raised street and the building - were installed to disperse daylight down into the areas below. Thus, the Seattle Underground was formed. Once the new sidewalks were complete, building owners moved their businesses to the new ground floor, and people living in the city could move between the Underground and the areas above, using the skylights for illumination.
So, what happened? Why isn’t this something we’re still using?
The plague! Well, fear of the plague, anyway. One thing about the fire was that it eliminated much of Seattle’s rat population, but you really can’t keep one of nature’s cleverest, most adaptable rodents down, and they came back in a big way. In 1907, the Underground was condemned for fear of rats spreading the bubonic plague. Although sealed up, used as storage, and largely left to deteriorate, the Underground was also home to illegal flophouses, opium dens, and speakeasies.
Then how is it accessible?
Seattle is now and was then, a city full of folks looking to make a buck. Self-made historian and columnist for the Seattle Times, Bill Speidel, was no different. In 1964, Speidel was sent a letter from a reader asking about the underground areas of Pioneer Square. He replied in his newspaper column telling the reader that he didn’t know much about it, but he’d do the research and get back to her. Once he had, he printed a response telling her to meet him at 3 p.m. the next Saturday in Pioneer Square, where he would take her on a tour of the underground.
Not only did that reader show up, but she brought along 500 other people. Speidel, smelling opportunity, quickly took up a collection of $1 from each of the visitors and held the first Underground Tour. He even saved on labor costs for taking all the junk out of the tunnels, letting people take away bits and pieces as ‘souvenirs.’ Since Memorial Day weekend 1965, the Underground Tour has given several tours a day every day except holidays. There is also an, ‘Underworld Tour,’ held at night for older tourists who want to hear a significantly juicier version of the city’s history. It details such facts as how it was that there was a city full of, ‘seamstresses,’ that didn't have any sewing machines. How UPS got its start running things like laudanum and other delightful intoxicants to the city’s populace (Ask what brown can do for you!). How a brothel madam, Lou Graham, contributed more money to the education of the city's children than the rest of the city's prominent early citizens combined. And how merchants, sex workers, and con-men mercilessly swindled people headed to the Yukon for the gold rush.
So how much of the Underground is accessible?
In real life, much of the Underground has not been restored to a state where it would be safe to access. However, here at Ascended Wrestling, our gloriously lazy company owner has decided to change that, purchasing and renovating enough of it to create a new area for his Gladiators to compete in.
What is it like in the Underground?
The portions of the Underground accessible to people in Seattle is, as previously mentioned, relatively small. The tunnels and basements vary in size, but the construction is largely of wood, brick, and cement. There are often small bits of plant life that grow near the prisms of the old skylights that still exist embedded in the sidewalks above. It’s quiet, cool, and smells of earth. Whenever you’re in Seattle walking over the sidewalks, wherever you see glass bricks embedded in the paving, there’s a part of the Underground beneath.
And that’s the Seattle Underground, folks! See you on the forum!
First of all, is it real?
Indeed! Those of you who have perused the Writing Resources board may recall me mentioning it in the Seattle Settings: Locations and Landmarks post.
Okay, so how did it get there? Was it Mole Men? I bet it was Mole Men.
In this case, it was, sadly, not Mole Men. On June 6th, 1889, the Great Seattle Fire broke out as a result of a glue pot overturning at the Clairmont and Company cabinet shop. It completely destroyed the central business district of Seattle, though no human lives were reported as to have been lost as a result of the destruction. After the fire, the city quickly rebuilt, regrading the streets and creating brick structures 20 feet above the original foundations. Seattle already had an unstable foundation that was causing parts of the city to sink. The city was built largely off of the lumber and logging industry (in fact, the term ‘skid row’ originated in Seattle because of this), and for some reason, the people who had come to live there looked at the sawdust and other by-products of processing lumber and decided, ‘Yes, good! Organic filler would make a fine foundation for a city!’
That seems like a bad idea.
And how! Pioneer Square was built mostly on filled-in tidal flats that often flooded.
...That seems like a really bad idea.
Oh, you bet! Let’s just say the sewage system in those early days was...imperfect. The local newspaper would publish charts of the tidal cycles to help people avoid sewage related horror, and they say you could tell whether or not a man was literate by looking at the condition of his pants hems.
Gross.
Extremely! Anyway, for the regrading, they lined the streets with concrete walls that formed narrow alleyways between the walls and the buildings on both sides of the street, with a wide "alley" where the street was. At first, pedestrians could use ladders to climb between the street level and the sidewalk. Brick archways were constructed next to the road surface, above the submerged sidewalks, and pavement lights - clear glass prisms that created a walk-on skylight over the gap from the raised street and the building - were installed to disperse daylight down into the areas below. Thus, the Seattle Underground was formed. Once the new sidewalks were complete, building owners moved their businesses to the new ground floor, and people living in the city could move between the Underground and the areas above, using the skylights for illumination.
So, what happened? Why isn’t this something we’re still using?
The plague! Well, fear of the plague, anyway. One thing about the fire was that it eliminated much of Seattle’s rat population, but you really can’t keep one of nature’s cleverest, most adaptable rodents down, and they came back in a big way. In 1907, the Underground was condemned for fear of rats spreading the bubonic plague. Although sealed up, used as storage, and largely left to deteriorate, the Underground was also home to illegal flophouses, opium dens, and speakeasies.
Then how is it accessible?
Seattle is now and was then, a city full of folks looking to make a buck. Self-made historian and columnist for the Seattle Times, Bill Speidel, was no different. In 1964, Speidel was sent a letter from a reader asking about the underground areas of Pioneer Square. He replied in his newspaper column telling the reader that he didn’t know much about it, but he’d do the research and get back to her. Once he had, he printed a response telling her to meet him at 3 p.m. the next Saturday in Pioneer Square, where he would take her on a tour of the underground.
Not only did that reader show up, but she brought along 500 other people. Speidel, smelling opportunity, quickly took up a collection of $1 from each of the visitors and held the first Underground Tour. He even saved on labor costs for taking all the junk out of the tunnels, letting people take away bits and pieces as ‘souvenirs.’ Since Memorial Day weekend 1965, the Underground Tour has given several tours a day every day except holidays. There is also an, ‘Underworld Tour,’ held at night for older tourists who want to hear a significantly juicier version of the city’s history. It details such facts as how it was that there was a city full of, ‘seamstresses,’ that didn't have any sewing machines. How UPS got its start running things like laudanum and other delightful intoxicants to the city’s populace (Ask what brown can do for you!). How a brothel madam, Lou Graham, contributed more money to the education of the city's children than the rest of the city's prominent early citizens combined. And how merchants, sex workers, and con-men mercilessly swindled people headed to the Yukon for the gold rush.
So how much of the Underground is accessible?
In real life, much of the Underground has not been restored to a state where it would be safe to access. However, here at Ascended Wrestling, our gloriously lazy company owner has decided to change that, purchasing and renovating enough of it to create a new area for his Gladiators to compete in.
What is it like in the Underground?
The portions of the Underground accessible to people in Seattle is, as previously mentioned, relatively small. The tunnels and basements vary in size, but the construction is largely of wood, brick, and cement. There are often small bits of plant life that grow near the prisms of the old skylights that still exist embedded in the sidewalks above. It’s quiet, cool, and smells of earth. Whenever you’re in Seattle walking over the sidewalks, wherever you see glass bricks embedded in the paving, there’s a part of the Underground beneath.
And that’s the Seattle Underground, folks! See you on the forum!