Comments on Nose, Face, Spite

Nothing in that Seattle Times stories encouraged me to support the rebuild. Actually, it confirmed my belief that tearing down the thing would be a great boon to the region. It's sad that they started the article with the story of the benefits to an heiress, cause the rest of the story sounds like a piece about how the viaduct is destroying the waterfront. Wonder how many people will read to the end.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dan. I feel the exact-same frustration. The people I despise the most in all this are the supposed grassroots activists who shamelessly call themselves environmentalists but for whom the real value is populism and sticking it to somebody else. And I'm with you on Paul Allen. Well-intentioned and yet he's just too stupid or too programmed to actually accomplish anything.

You are wrong on a lot of your assumptions. Mentioning class differences is not the same as trying to stoke class resentment. Not everyone benefits when rich people do well just because they pay taxes (you forgot to mention all the jobs they provide us!). Just because Seattle voters could reject Paul Allen when given a choice does not make it their fault that Allen then went ahead and simply bought South Lake Union, the mayor and the city council and did what he wanted without creating a park. And by knocking down the viaduct, you don't automatically create lots of "open, public space." It's possible we'll mainly just get open views for spaces developed by waterfront property owners. Where's all the money coming from for the anti-rebuild option? Money dominates politics. You gotta mention who stands to benefit to make sense of what's going on, no matter what side you take.

for the record, an open waterfront isn't an amenity.

it's a necessity for a functioning and democratic city.

"Hey, Paul? Ten minutes after you drop dead the EMP is going to be a Taco Time."

Ha! Thanks for that. I'm told laughter is healing. That lobby area already has a "want Mexi-fries with that?" ambiance.

you say fuck alot

Not sure it makes sense to blame Paul Allen for the lack of vision Seattle voters (or the ones that voted NO anyway) had on the Commons. That park would have been a huge boon to the entire city.

A relative few can afford to live with a view of New York's Central Park. I think you would find few everyday New Yorkers that resent or never use that park.

Allen offered tons of land (worth lots of $$$) and when Seattle turned up its collective nose, TWICE, he started to develop said land. How is that being stupid.

EMP...well, no comment on that. I don't like Jimi Hendrix anyway.

I understand both sides of the viaduct argument. That some landowners might get better views ranks with its counterpart: drivers losing their views as one of the most idiotic of reasons to do or not do anything.

Remember, if it weren't for enriching the rich and super-rich, what would the downtown interests do? I mean, come on, you actually expect them to care about the 99 percent of us voters who aren't rich or super-rich?

@3: The public owns the land the viaduct is on, so presumably the public will still own it if the viaduct comes down. Maybe it'll get sold to developers, but at least we the public get money for something else at that point.

oh, and rich people pay less in taxes - even Bill G and Warren B admit they pay about 8 percent of their income in taxes - it's the middle class that pays much of their income.

Thanks wf @5. Allen's just doing his thing anyways, and likely making much more bank off it now.

So, yeah the Waterfront is gonna be awesome for Joe Seattle. Confidence in that drawn from anything wonderfully civic at all that's happened in the last 15 years?

Nah. Just keep traffic moving. That's all Joe Seattle can hope for.

The rich pay less in income taxes. They get hit pretty equally by property taxes. You can hide income. It's hard to hide that penthouse. And not all the "rich" people living in condos downtown are really "rich," not in the Bill Gates/Paul Allen sense. Most aren't wealthy enough to afford to pay people to hide their assets and cook their tax returns for them.

Lloyd Clydesdale: So, yeah the Waterfront is gonna be awesome for Joe Seattle. Confidence in that drawn from anything wonderfully civic at all that's happened in the last 15 years?

Yeah, and who's responsible for so little civic good happening the last 15 years? A good part of the blame has to go to the same keep-Seattle-shitty, class-warfare NIMBYs who've fought every "common good" thing that's come down the pike. You're the source of your own cynicism.

It's a bit like the Bush administration transforming government agencies into corrupt, incompetent sinecures for political hacks and donors and then turning around and using its own failure as evidence of how inherently inefficient government is.

"We want more parks" blah blah blah. Move to Bellingham dude.

If I seem to remember correctly, The Stranger was a loud voice of opposition to The Commons and used the same rhetoric of class resentment that Dan now warns against. I'm glad that he now see the futility of that argument.

#7 CameronRex -

Expect a cease and desist order from Vulcan Corporation lawyers. Paul Allen owns the copyright on claiming "lack of vision" when voters aren't willing to subsidize his offers too good to be true.

i'm confused by this notion that eliminating the viaduct is going to create this magical spot for the city. an open, inviting waterfront that functions as amenity to all seattle's citizens? not bloody likely.

seattle is a port city. the waterfront is dominated by shipping and travel. these things will not change, regardless of whether the viaduct is there or not.

i haven't seen much chatter here regarding harbor island and the very real concerns raised by businesses located at the southern end of the waterfront.

the stretch of businesses that mainly cater to the tourist trade is a small part of the waterfront. i often feel like i am reading about an entirely different city when scanning some of these discussions.

the ferry terminal, home to the largest fleet of ferries in THE COUNTRY, is not moving. the massive shipping industry, and its corresponding lots of containers and warehouses, is not moving. ditto the clipper, the tour boats, the water taxi, the cruise ships, and the working piers along the waterfront.

these businesses, like it or not, mandate the need for a stretch of roadway to accommodate heavy traffic flow. they require a significant amount of available parking. the waterfront can never be this idyllic open space that the stranger seems to keep going back to.

alaskan way is already an exercise in frustration at the best of times and, often, a clogged mess. the surface option will widen the gap between and the city and its waterfront.

one more thing: the train tracks are also not going anywhere. those tracks are not a remnant of times gone by. those tracks are a working, heavily used requirement of the city's industry.

parks are awesome. open space is rad. i voted yes on the commons, twice. it would be real cool to have a waterfront where people are flying kites and having picnics. but, the bottom line is this: not everyone has a dot com job. the industry based on and around the waterfront is just that: industry.

the very real transportation needs of the city cannot be compromised by this mythical notion that tearing down the viaduct will turn the waterfront into something along the lines of central park.

Okay, I'll go ahead and admit it it: I voted against the Commons. And I'm honestly sorry that I did it. But Dan's mistaken about my motives.

Around the same time that the Commons was up for a vote the Seattle city government had recently enacted a string of new laws regarding the use of public space. You remember these-- Seattle's attempt to re-invent San Francisco's Matrix laws? It was around this time that we got the poster ban, the no-sitting-or-lying-down-on-sidewalks law, the teen dance ordinance and all that other shit. The city blocked Food Not Bombs from distributing food to homeless people. Chambers of commerce all over the city had rent-a-cops hassling homeless people and street kids. We also closed the parks at night.

One of the earliest park closures was at Golden Gardens. There are good arguments for limiting the use of Golden Gardens, but the way it broke down was that the rich neighbors who own the mansions overlooking the park complained to the city about the noise of people partying and having bonfires down on the beach. The city obligingly started closing the park at night and chasing everyone off. Which probably doesn't mean much to most Seattleites today because hardly any of y'all are actually from here, but when I was a kid and a teenager Golden Gardens was a major late-night hang-out. It was a huge social scene that was, with a few notable exceptions, a pretty safe environment. The arrival of gangs in the city started to change that, but to my perception at the time it looked like the city basically shut off a major social scene because it was annoying the neighbors.

That fit into a larger pattern of people moving to Seattle from other places, spending a lot of money to have a nice yuppie lifestyle-- then shutting poor native Seattleites out of their own city. And the city government seemed willing to help, coming down hard on poor people in public and limiting the use of public spaces to safe, quiet activities that didn't bother the neighbors. And it's hard to argue against public safety, but the fact is that Seattle used to be a pretty working class city and we enjoyed our working class pastimes like getting drunk in public, listening to loud butt rock on cheap portable stereos, fighting, having bonfires and cookouts, and playing flyer's-up in parks under signs that said "No Ball Games."

So when the Commons came along, in the context of all the new laws that had been recently been passed limiting the use of public space, I was honestly concerned that the park would just become a publicly-funded private hang-out for the rich people who could afford to get access to it. And it's not like we haven't had that problem since with the sports stadiums.

I now see that it's always better to get public ownership of a space-- and then argue about how it's used. So as far as that goes, I screwed up on that vote. But Dan's "nose, face, spite," version of history ignores the motives presented by the very real and sudden changes in city laws regarding the use of public space.

Cressona @ 13 -- I voted for Light Rail in, yawn, '94, I voted for the Commons, I voted for the Monorail. The couple of parks I use were closed/not maintained last year due to lack of operations funds. The two new/refurbished parks that would be nice to use for informal sports require exorbitant rental fees that are based on/dominated by league sports. Yadda yadda yadda.

I'm not sure which "you" you're using, but I'm the last person you'd call a Nimby, if you knew me better. I believe in civic politics and feel let down, not cynical per se, by my elected officials, who haven't done shit to increase the greater good for Seattlites when it comes time to get out and enjoy the city in its public spaces. What's Good? Some greenery and open space to calm the nerves -- at lunch, on days off, and efficient transportation planning for all the rest of the week, when it's time to shake a leg.

There are constant mythical references to Seattle as this magical, progressive place. As far as I can see, the Sound is polluted, the air is polluted, the national parks are shrinking and logged, and I have a hard time coming up with any list of the victories of Progressive Seattle for its people. Is there a list that anyone can offer?

And now the Viaduct is suddenly this inconvenient monstrosity that has to be obliterated in order to be the salvation of our Waterfront? No transit in place, a vague plan for a "Boulevard". I don't believe it. Thanks to the Pothole Patrol, though. I'll take my small victories when I see 'em.

P.S. frederick r @ 14- Add to that: If you want slow transportation, move back to 1896.

For the record, Dan supported the Commons, the rest of The Stranger did not.

Voting down the Commons showed Seattle at its worst - cantankerous, near-sighted, self-defeating.

I think calling it "the Commons" is actually what killed it. Seattle doesn't like outsiders, and people got all, "The Commons? Like in fucking BOSTON?! No way."

I'm completely serious.

It could have been a chocolate volcano that erupted $100 bills on the ballot, but name it the SEATTLE Commons, or Eiffle Tower duex, or Westminster Abby NorthWest... whatever, people - especially Seattleites - don't like that sort of thing. Especially when they're asked to pay for it.

@20 - and Dan was right. Look at what happened, exactly as Dan and I predicted back then - it got developed and rich property owners own it all.

The lower income residents all got pushed out.

Look, it's not Dan or my problem that you think the world will rise up in revolution to support you. It's your problem.

Wake up and smell the growth. It ain't going away. Now, buckle down, and double local transit - cause you ain't got a choice. And it ain't gonna get cheaper - as land values increase it gets MUCH MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE.

frederick r @ 14:

seattle is amongst the least-parked major cities in 'murka. what we do have is out of the way, underdeveloped old military bases, covered in brambles & scotch broom.

the viaduct must die - screw your views from the car, screw your nervous nelly worries about industry (let the fucking cement trucks use the HOV lanes), screw your resentments about views from waterfront buildings (the street ends aren't going to be built on).

Lloyd Clydesdale @19: Cressona @ 13 -- I voted for Light Rail in, yawn, '94, I voted for the Commons, I voted for the Monorail….

I'm not sure which "you" you're using, but I'm the last person you'd call a Nimby, if you knew me better. I believe in civic politics and feel let down,…

I'm sorry for lumping you in with the lesser Seattle NIMBY crowd. You will admit that their cynicism about the city's ability to make surface+transit or the tunnel or just opening the waterfront -- to make these things work -- is very much a function of their own obstructionism.

And really, I don't want to place the sole blame on the lesser Seattle NIMBY crowd that is so perfectly reflected in the individuals who come out for the No Tunnel Alliance. The downtown property interests are very much reaping what they have sown. They want us to go all civic-minded with their tunnel opening the waterfront. But where were they when the Green Line monorail needed help? It's hard not to conclude that Nickels fought the monorail behind the scenes because his financial backers opposed it. And why weren't the downtown powerplayers pushing for a four-lane tunnel from the start, instead of the six-lane, double-level pork-barrel monstrosity?

Well, those are rhetorical questions. And the answer, I believe, has something to do with these property owners being too focused on their own self-interest to realize what's in their own self-interest. Or you can just chalk it up to plain-old lack of brain cells.

the ferry terminal, home to the largest fleet of ferries in THE COUNTRY, is not moving. the massive shipping industry, and its corresponding lots of containers and warehouses, is not moving. ditto the clipper, the tour boats, the water taxi, the cruise ships, and the working piers along the waterfront.

these businesses, like it or not, mandate the need for a stretch of roadway to accommodate heavy traffic flow. they require a significant amount of available parking. the waterfront can never be this idyllic open space that the stranger seems to keep going back to.

You're drawing a completely erroneous conclusions from your points. The industries you mention do require accommodation within the infrastructure-- nobody's suggesting otherwise --but the existing infrastructure (the viaduct) is not necessarily the best or only solution. Transit can-- and should --accommodate the ferry commuters and the tours. There's already a freight rail system in place to serve the South and Central harbors of the Port and the Great Northern Tunnel connects that rail system without effecting the waterfront between Pier 66 and Terminal 46. There's no reason that the direct ship-to-truck container transport that's happening in Terminals 46 to 25 can't be linked to I-5 rather than going up 99, provided the city offsets the increase in freight traffic on Five by providing useful mass transit options to take single-driver car commuters off the Interstate.

The piers along that stretch of waterfront, between the main South harbor and Pier 66, haven't operated as warehouses or port terminals since the early 1980s-- they're basically just under-utilized tourist malls and trinket shops at this point. That's almost three quarters of a mile of waterfront that doesn't actually need to be used as a throughway for heavy freight. A big chunk of it is already designated as park land. Connecting that part of the waterfront to the rest of Downtown and improving pedestrian access across Alaskan Way would increase the demand for restaurants and businesses down there-- which would be good for the city in all the ways Dan has mentioned, and wouldn't necessarily damage any of the interests you talk about.

I voted against the Commons, and in retrospect it was a huge mistake. No vote that I've cast has been as wrong.

If the viaduct is rebuilt, I predict that a lot of rebuild supporters are going to have the same kind of voter's remorse. It will set in during the first day of construction, and by the time the damn thing is fixed what was the central waterfront will be dead, traffic will be as bad as ever, port business north of Spokane Street and south of the ferry terminal will be gone anyway, and the evil developers will have taken their money elsewhere--probably to build sprawling developments in far-flung suburbs that used to be forest or farmland. Good plan.

Dan states: Allen was prepared to donate a good deal of land and, if I recall correctly, about 20 million in cash.

Dan - Once again you prove that you don't know what the heck you are talking about. Paul Allen did not own any property in South Lake Union at the time of the Commons. Joel Horn and others were pushing the Commons idea and Paul Allen contributed to the effort -- with a cash loan. If the Commons passed Paul would have forgiven the loan. The Commons failed and so Horn et al repaid Allen's cash loan with approximately 10 acres in South Lake Union... Allen of course began purchasing additional proprty after that - but at the time of the Commons his ownership of property was ZERO.

I would hope that you would do better research before you started putting false statements on your blog and in your rag.

No regrets here, the Commons would have cost $500+ million and sucked resources away from other neighborhoods for decades.

Money is an object, and priorities matter.

Where the fuck is this great Seattle Waterfront that everyone keeps talking about? Seriously, where the fuck is it? Walk down the Seattle Waterfront, save a few small spaces between piers your view of the water and the mountains is blocked by Colman terminal and all of the piers. Have any you "tear the viaduct down" types ever been to the Seattle waterfront? It sucks shit, the only part that doesn't suck and isn't full of tacky tourist crap is the Aquarium. Tearing down the viaduct and replacing it with a four lane arterial (yeah you stupid fucks, it's not going to be a goddamned park, there's going to be four lanes of surface traffic where it is) is not going to change any of this.

As far as the Commons back in 1995 Seattle's neighborhood parks were falling apart, the idea of dropping a few hundred mil into South Lake union was only popular with the downtown centric fuckwits at the Seattle Times and Dan Savage, who as I recall suggested that we needed the Commons so that gay men would have a place for anonymous sex. Perhaps Dan was being facetious when he said this, who knows? But the reason the Commons went over like a dick joke during high mass was not because of the short-sightedness of Seattle voters, it was because those voters were sick and tired of seeing their neighborhoods neglected for downtown Seattle and also because many of them were still pissed off about having their taxes raised for a stadium that they voted against.

#29: "Where the fuck is this great Seattle Waterfront that everyone keeps talking about?"

Uh, it's just west of here, kind of hard to miss. Great place to hang with kids. The Aquarium is cool, of course, but there's this old-school cheesy arcade with an indoor carousel that my son and daughter love. Dude, they're super into the trolly, which gets you to the Pike Market or Myrtle Edwards Park, and soon to Lake Union, free of any large green space. You can also hop the Bainbridge ferry, go for a boat ride, and get some lunch and ice cream on the other side.

It's a cool waterfront.

To do the right thing in Seattle, you have to out-politic the stingy, small-minded populists whose main calling in life is to knee-cap other people's ideas. Heroes: Nick Lacata, Frank Chopp.

Perhaps Peter Steinbruck will someday offer Seattle a more constructive political alternative to these losers.

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Perhaps Peter Steinbruck will someday offer Seattle a more constructive political alternative to these losers.

Yeah right. Peter Steinbrueck, is that the same whiny little douchebag who bitched when the city took away his free parking privilege as a city council member? Peter Steinbrueck is the George W. Bush of Seattle politics, the only thing he's ever done is champion more new urbanism bullshit (not that Peter wants to live in a shoebox condo, that's for the little people) and trade on his father's name.

Don't waste your breath fighting rich folk - one of which, of course, you've become, Dan. Development happens, inevitably - SLUnion is a good example of that - and all those businesses you lament sold out at pretty prices. There was no reason for taxpayers to hand a quarter billion to Allen that would benefit other rich folks. By the way, there is a new, and still expanding, park there, to which Allen gave $10 million a year ago.

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Hi Jim. You letter i received. Thanks! Photos is GREAT!!!!

Hi Jim. You letter i received. Thanks! Photos is GREAT!!!!