City Tension at the Center
posted by on July 25 at 11:50 AM
There’s a feature by Brendan Kiley in the paper that disappears from streets today about the remaking of Seattle Center, and it’s not boring. How do you write a piece about Seattle Center and make it not boring? You dig up some history about the place’s cursed past, you get someone at One Reel to leak you documents, and you present all the major players—the deputy director, the renovation committee, the SIFF cinema guy, the Central Park-obsessed David Brewster, the people at Bumbershoot who are afraid of what more lawn will do to their festival, the environmental engineers (referred to as Willy Wonka Mystery Box people)—in all their weird complexities. But it’s not just about the texture of the fight. Kiley also finds a way to advocate what he thinks is the best solution.
The story was linked to on Slog last week, with reference to the taffy shop at the Center House not being mentioned, so you might have already read it. But if you haven’t—well, enjoy.
He missed the even earlier story of the area that was cleared to make Seattle Center -- the unpaved slum that was cleared. Of course, people lived there. He could have tied it into the larger trend across the US and the world -- Boston's West End and Scollay Square, Paternoster Square in London, etc. Every city has these dead zones created deliberately out of long-since-discredited urban renewal theories. Most have since rectified them.
It was probably interesting, if not unbalanced and biased by certain insiders (obviously unquoted), if you know anything about the Center as someone doing business there or as someone from within. But I think it missed some major marks, like the gay pride debacle and the important question of why is it so hard to use the center as what they call the "city's gathering place." The Stranger put a lot of heat on the pride organizers, but what about the Center's contributions to the problem -where was that covered? Maybe the average joe doesn't care about what happened to gay pride - will they care when it's Bumbershoot? Why has no promoter in the city been able to get a concert series off the ground at the Mural (at least 3 have tried), and why do people dislike putting shows on at the Key Arena? What/who is really going to make that any different? When? You don't really have to read between the lines with the SIFF guy's comments to get a whiff of the low level bureaucracy that is obviously pervasive there, and I think David Brewster's comments about their inability to prioritize what is important was pretty spot on too. Maybe when all the city is left with is Seattle Center's Festal events they will care about how all of that prime gathering space for an active use park was frittered away by mismanagement and a lack of vision.
"McCaw Hall while you sit in the grass and watch with a bottle of wine."
-- That would be nice. Maybe off topic, but the number 1 priority on my wishlist would be doing away with the beer gardens altogether and making it legal to buy a beer and walk around with it at Bumbershoot and any of the other fests going on.
I'm sure this is more of a state law thing than a Seattle Center policy thing, but when I go to ACL in Austin or to fests in Nashville it really has an impact on the level of enjoyment.
I think I remember reading that the problem is exaserbated by Memorial Stadium being school property and no alcohol being allowed on school property which means there can't even be a beer garden there, so obviously I am all for that place being leveled.
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