Architecture Same Old, Same Old…
posted by on March 7 at 11:12 AM
The longest remodeling project in the history that no one cares to remember…
…re-resumes.
Seattle’s historic King Street Station will get a new green-tile roof and repairs to its clock tower in a new round of restorations, starting this year.Mayor Greg Nickels announced this morning that the city has signed a deal to buy the station from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway for $10. That deal allows $16.5 million in federal and state spending to go ahead, along with $10 million in city money from the voter-approved Bridging the Gap property-tax levy.
Within the next three years, a dingy false ceiling will be removed from the waiting room, to reveal the original ceiling and its frescoes. Some brick walls will be removed at the northwest corner so a granite-and-marble staircase can be widened and reopened to the outdoors. The building will also be strengthened against earthquakes.
When will this city take rail transportation seriously? More promises, more minor repairs, more broken promises. The King Street Station’s regime of stupidity will never be defeated by the arrows of reason and criticism.
I've wondered about that ceiling You can see the real thing through the gaps in the drop-tile. It'll be beautiful. Don't know why they ever covered it up.
yeah, taking the train can be so depressing having to look at that shitty drop ceiling that has no right being there.
Maybe they'll fix the clock someday, too.
The whole thing needs to be scraped from the face of Seattle and replaced with a functional, Neo-Brutalist terminal with lots of stark angles and exposed concrete.
"When will this city take rail transportation seriously?"
When the US and Canada sign the treaty at the Olympics to build the Vancouver BC to San Diego CA high-speed passenger rail line along the I-5 corridor.
Oh, you were being ironic?
I was being serious.
Oh, God: there are glimmers here and there when you walk through the train station of how grand it used to be. Some bozo bureaucrats decided to cover everything up in the 1960s or so, but underneath that cheap veneer is the grand train station of yore. It has *so* much potential to be a beautiful train station again, something for any Stalinist to be envious of.
To anyone who says Seattle doesn't do transit like a big city, I ask you: Do any of them have a trolley as cute as our trolley? Do any have train station as cute as our train station? Have any of them ever taken a look at our adorable little tunnel? I mean really looked. It's precious. Fucking precious.
Here's how to fix this mess once and for all: First, we'll exhume the corpses of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and bring them back to life. Then, we'll all march into the next Seattle City Council meeting brandishing Kalashnikov rifles and red flags and shouting "Nick Licata, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!"
Then we'll burn the motherfucker down and then blow it up.
Voila! Problem solved.
Hi Slog writers,
I don't think your RSS feed is working today--I haven't gotten any of the new posts since the one about the McLeod house being open yesterday.
I am sad at work and forced to think about my actual tasks! Or to come to the website, which increases my chances of being nabbed for slacking!
@5 That would be amazing. Rail is so fucked up in this country (Bellingham to Seattle and back is $50) There's only a few trains a day and freight has priority on the tracks. Always worth the extra $7-8 dollars over the bus, but it could be a lot better.
We'll never have the high speed rail some countries do, but I'm actually pretty optimistic we could at least get a cool B.C./PDX train.
Besides finishing to King Street remodel, which is basically UNDOING some of the most depressingly destructive "improvements" from the 70s I've even seen done to a building (which happens to sit in a perfect location downtown as well), most importantly, getting the feds to actually enforce the passenger train right of ways.
"Rail is so fucked up in this country >(Bellingham to Seattle and back is $50)"
um, what? 25 bucks each way sounds about right
King Street Station was bought for ten bucks?
Fuck, I paid half that for my falafel sandwich an hour ago a few blocks away from the station.
HOW COME NOBODY TOLD ME?
Charles, the renovation has gone in fits and starts because the building was, up until this month, owned by a private party: The BNSF. The city, state and Amtrak had done as much as they could do to a private building using public funds.
The BNSF dragged its heels in the turnover process, because they were getting concessions from the city on things they wanted done elsewhere. That's called negotiation, and its quite common in capitalist societies.
Now that the building will in public ownership, the funds that have been held in reserve will now be made available, and the renovation will be made complete, including removing the 50's (not 70's) era false ceilings and walls.
And that's just about all the City of Seattle as an entity can do "take rail transportation seriously". Maybe you could have one of your graduate students explain the difference between local, state and federal programs sometime.
"Regime of stupdidity", indeed.
The King Street Station renovation is a great project. What was your point, exactly, Charles?
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