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- LOUIE AND MARY, OWNERS OF BLACK DOG FORGE Still in business after a quarter of a century. They met while both working for the same dominatrix.
Louie Raffloer can vividly recall a Fourth of July party in the early 1990s, not long after he opened Black Dog Forge, his blacksmith shop in Belltown.
"A buddy and I blew up a can of spray paint in the alley," Raffloer says. "We set it down, lit a slow-burning wick, and backed way up. Then I shot it."
The resulting fireball reached the walls on either side of the alley and sent a mushroom cloud 30 feet into the air, twice as high as the buildings on the block. Raffloer and his friend liked the effect so much, they did it again. And again. And again.
Belltown was deserted back then. A handful of artists had moved into the neighborhood, a few bars had opened, there was a single coffee shop.
"You didn't have to crane your neck to look at the tops of any buildings down here back then," Raffloer recalls. "It was all two-story buildings, most of 'em empty, some union halls. Nowadays, you have to worry about drunken frat boys beating you up. Back then, you had to worry about drunken bums throwing up on you. The only drug problem here was hardcore alcoholism"…
