The Next Big Thing

First it was Ron Sims, our County Executive, now it is David Brewster, Founder of the Seattle Weekly and the Town Hall forum. "We need to fix Seattle Center.!"
Sighhh!!!!!!! This confuses me. Both Sims and Brewster are smart and liberal. Both value the Seattle style of life. Both have achieved a lot in their respective domains as public citizens. So there must be something to this new cause more than another effort to add more tasteless, ticky tacky high rise condos to the north end of the Seattle Peninsula while enriching Paul Alan.

Sims and Brewster are, of course correct, that the Center is not a great place. In a city built on in spectacular views, the Center sits in a sort of shallow pit under downtown's towers. Queen Anne Hill and even the Manhattan Westside redux of the Denny regrade all throw shadows on the remnants of the 64 World's Fair. I have wondered whether a good rainstorm might not overfill lake Union and turn the Center into a lovely lagoon? No wonder the seers of the sixties found this underused land as an ideal spot for a World's Fair.

Like most World Fairs, Seattle's fair was based on build it cheap fantasy pavilions. Little remains of that era except the USA pavilion by Yamasaki .. today's mediocre science museum. Otherwise the grounds are a pastiche of left over tiny rooms, an old armory, an aging sports arena and a retired armory now filled with the same food chains as the food court at the Bellevue Mall.

Sims complains that the assemblage of small rooms provide a too cheap venue for impecunious groups wanting a meeting place. "Too cheap?" from a liberal? Ron needs a lesson in his own origins and perhaps the Center's inexpensive venue need publicity of it is available for so little.

The reasons for the Center's underuse are, at least to me , obvious. In its early days the Center grounds house a while lot of small town functions appropriate for what was a lot more small town-ish city. As Seattle grew, the Center became ringed by venues for the performing arts, at least on the North side but all of these have their front entrances OUTSIDE the Center ,,, mainly on Mercer. The Center grounds are a sort of underused backyard to the begowned opera goers. The to the East we have the Arena, home to the basketball team. The main entrance, once again, is outside ... You can come and cheer the team and never see the International Fountain.


So ... you do need to walk on the grounds to get to the IMAX or the science museum or the diminutive Children's Museum but the main reason for walking on the grounds is the weekly ethnic festivals. If it is February, it must be time for the Macedonian Dance Festival! Actually, this is one of the most charming things in Seattle and the admin activity ever weekend at the Center ... Greeks, Jews, Manchu and people-named-Kelly. I think there may be more than a glimmer of hope for building these weekly folk festivals into something much more attractive and permanent .. see below.


The Center also houses two big festivals each year ... as summer begins and ends. But, other than these tiny ethic affairs, the Center lacks magnets ... what entrepreneurs call anchors or destination attractions. The center is pretty and green but it lacks the museums, shops, or activities that might entice the Seattle Rep theater member to venture for a pre-Ibsen walk, maybe with a beer and a sandwich.

Unfortunately, there is a history here. The Seattle Art Museum once had a great modern art gallery here .. since closed for the venue downtown with its JC Penney-esque design by Venturi. What a shame. The SAM is an ugly building, a tribute to bad taste but it is near the dollars of down town business types. Obviously their clout overcame any good sense one might hope a City would show. Next came the Conventions Center. Seattle's hoteliers insisted that NO city could have its Convention Center remote from the bedrooms ... even a short monorail ride away. Thus we now have all these cheap meeting rooms Mr. Sims' derides.

The pattern of not using the Center goes on and on. What else? Headquarters for the Seattle Public Schools ... in an industrial district to the south of Seattle, African American Museum ... in a wrecked and now remote unused school building. Is there a message here?

Why can't the City make the Center the default location for attractions .. esp small museums? Why not begin by moving the Burke museum from the UW Campus to the Center? The Burke is a messy museum .. confused between three roles .. dinosaurs, Pacific Peoples, and our indigenous culture ..the coastal people who gave us this City and its great artistic heritage. Move it, split it into three! The pacific peoples and indigenous collections could begin a new role for the Center as a home for Seattle's cultures. Perhaps the African American community would give up the Coleman School? Imagine museums to honor the descendents of Maimonides who led the Island of Rhodes Jews to Seattle almost a hundred years ago or the Japanese Americans with their WWII history. Or how about our "new" Seattlites ... the Thai and the Hmong? Seattle could have something quite unique, a center of gravity reflecting our wonderful diversity.



Or ... we could spiff the place up, make beer drinking in public legal, and offer free rent to the old clothes shops and petit bourgeois art shops being forced out of Fremont as that neighborhood moves upscale.

Or ... we could ask Mr. Disney what ideas he has.