The Bad Guys Wore Black Hats

When I asked myself how to bring the Waterfront Streetcar back, I wondered if it could be recreated in the same way it was created. And thereby hangs a tale…

In the early 70s Seattleites found themselves with a city that had been body-slammed so hard by corrupt gangs in City Hall that the most valuable remains were the wreckage. From the shipping canal south to the southern city limits housing stock had decayed, and in many cases was ‘redlined’ by racially biased lenders. Meanwhile, the U of W had obtained an ‘urban renewal’ grant which was used to bulldoze a prosperous neighborhood the U wanted for their ‘West Campus’ expansion- an act a federal judge later called the greatest crime he had ever seen.

Around the shores of Lake Union and Portage Bay citizens found that city streetends were being used by businesses which had no permits and paid no rent, while city waterways were leased on ‘sweetheart’ deals for a tiny fraction of the true value to other businesses. Sewers dumped directly into Lake Union while on the north shore the gasworks and an adjacent oil tank farm provided a constant source of toxic leakage with annual oil spills. The city building department illegally issued building permits for Roanoke Reef while at the same time, in conjunction with the fire department, they harassed the houseboaters, trying to force them off the lake.

The Pike Place Market had decayed so badly that it was unsafe to enter the lower levels, and even on an upper level the owner of the Liberty Malt Shop, admittedly a rotund individual, simply fell through the rotted floor one day.

The freeway builders, after ripping a gash in Seattle with I-5, had been fought to a standstill and their plans defeated, temporarily at least, for building a freeway south along through the Arboretum and building another from the Mercer Street exit to the Seattle Center. Still, buildings were continuously torn down and the land converted to parking lots by Joe Diamond.

In Pioneer Square, largely vacant buildings, prostitutes posed in storefronts, gambling could be done in bars, and even gay people could have their bars- as long as they paid bribes to the police. This was where my father pointed out to me that when you see the largest cops on the force walking their beat in pairs, you know you’re in a bad neighborhood.

And these were the prosperous parts of town! The overt racism of Seattle in those time, as exemplified by the refusal of the fire department or city light to hire minorities or women, was reflected in the desolation of the Central District and south through the Rainier Valley and out Martin Luther King Way. Many of the buildings had been erected in the early part of the 20th century, and never upgraded or even, apparently, repaired, since. When upgrades had occurred, they often consisted of covering the better homes with asbestos siding and installing shag carpets.

In Magnolia, Broadmore, and north of the ship canal, life went on much as usual. The end of the fishing industry lay in the future, and ‘sunset laws’ (see Dave Niewert) had kept minorities out- no redlining here!

The core of the city, though, was on a failing life-support system, with only one positive sign for the future- in the desolated neighborhoods, rents were cheap, and anyone who could get hold of a little money could buy a home. Slowly, this began to create a different kind of Seattleite- people who liked their neighbors, regardless of skin color or sexual orientation, and liked Seattle, because it had beautiful buildings and beautiful scenery. Seattle was, in short, the Jane Jacobs ideal of a city with affordable buildings in which diversity could thrive.

But how could this decayed city, ruled by a corrupt and racially biased City Hall, be made liveable? That is the subject for a future post, the changing times of the 70s in Seattle.