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At UW, computer science & nuclear history spar
Back in 2008, a group of University of Washington students and preservationists rose up to oppose the demolition of the More Hall Annex on the UW campus. Otherwise known as the Nuclear Reactor...
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Thanks to Amazon, Seattle is awash in fortune-seeking men again
Seattle is booming. Newcomers are swarming to town. A largely male workforce is spending big, driving up rents and real estate prices, but no one wants to complain as the good times roll; after all,...
View ArticleVancouver sending heritage homes to the wood chipper
The Vancouver Sun calls spring the “demolition season” in Vancouver, BC. Growth and development in the city are booming, driven in part by demand from Asia. The rate of destruction has been high for...
View ArticleSeattle’s facadism fetish makes fools of history & progress
Is Seattle history becoming skin-deep? You could be excused for thinking so. Efforts to preserve local “character” while accommodating massive development have seen a revival of what’s called...
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Scenes from a soul-wrangling at the J & M Hotel
All photos courtesy of Alex Garland. It is Thursday afternoon in Pioneer Square and an odd entourage is gathered in a gutted, thrashed room on the third floor of the deeply-storied J & M Hotel,...
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The real story behind Ballard’s ‘anti-development icon’
Driving across the Ballard Bridge last week, I noticed the door to the boarded-up Macefield House was open. Intrigued, I took the first exit off the bridge, drove past Mike’s Chili Parlor, and circled...
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Seattle’s name: Ripe for a change that you can make.
A little more than a year ago, in my monthly column for Seattle magazine, I put forward the idea that Seattle needs a new nickname. We’ve been Queen City, Jet City and since the ’80s, rather lamely I...
View ArticleWhy everywhere is “The next South Lake Union”
South Lake Union is an urbanist bright spot, a soulless scourge and a popular meme. Seattleites have mixed feeling about what has been wrought there. On the plus side, SLU is ground zero for Seattle’s...
View ArticleSurvival of the richest: priced out of Seattle
An old colleague and friend recently sent out an appeal for help. Due to health and financial problems, he and his partner were struggling to make ends meet, and just before Christmas, they became...
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Mossback does Milan’s Expo 2015
The “selfie” makes a perfect metaphor for a world’s fair: an event where the nations of Earth gather to show off what they know, and who they’re with — all with the idea of promoting a new self-image....
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Mystery of the 8,500-year-old Washington bones solved?
Native American tribes and Western scientists often have had a contentious relationship, but a new article in the journal Nature has brought tribal members and science in line on the ancestry of...
View ArticleInslee wants tribal reburial for Kennewick Man
Gov. Jay Inslee wants the 8,500-year-old Kennewick Man remains returned to several Inland Northwest tribes for burial. On Tuesday, Inslee sent a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — who are in...
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EMP: Chronicler of Seattle’s pop roots
EMP is more or less Seattle’s ultimate package — a chronicler of past rock ‘n’ roll and an encyclopedia of present popular culture, all in a futuristic-looking building. For the museum’s 15th birthday...
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Push begins for America’s next National Heritage Area
Winding hiking trails, glistening mountain lakes, and tree-covered valleys that give way to rugged peaks and patches of snow. This is all part of the Mountains to Sound Greenway, a 1.5 million-acre...
View ArticleFootprints in the NW sand: Perhaps 13,000 years old
Fats Domino was famously “walking to New Orleans.” No one knows where the people who left footprints on British Columbia’s Calvert Island were walking. They may have been on their way from what is now...
View ArticleAtomic bomb survivors: A quest for peace
Today marks 70 years since the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today people around the globe will memorialize the occasion, including in Seattle at Green Lake from 6 to 9 p.m. The survivors...
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What Ivar Haglund could teach us now
Last week, I went out to the Nordic Heritage Museum with KUOW producer David Hyde and we walked through the new exhibit about Seattle’s legendary restaurateur Ivar Haglund, called “Keep Clam and Carry...
View ArticleRemembering the West Coast’s ugly anti-immigrant era
This is part of a series of Crosscut stories discussing race in the Puget Sound region. Led by Donald Trump, the GOP presidential candidates are putting immigration at the top of the list of 2016...
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Death of a clown bar: The fight to save Shorty’s
We emerged from the restaurant, a successful date night almost complete. Around us, Belltown’s usual Friday night crowd was in full effect. The human subgenre known as “bros” roamed the sidewalks,...
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Coon Lake: Park Service under pressure to change racist name
Political pressure is mounting to get the federal government to change the name of a lake in the North Cascades that is likely a racist slur. The lake and connecting creek, which lie in the Stehekin...
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