With the Post-Intelligencer probably closing up shop very soon, and the Seattle Times struggling, everyone is wondering what the state of news would look like in Seattle with no city newspapers. I’ve been reading the Seattle Post-Times by Chuck Taylor, who was formerly with the Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, and Crosscut. It’s a blog where he talks about this topic a lot. Now he’s started  Seattle Post-Post-Intelligencer, a wiki that’s meant to be a community pool of ideas on what the next generation of news gathering and delivery might be.

Ben Lukoff points to an article in the Seattle Times about Thomas Horton, a Queen Anne resident who has spent his time cataloging the stairways of Queen Anne Hill. He’s mapped 120 of them, and the map is for sale from the Queen Anne Historical Society.

I haven’t spent any time exploring Queen Anne, and I didn’t know there were so many stairways dotting the hill. I need to add that to my list of things to do in Seattle.

Knute Berger at Crosscut writes about George Carmack, the man who is recognized for launching the Klondike Gold Rush. He’s been in people’s minds lately because there’s a debate going on about what should be done with his house. The house, on Jefferson Street, is where Carmack lived for twelve years at the beginning of the 20th century. Several owners have lived in it since, and when the most recent occupant died in 2006, her estate decided to put up the house for sale. The problem for preservationists is that the most likely buyer would be the hospital right next door, who was only interested in the land and would likely demolish the house before the ink was dry on the deed.

This got a lot of people hopped up about how the house should be saved because of its connection to Carmack, either kept in place or moved to a different part of town. They’ve been trying to get some kind of historic designation for the house that would help in efforts to preserve it, but even that process was set back when the house was vandalized two weeks ago and stripped of much of its trim and architectual details.

Now the latest thing is that Arthur Skolnik, an architect representing the estate trying to sell the house, is saying that the house should not be saved because George Carmack wasn’t much of a historic figure anyway. His connection to the Yukon gold rush is tenuous and probably based more on bragging and lies that any actual accomplishments. Furthermore there is nothing particularly significant about the house itself that would lead to it being worthy of being saved. He lays out many of his arguments in the comments of the Crosscut article.

I don’t have enough background in Seattle history to know if George Carmack is a man worth honoring or not. But it’s fascinating to see the battles that go on over preservation and development.

Vintage Seattle has pictures of the Carmack House, both outside and inside. And Ben Lukoff writes about the controversy at his Seattle History Examiner site.

CharlesPhoenix.com

Every week Charles Phoenix publishes his Slide of the Week. These are usually some bit of Americana he’s found while rummaging through photo collections in the thrift store, and they range from architecture to classic cars to pictures of birthday parties. This week his selection was a photo of the old P-I headquarters, with the P-I globe bolted firmly to the roof. Quite a coincidence that he would pick this picture now, when the future of the P-I stands in so much turmoil.

When the P-I closes in a few months, as it undoubtedly will, one thing they’ll have to do is dispose of their assets. And most of their assets are mundane things, like desks, computers, and a hunk of real estate on Elliott Ave. But they do have one remarkable asset that everyone has been looking up to for decades, and now wondering for weeks what is going to happen to it. That’s the signature globe on top of the building.

photo by Flickr user manthropologist

The globe was first mounted in 1948, atop the P-I’s headquarters on Sixth Avenue. When the paper moved its operations to Elliott Ave in the 1980s, they considered if it was worth moving the globe too. But a quick survey of they readers showed that they better move the globe or else. So it went to the new building, where it’s been for over 20 years.

But now it’s going to need a new home. I think there’s enough public sentiment about the globe still that it’s not going to be scrapped, it’s sure to be saved. It’s become as much a symbol of Seattle as the nearby Space Needle (by the way, both icons were built by the same company, Pacific Car and Foundry, PACCAR).

The assumption, and I think it’s a good one, is that the globe will go to MOHAI, which has rescued many other signs and landmarks over the years. It think that’s the best place for it, and MOHAI has said they’d be “thrilled to have it.” Or it could go to a new owner, who has also shown interest. But as far as I know, no decision has been made yet, especially since the owners of the P-I are still publicly entertaining the idea of making the paper go online-only. I think that’s just lip service, but we’ll see. And I’m sure no news about the globe will come out until that particular decision has been announced and they’re in the process of selling everything off.

A must-read is Monica Guzma’s article (and accompanying photo gallery) about the condition the globe is in now. She went up on the roof last month to visit the globe first-hand, and to talk with the repairman that keeps it spinning and keeps the lights lit. And what she reveals is that the globe up close looks exactly like you’d expect it to look after braving sixty years of Seattle weather. It’s rusted and fading, parts are flaking off, the wiring needs to be replaced, and the panels are separating from each other. The snowpocalypse in December sheared off several of the neon tubes, which had to be repaired. Keeping the globe turning is a big job, and whoever takes over the globe would have to take over the care and feeding of a cranky piece of machinery. Again, I think MOHAI would be most up to the job. The idea everyone seems excited about is mounting it on the roof of the new home of MOHAI in South Lake Union. Then the globe could keep spinning, looking out over the lake hopefully for another sixty years.

I know this is two Paul posts in a row, but I just write these things as I come across them in Google Reader.  Paul Dorpat has been writing his Seattle Now and Then articles for 28 years, but there’s no great archive of all of them together. A bunch from the 80s have been published in book form, three volumes all together. And most of the ones from recent years are available at nwsource.com (Seattle Times). But now Paul himself, and his partner Jean, is working on publishing them on his own website, pauldorpat.com.  He’s started a new section on the site where he will reprint the articles, show the photos in high res, and include even more pictures than just the two. Right now there are only five articles available, scattered choices from the last year. They promise they’ll be putting up more, although I doubt they’ll be able to publish the estimated 1,400 he’s written over the past three decades.

Good stuff all around, and the inspiration for my own Northern Nevada Then And Now.

Paul Dorpat this week brings us two photos of ice skaters on Green Lake, both from 1916 when the lake froze over solid enough to hold the weight of hundreds of people. First he had a photo as part of his weekly Now and Then column, then today he posted this photo at his website.

I’m not sure, but I think Green Lake freezing is a more rare ocurrence these days.