Tacoma history tour - extreme version
PETER CALLAGHAN; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Grab your hard hat and join us on a new walking tour of historic landmarks.
This is not for the faint of heart or the out of shape. You might need to move fast.
Welcome to the 2009 Tour of Tacoma Endangered Landmarks … THAT COULD KILL YOU!
This is a uniquely Tacoma concept suggested by our features editor, Craig Sailor. What other burg is known worldwide for a landmark that collapsed into Puget Sound simply because the wind picked up a bit.
At least Galloping Gertie only took out a dog. These places could do a lot worse, at least if the apocalyptic engineering reports are to be believed. Please, stay together.
The Luzon Building – After the city allowed the delisting and demolition of the other historic buildings on the block two decades ago for a development that never came, the Luzon has had to stand on its own. A series of owners – including for a long time the County of Pierce – put not a dime into maintenance.
Rain water poured through a bad roof and was allowed to deteriorate the structural timbers and reinforcing steel. Now, with interior floors failing, the north wall is doing what gravity has taught it to do – seek the center of the Earth.
With streets on two sides closed, the Luzon will soon suffer yet another indignity – ugly steel bracing rising from 13th Street to the exterior wall.
The Murray Morgan Bridge – What happens to a steel structure over salt water that is never swept, painted or lubricated? It seems the civil engineers for the state Department of Transportation weren’t sure and have been using the drawbridge as a lab experiment.
In trying to force a decision to demolish the bridge, now named for Tacoma’s most-famous journalist and historian, the same engineers produced a series of color pictures showing every rust spot and paint chip. They made it look like the undercarriage of a 1984 Monte Carlo.
The state decided it was so much in danger of collapsing Gertie-like that the state wanted to keep pedestrians and bicyclists off the span as well. Sorry, no high heels allowed.
The Old Elks Lodge and the Spanish Steps – I walked by the other day after lunch. Just getting to the lodge required avoiding a series of holes from the Broadway LID project. I guess they’ll eventually hold trees, but did anybody consider a sawhorse or piece of plywood in the meantime?
The steps were lovely once, patterned after the grand Spanish Steps at the Piazza di Spagna in Rome. But they were already in rough shape when the dumbest driver in America thought he could shortcut from Broadway to Commerce via the stairs.
Next door, the old Elks building is securely boarded up because it is considered too dangerous even for transients and junkies.
The Old Town Dock – All I wanted was to walk out, look at the water, sip my iced/tall/Americano/with room. It’s not like I was gonna do something dangerous like catch and eat the fish in Commencement Bay.
But the city won’t let me. The wooden dock is considered such a hazard that barriers have been erected so that none shall pass. Isn’t there a grant or something we could apply for?
The Asarco Tunnel – The lanes are narrow. The approaches are awkward. Drivers are advised to sound their horn to warn those already inside.
But that’s not the problem. It’s that something – water they claim – is constantly dripping from the ceiling onto cars, drivers, bikes – whatever is beneath. And since this is a federal superfund site polluted by a century of the by-products of copper smelting, it’s best not to take chances.
Forget the horn. I suggest respirators and hazmat suits.
A little-known fact: This is where children started the custom of trying to hold their breath for the length of a tunnel. It may be a game now, but it started as a health precaution.
Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657
peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com
blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics
