Catching up, musings

I seem to keep forgettting to write here. May Day resolution: maintain the blog!

Anyways, re: Seattle area monuments. I'm been brainstorming this one for a while, but don't fell that I've gotten very far with it. I'm not that familiar with Seattle's urban lore, and seem to have been stuck on campus ever since we got this assignment (cursed cold and loss of my bus pass!). So, I've been reflecting on those buildings which I am familiar with, though I fear that none of them really qualify as "monuments" per se (though history they do have). The Russian Center, for instance (the last place I went off campus to), has one crazy history behind it: began as a movie theater on Capitol Hill in the early part of the last century. Since then (with extensive remodelling of the floor) half of it became a community center, the other side a church. Thanks to the previously noted remodelling, it has also in the last decade become an afterhours dance hall (and one of the mainstays of the Seattle swing scene). Yay for building recycling. :)

The only actual memorial/monument I could really think of in the city (which was built exclusively as a memorial), would be the peace park just off of 40th. I used to walk by it on my way to work last summer. It's just a small piece of land, with a statue which was ocften draped long chains of origami cranes. Save for those and the ubiquitous bicycles, I never actually saw any signs of people there. Rather a sad commentary: commemerating peace through a reflection of the destruction of atomic weapons, and no one seems to take notice.