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Portraits By Richard Seven
The Center Of SeattleA best guess is made official
Five years ago, amid deafening indifference, I set out to find the geographic center of Seattle. I talked to geographers, surveyors, city engineers and librarians. I perused aerial photography and weird equations. I even did some map-folding. After all that, The Spot was a two-minute walk from my desk. Nobody but me seemed to care, and I lamented that fact in print. So imagine my sense of satisfaction, even if it was just a developer of a huge apartment complex who did it, when I happened upon a marker embedded in the sidewalk commemorating my best guess. It's not official. The city's only involvement was letting the developer stick it there. But it is pretty close. All the experts started their conversation with me about my search by saying, "It depends." Finding the belly button of this city's ragged hour-glass figure is not all science. It seems part art, too. From where to where does someone measure? Do you "fill" the lakes? How do you factor, if at all, tidelands? I actually got two center estimates, but both were on the same block. So I exercised a bit of editorial triangulation and chose to go with Latitude: 47*37'15.65" Longitude: 122*19'59.84." That's where the marker is, on the western sidewalk about 20 yards north of Thomas Street on Minor Avenue North. Far more interesting to me than the "possibly center" marker itself is how the center has changed. In 2001, it was at the doorsteps of two dilapidated houses with peeling paint and mottled shingles. This seemed my Seattle, part understated, part counter-chic. Well, the 162-unit complex, one of many Paul Allen buildings, might as well be the epicenter of drastic change in the Cascade Neighborhood and South Lake Union. It seems the whole area is nothing but rising modern edifices, $9 lunches, $3 coffees and road-choking construction crews. Yes, I know, that's progress. But it's sad, too. I miss the old neighborhood. But at least I got my marker.
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