Pike Place Market: If tiles could talk

During the Christmas shopping season in 1985, TV commercials touted the purchase of "the ultimate Seattle gift" — a personalized floor tile to help replace the crumbling concrete floor of Pike Place Market's main arcade.

For a tax-deductible donation of $35, people could, according to the ads, "Make someone you love a legend in their own tile." Boy, did they — buying more than 45,000 tiles inscribed with names and messages — thus claiming a piece of Pike Place Market as their own.

"For $35, we thought we were going to be marked down in history," says proud mom and aunt Timmie Peterson, who purchased three tiles — one each for her son, daughter and nephew.

"I thought they'd be there forever, something the kids could go down and see as adults. How naïve we were."

At the time, Market officials told anyone who bothered to ask that the expected lifespan of the 6-inch by 6-inch tiles was 20 to 30 years. But messages were mixed.

A TV news report in December 1985 suggested the tiles would be able to survive the trodding of several million Market visitors a year as they were made of silicon carbide — second in strength only to diamonds, according to the manufacturers.

"They say about the only thing that'll faze these babies is an earthquake," the reporter said.

Like so many stories about Pike Place Market, it was embellished.

More than two decades after the earthy brown tiles were installed, not all have withstood the pounding of human feet, the rolling of hand dollies and the pulling of heavy containers. Water and ice, which constantly get sprayed or spilled on the floor, haven't helped either.

Some tiles have cracked into pieces, the names on them no longer discernible. Others have had to be pulled up as portions of decaying subfloor were replaced. It's only a matter of time before the tile floor itself will need to be replaced. And with that will come the silencing of messages of romance, (Here's to you Mrs Robinson Oh how I love you so Tom), humor (Zippy the Pinhead) and pain (Pain).

Peterson's son, Andrew, called his mother from the Market recently, asking about the location of the tile bearing his name. He wanted to show it to his fiancée but couldn't find it. It originally had been installed in a prime spot near Rachel the Pig.

"It was a wonderful place for finding the tiles, but also a very high-traffic area so they were getting worn," Peterson said.

She learned from Market officials that her tiles had been pulled up and, like many others that have been replaced, moved to another area of the Market, on the skybridge.

The cost to replace a personalized tile is more than $100. Up to now, when people have complained, officials have replaced bum tiles at Market expense — a policy that won't last forever.

But Market officials will tread lightly, aware from the beginning that people are passionate about their pavers.

"I was kind of blown away," said Harris Hoffman, who was executive director of the Pike Place Market Preservation & Development Authority when the tiles were first sold. "People would come down with toothbrushes to clean their tiles. They were really moved by them."

Challenges, compromises

The idea of selling tiles to pay for a new floor came from Hoffman. He admits stealing it from Portland, which had repaved its Pioneer Courthouse Square with personalized bricks.

Within the cauldron that is Pike Place politics, the tiles were a tough sell to the Market's Historical Commission, which is charged with maintaining the integrity of the place. According to a few former Market officials, one commission member liked the idea of the public donating money for a new floor but winced at the thought of common people's names littered about the Market.

His idea? Sell the engraved tiles but install them name-side down.

It didn't fly.

After the commission signed on to selling tiles (right-side up), Market officials needed to find a granular material that was both strong and slip-resistant. Hoffman said that after thousands of tiles already had been sold to the public, officials worried that the material they chose was too dense to engrave.

"I went off to New York for a week, pretty much freaking out," Hoffman recalled.

But then he received an overnight package where he was staying. Inside was a single tile with the inscription: "It works."

Janet Pelz, whom Hoffman hired to manage the tile project, had launched the fundraiser in spring 1985. Early response from the public was painfully slow, she recalled.

In an effort to stimulate sales, Pelz invited third- and fourth-graders from a Capitol Hill elementary school to watch the first tiles get engraved — a stenciling and sandblasting process that took place inside the Market arcade. The media got invited, too.

Each student submitted a name of a personal hero. In front of TV cameras, one name would be randomly selected and engraved on a tile.

But the event kind of backfired.

Instead of Boy George or Mary Lou Retton, who were cultural icons at the time, the winning entry was John Murphy. The boy who submitted the name explained that Murphy, a friend of his parents, was a really nice guy who once let him hang out at the post office where he worked.

There were more tile travails along the way. Soon after the tiles got installed, buyers wanted to know their locations within the arcade.

No problem: A computer program had all of that information on a grid.

Problem: The program crashed.

So Pelz hired some college students and together they sat on little folding chairs in the Market arcade, re-inputting the names and messages on tens of thousands of tiles into what would now be considered antiquated laptop computers. It was a tedious process.

Messages romantic, funny, random

Pike Place Market vendors see it all the time: People slowly walking the main arcade with heads bowed — either locals searching for their personalized floor tiles or tourists trying to make out the names.

Vendors often help locals, directing them to the Market's administrative office, where lists show the general location of each tile.

Vendors often tease tourists, telling them the names are all dead people and an urn of their remains lays beneath each tile.

Actually, the floor isn't that different from a mausoleum. Some tiles serve as memorials to loved ones who have passed on. Damaged or missing tiles thus can stir up emotion, the equivalent of discovering a defaced headstone.

Other tiles express romance or humor, or are just plain odd. There also are tiles for the famous (Ronald Reagan), and for celebrities who once visited the Market (Willard Scott).

What all tiles have in common, however, is an uncertain future.

This summer's Market centennial celebration is being used as a catalyst to raise public money for future Market renovations, such as adding bathrooms and elevators and upgrading the electrical system. Part of that work could be replacing the aging tiles with a new floor. No one knows the form that might take.

"I know one thing," said Bill Stalder, the Market's operations manager. "I sure don't want to be here on the day they do that."

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com