KIRO NEWSRADIO OPINION
Ross: This level of graffiti is like defacing the Great Pyramid
May 25, 2023, 7:49 AM | Updated: 9:06 am
I’m looking at the long cinderblock wall that was exposed when the viaduct was removed, and there it was. STIGMA. (Photo from Dave Ross)
(Photo from Dave Ross)
Wednesday after work, I did what I usually do on a nice day– drove across town to the Market, worked out at the gym for an hour, and walked around to watch the tourists who are seeing Seattle for the first time.
I also like to watch the construction going on at the waterfront – which I’ve been doing since they started tearing down the viaduct. The transformation is epic – I feel like I’m watching the pyramids being built.
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So yesterday, I get a 12-ounce apple slushy from the Apple Slushy Cart at the Market, and I walk over to the new patio overlooking Elliot Way, proudly open-carrying my slushy.
And I’m looking at the long cinderblock wall that was exposed when the viaduct was removed, and there it was. STIGMA.
The same word I see painted along Interstate 5, in tunnels, on retaining walls! STIGMA-guy has been everywhere – and now he’s stigmatizing the work of the hardhats who are rebuilding the city.
So, the tourists who stand there to admire the view see the Olympics, West Seattle, the ferries, and STIGMA.
Someone, please cover that wall with plastic ivy— before it becomes yet another shrine to chaos.
If you spend even a few minutes watching a project like this being built, you have to respect the work that goes into it. To see it already being defaced isn’t just ugly, I think it’s an insult to the construction workers.
Either put up the plastic ivy or commission a mural! You could use that wall for a 200-foot epic mural depicting the history of the waterfront all the way back to when the Coast Salish fished there. In fact, the honorary name of the street in front of that wall is “Dzidzilalich” dzee-dzuh-lah-leech in recognition of the Coast Salish people.
But STIGMA has got to go.
Graffiti on the highways is bad enough, and to have it center stage at the city’s front door is taking tolerance too far.
Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
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