Tag: 19th century

leaving the Blasket Islands

Great Blasket from above the ferry jetty

on my first trip to Ireland, my companions and I did a circuit of the Dingle Peninsula by car as I was taking them to Tralee to catch a bus to Dublin (on what turned out to be the Saturday at the heart of the Rose Festival; traffic was … interesting). one of my greatest regrets our self-imposed restrictions was that we only got a glimpse of the Blasket Islands as we zipped around Slea Head on what purported to be a two-lane road. (fortunately, almost everyone makes the drive in a clockwise direction.) my desire to visit the islands only grew as I continued my trip up the west coast, learning more about what happened to Irish farmers and families during the 19th century, and later in reading historical accounts of the last two centuries of Irish history – both fiction and non-fiction.

and so, when planning out our Dingle hike I knew I wanted to plan in a rest day to allow us time to take the ferry out to the island. armed with an approximate departure timetable for the fery, we started out at the heritage center which provided a pretty comprehensive look at life on the island, of linguistic heritage, animals and plant life, and the nature of the diaspora when the island was evacuated in 1953.

the islands were inhabited by small clusters of people for centuries, with the largest community on the Great Blasket (up to about 160 individuals). the islands saw an influx of residents from people fleeing the abominable policies of Lord Ventry (who owned much of the arable terrain on the mainland) during the Famine, though population declined in the 1840s all the same due to the effects of the Famine.

one of the single-family islands as seen from the main island

some of the smaller islands were home to single families and while in later years, particularly as the young emigrated and the remaining population aged, they relied on assistance from the mainland, their relative isolation and success as fishermen insulated them from the worst devastation of the Famine. the population didn’t begin to decline until the 20th century, when people hearing the success stories of those who had fled the Famine for America started leaving for better opportunities than a remote, island fishing community could offer. an outbreak of typhoid in the 1890s affected population as well. in the early 20th century, the government offered improvements, such as building a breakwater and new slipway; all the same, trips to and from the mainland still required adequate weather.

village on the Great Blasket from above

around the same time, cultural researchers became aware of the unique nature of the Blasket Islands – as an isolated community who’d defended their Gaelic language and heritage well in the face of efforts of the occupying English government to eradicate it from all of Ireland. (today, areas such as the Dingle Peninsula, Donegal and elsewhere Gaelic retains a strong presence are areas of governmentally-protected preservation called gaeltachts.) several researchers headed out to the islands to meet with inhabitants and to encourage them to share their stories for publication. quite a few took the opportunity, including Peig Sayers, who was actually born on the mainland (in Dun Choain) and married onto the island. her memoir Peig is one of the most well-known of the Gaelic Revival literature (it was certainly one of the easiest to find her book when looking for those Blasket narratives at a local bookshop after my first glimpse of the Blasket Islands in 2009).

ultimately, the exodus of young people took its toll on the island – while the island housed some 160 inhabitants in 1911, by the late 1940s only a few dozen people lived on the island (51, including infants, recorded in 1947). demands of subsistence living made further habitation of the islands untenable. trips to and from the mainland with necessities could only take place during good weather and the aging population increasingly could not keep up with the demands of island life; many abandoned the island in the decades prior to the final abandonment. eventually, the Irish government determined the islands must be evacuated and the last of the inhabitants left the island on 17 November 1953, relocating primarily elsewhere on the peninsula, as well as to America.

now, the islands are in a sort of limbo – not a national landmark but certainly not commercially owned. the highly informative interpretative center in Dun Choain provides an excellent overview of the history, culture, and life on the island, but a to fully appreciate the islands it’s worth the ferry trip (in good weather) out for a hike among the abandoned homes, up the mountain, and through the herd of remaining sheep (who, purportedly, are shorn once or twice a year and are otherwise left to their own devices).

(find additional information here: http://www.dingle-peninsula.ie/blaskets.html)

Plessy in New Orleans

the American history courses I took in high school differed from others in the emphasis placed on the experience of blacks and other people of color (the section covering the 20th century that I opted for was titled “African American Experience,” whereas the option most of school took was titled “American Experience”). however, while we spent quite a bit of time discussing various pieces of landmark legislation pertaining to social justice and racial equality, I was surprised to (re)discover Plessy’s link to New Orleans while exploring the exhibits of the Cabildo.

Homer Plessy was born to French-speaking Creole parents just before the outbreak of the Civil War and just after General Benjamin Butler’s troops occupied the city and liberated enslaved African Americans. his paternal grandfather, a white Frenchman from Bordeaux, arrived in New Orleans after leaving Haiti in the wake the rebellion that liberated the nation from Napoleon’s France. after his father’s death in 1869, his mother married a clerk at the U.S. Post Office who supplemented his income as a shoemaker. Plessy followed his stepfather into the shoe business, and also worked as a clerk and insurance agent, according to city records.

during the period of occupation and Reconstruction in which Plessy grew up, blacks in the city enjoyed a degree of freedom unheard of in the rest of the South – marrying freely and attending integrated schools (briefly), among other rights. in 1873, his stepfather signed on to the Unification Movement which sought to establish equality in Louisiana (which had a more laissez-faire attitude about racial segregation from its early years as something of a remote backwater up until it became a state and its liberality conflicted with laws of neighboring states.) once federal troops withdrew from the city by the order of President Hayes in 1877, however, rights hitherto enjoyed by most and any prospect for a racially egalitarian society vanished.

from a young age, Plessy displayed political and social conscious; he served as a leader in an education reform movement and, ultimately, joined a mixed-race civil rights group called the Comite de Cityones. not unlike the Montgomery Improvement Association, the Comite orchestrated the events that culminated in the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson case. as with the Montgomery boycott some six decades later, Plessy’s appearance contributed to the plan — as one scholar noted, he was white enough to gain access to the location where he was black enough to get arrested. on June 7, 1892, he bought a first-class ticket on train between New Orleans and Covington and took a seat in the “whites-only” car. when asked for his ticket Plessy stated that, as a person 7/8 white, he did not want to sit in the “blacks-only” car. he was arrested immediately, held overnight on $500 bond and tried a month later for the offense.

the trial – before Judge John Howard Ferguson – took place in one of the second floor rooms of the Cabildo and Plessy’s case rested on the argument that the law that resulted in his arrest violated his rights under the recently-passed Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Ferguson disagreed based on the contention that the state could set rules for railroad business that took place within its borders. the State Supreme Court upheld Ferguson’s ruling and refused to rehear the case but allowed for a petition for writ of error, which allowed the case to progress to the United States Supreme Court.

in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court heard and ruled on the case, the majority opinion laying out the doctrine of “separate but equal” that permitted states to segregate with federal permission until struck down by the Brown v. Board decision of 1954. (one Justice – John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky – dissented on the grounds that the Louisiana law was inconsistent with the liberty citizens and was hostile to both the spirit and letter of the U.S. Constitution. his position on this and other cases dealing with racial segregation earned him the nickname “the Great Dissenter.”)

following the Court’s decision, Plessy pleaded guilty and paid the levied fine in January of 1897. he returned to his life – became a father, remained active in his church and community, sold insurance — and died at in 1925. he was interred in his family’s tomb at the St. Louis Cemetery #1; our group vied with three or four others to see the site and to discuss his importance to the city and American history. it wasn’t a long discussion, more a kind of shorthand — you all have heard of Plessy, right? this one is his family tomb. I’ve learned more about his life in writing this post, but seeing the family tomb and site of the trial spurred me into researching his life.

Old U.S. Mint

the Mint in New Orleans is the only one in the United States to have produced coinage for both the United and Confederate States of America. the strategic location of the city, its bustling port, and sizable antebellum population made it a desirable location for a mint. in the 1830s, Andrew Jackson established several mints throughout the south, including the one in New Orleans, because he felt the Second Bank of the United States (the recharter of which he vetoed in 1832) benefited northeastern businessmen at the expense of common frontiersmen. combined with the effects of some of Jackson’s presidential acts and fiscal policy, by the end of the 1830s, the need for minted money necessitated additional mints. the red brick building was designed by William Strickland (who also designed the mints in Philadelphia, Charlotte, NC, and Dahlonega, GA) went up in 1835 and began making coins in 1838.

the New Orleans mint quickly became one of the most important in the country. its location made it convenient both to Mexican or and recently discovered gold mines in Alabama. while the Philadelphia mint produced more coinage, New Orleans could distribute its output much faster, particularly to the rapidly growing southern and western states and territories.

prior to Louisiana’s secession from the Union, the mint produced numerous denominations of coin, all from silver or gold. once the building and assets were seized by the Confederacy, operations were turned over to making Confederate half-dollars of the remaining gold bullion. once the bullion ran out, the building served to quarter Confederate troops until the Union occupied the city in 1862.

the Union flag raised above the mint after the city was captured resulted in a notable scandal. a professional gambler named William Mumford and several other people defied Marine orders to leave the flag alone, and entered the mint to rip the flag down, tearing it apart and stuffing bits into his shirt to save as souvenirs. the commander of U.S. forces in Louisiana, Benjamin Butler, arrested and charged with high crimes and misdemeanors. he was tried and convicted by a military tribunal in May of 1862 and was executed by hanging in the courtyard of the mint.

after the Civil War, the building was used as an assay office from 1876-79, during which time it was refurbished and damaged minting machinery was replaced. it continued to make coins until 1909. the mint was then decommissioned, much to the chagrin of then-governor Huey Long, and the machinery sent to the one in Philadelphia. responsibility of the building was transferred to the state in 1965 after serving as an assay office, federal prison, Coast Guard storage facility. it was refurbished and turned into a museum, in which capacity it has served since the 1960s. damage from Katrina closed the museum for two years and now showcases rotating exhibits and the Louisiana Historical Center and the Jazz National Historic Park hosts concerts periodically.

Thompson Elk

one of the more interesting things in the Plaza Blocks is the statue and fountain that stand smack in the middle of Main Street. it was donated by David P. Thompson, who, among other notable positions, served as Mayor of Portland from 1879-82. he also served in the Oregon State Senate, in the First Oregon Cavalry during the Civil War, and as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman empire (for a year at the end of the 19th century. back in Oregon, he also served as regent of the University of Oregon, president of the Oregon Humane Society and first president of the Portland Public Library.

the Elk was commissioned of Roland Hinton Perry, who completed many notable works around the turn of the twentieth century. born in New York, Perry studied sculpture at several Parisian institutions in the 1890s. upon returning to the United States, his commissions included a series of bas-reliefs for the Library of Congress, a potential design for the statue atop the Pennsylvania Capitol building, a statue of Benjamin Rush in Washington and General George Greene at Gettysburg, and a pair of lions on the Connecticut Avenue Bridge in D.C.

Lownsdale & Chapman Plazas


without any grand plans for our time in Portland, beyond seeing friends and family and a drive down to Bend, we found ourselves out wandering around downtown, enjoying the spectacular fall weather, shuffling our feet through crisp and freshly fallen leaves. one of the first places we walked through was a pair of plazas flanking the Thomson Elk statue, which stands smack in the middle of Southwest Main Street. the plazas are named for Daniel Lownsdale and William Chapman and host towering trees, the likes of which I haven’t seen in a city of substantial size in recent memory.

Lownsdale arrived in Oregon from Kentucky before 1845 and became a member of the provisional legislature in 1846. he established the city’s first tannery on its northwest side and purchased part of what became downtown Portland from one of the city’s founders (Francis Pettygrove) in 1848. he was influential in helping determine the current layout of Portland — with small blocks of 200 feet by 64 feet with contiguous park blocks such as the one that now bears his name.

Lownsdale Plaza plaza is home to a monument to the Spanish-American War and two howitzers found at Fort Sumter donated by author Henry Dosch. Dosch claimed the howitzers had been used by both sides during the Civil War.

the adjoining park is named in honor of William Chapman, another early settler of Portland with a long political career. he settled in Portland in the late 1840s after traveling from Iowa, where he’d served as a Congressional Delegate for the Iowa Territory, by way of the Oregon Trail. he moved around the region, with a successful stint in California during the 1848 gold rush. he served in the first Territorial Legislature and, when the session ended, convinced Thomas Dyer to move from San Francisco to Portland to establish a newspaper. The Oregonian is the oldest continuously publishing newspaper on the west coast, predating the founding of Portland. he purchased land from Lownsdale and built a home on the site of what is now the Multnoma County Courthouse, where he practiced law for many years even as he moved around the state – to raise cattle in Southern Oregon, serve as lieutenant colonel of the militia during the Rogue River War of 1855-56, and serve as surveyor general from 1857-61 (when he resigned due to opposition of Lincoln’s election). in his later years, while continuing to practice law, he fought to get Portland connected to the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad to ensure the city would continue to grow and remain connected to the rest of the coast and country. (his proposed line was never built.) in 1870, he sold the land now occupied by the plazas that bear his and Lownsdale’s names to the city of Portland.

Dunquin

Dún Chaoin is the western most village in Ireland (the parish, which includes the Blasket Islands, is sometimes referred to as the next parish to America) and afforded us with a welcome opportunity to take a break from hiking the Dingle Way. compared with many of the towns on the outward portion of our hike, the town didn’t offer much in the way of conveniences; it was a good prelude for the next several days of hiking inland.

options for dinner when we arrived after a long and physically demanding (and breathtakingly beautiful) day of hiking we limited to: purchasing & cooking pasta in the hostel kitchen; hiking to the next town, some 30 minutes further along the road; or hoping the only pub in town still had makings for white-bread sandwiches. we opted for choice number three and stumbled down the hill to Kruger’s Bar, which was a nice change from the crowded and touristy a pubs in Dingle town. a younger woman was tending bar, chatting with a couple of regulars and a grandmotherly proprietor type, who contributed to the conversation exclusively in Gaelic. she may have even been on hand the evening in 1971 when the Campaign for the Revitalization of Ale (promoting real ale, real cider, and the traditional pub) was founded in the same room (now known as the Campaign for Real Ale, the largest single-issue consumer group in the UK).

we ordered our pints and white-bread sandwiches — ham & cheese for Andy, cheese & tomatoes for me — and settled down by a corner window with views of the water. not a lot of competition for seating (all those people who just drive around the Dingle Peninsula, me of several years ago included, don’t know what they’re missing). the grandmotherly woman got up and shuffled back into the kitchen to make our sandwiches which, frankly, were the the best white-bread sandwiches you could ever eat not just because we were hungry but because such a character prepared them for us.

while we waited, I considered the portraits tacked up along the walls — snaps from when film crews for “Ryan’s Daughter” and “Far & Away” visited Dunquin in the late 1960s and early 1990s, respectively. not much of a draw from them now, but certainly potent in their day. plan to watch both to see if anything looks familiar, or if it’s all been made into generic “Ireland” with a coastal flavor.

Grandview Hotel

on our way back from the Tusayan ruins (about which more to come), I took driver’s prerogative and stopped at several vistas to snap pictures and admire the Canyon. one of those locations was the site of the former Grandview Hotel, one of the first lodging options for tourists at the Grand Canyon.

in 1886, a rancher named John Hance opened his land up to visitors. thought to be one of the first non-Native American residents of the Grand Canyon area, after failing as an asbestos miner, Hance developed trails and took groups of visitors down into the Canyon. he sold his ranch to a couple of miners working around the point in 1895 to focus on guiding and serving as postmaster. he died the year the site became a National Park and was the first man buried in the Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery.

while successfully extracting copper, gold and silver, from claims just below Grandview Point, miners Ralph Cameron and Pete Berry improved the hiking trail into the Canyon by partially following an existing Native American path and employing mules to transport goods and people along the route. Cameron and Berry capitalized on the growth in tourism, developing services for visitors including a lodging at both Grandview Point and farther along the rim near what is now the Bright Angel Trailhead.

between 1892 and 1897, Berry and his wife, Martha, put his share of the mine profits into a rambling, rustic lodge they named the Grandview Hotel. they aimed for an “authentic” Southwest quality, using Ponderosa pine for construction and featuring Native American crafts throughout the lodge. when the Santa Fe Railroad completed a line to Williams in 1901, the Berrys offered free stage transportation to their hotel to encourage visitors. they sold the Grandview property the following year, however, to a mining company from Chicago and set up a new hotel on their homestead property nearby.

competition heated up in 1905 when the Santa Fe Railroad built the extravagant El Tovar Hotel across from their new depot (and which still stands today at the heart of Grand Canyon Village). the Berrys struggled, eventually dividing and selling their property in an effort to foster a community to rival the growing Grand Canyon Village. the venture failed but when Santa Fe offered to buy their property, the Berrys refused, opting instead to sell to William Randolph Hearst in 1913 pleased with the idea that a wealthy man had thwarted the corporation that put them out of business. Hearst closed the hotels, however, maintaining the properties as a family retreat in the short term; the Berrys served as caretakers for the property until their retirement in 1919. when Martha and Pete died, in 1931 and 1932 respectively, they were buried in the Grand Canyon cemetery along with John Hance.

despite leaving the Grandview and Berry properties as family retreats, Hearst did harbor aspirations of developing a grand tourist resort on the land, which the budding National Parks Service, which assumed supervision of the Park in 1919, found troubling (I wonder how much the railroad lobby had to do with that …). the Parks Service successfully concentrated tourist services management under the aegis of a single concessionaire — the company responsible for the Santa Fe-owned hotels. after this, while Hearst retained ownership of his property, he let the buildings fall into disrepair before finally dismantling the Grandview and selling some of the beams. in 1941, the Parks Service gained control of the Hearst property through condemnation; he did not take lightly to this challenge and waged a typically searing (though ultimately unsuccessful) campaign against the government in the press. the Parks Service finally dismantled the Summit Hotel in 1959, though some of the mining structures left from the Hearst property remain as historical artifacts on Horseshoe Mesa.

tomb of Santiago

an angel and Santiago with shields depicting his symbols

another important part of completing the Camino and visiting the Cathedral is ascending the steps behind the altar to embrace a statue of Santiago and then descend into the crypt to see relics of the Saint and two of his (also saintly) followers, Teodoro and Atanasio.

even though much of the crowd attending the noon mass cleared out rapidly once the botafumeiro stopped swinging, our burgeoning hunger diverted us from visiting the tomb the day we arrived in Santiago de Compostela. (after all, we’d been up since 5:00 a.m. and walking for nearly all of it.) I felt particularly desirous of some kind of huge (vegetarian-friendly) victory luncheon, as standing during the mass had left me somewhat flushed and rather watery in the leg department.

Santiago Peregrino in glass

it was drizzly when we returned to the Cathedral the following day. whereas numerous people milled about on the morning when we arrived — tourists snapping pictures of the Cathedral, peregrinos grinning madly as someone took a picture of them in their Camino gear, a school group visiting the government building on the opposite side of the plaza — weather dissuaded people from lingering and the hour (about 10:00) meant that most peregrinos arriving to Santiago that day hadn’t made it to the Praza do Orbadoiro yet.

this meant, fortunately, that there wasn’t much of a line to visit the altar and crypt. we briefly explored the areas of the Cathedral we hadn’t seen the previous day, headed for the roped off queue that wrapped around behind the altar. while shuffling forward, we saw one of the few stained glass windows in the Cathedral, depicting Santiago holding his scallop-topped staff and distinct cross emblazoned on his chest.

the Altar Mayor is an explosion of Baroque-era decoration, with numerous pieces venerating Santiago, both the warrior and peregrino, and depicting all manner of heavenly creatures and other Biblical themes. there’s an 18th-century baldachin depicting the cardinal virtues, with Santiago Peregrino standing beneath; there’s a statue of Santiago Matamoros from 1677. and up the narrow stairs in a camarín (a tiny chamber still visible from the altar), there’s a painted stone sculpture of Santiago, seated on a silver throne.

unlike many other religious shrines, peregrinos (or any visitors) are welcome to embrace this depiction of Santiago and pilgrims to Compostela have always been allowed to touch or embrace the statue. one account from the late 15th century describes how peregrinos would climb the stairs of the then-wooden shrine and place the silver crown gracing Santiago’s head on their own, to facilitate the reception of religious goodwill. the crown was later reported as gold but at some point disappeared and peregrinos took to embracing the statue instead. I didn’t feel moved to embrace the statue as I passed through the camarín but could readily understand why some people might be moved to do so.

from the tiny upstairs chamber we descended to a tiny underground chamber — the crypt containing the relics of Santiago and his followers. the crypt mimics the Roman mausoleum in which Santiago’s bones originally resided, and illuminates the substructure of a 9th century church that stood on the site prior to construction of the existing Cathedral.

as previously discussed, over the course of centuries the location of Santiago’s bones has gone in and out of focus; once they were rediscovered, political and religious turmoil frequently threatened their safety. in an effort to protect them from Dutch and English incursions, the relics were “relocated” from their place on the altar to a “safe location” in 1589. sometime thereafter their location got even “safer” as they went undiscovered until 1879. following this rediscovery and authentication of the relics by Pope Leo XIII in 1884, the silver reliquary which now houses them was crafted in 1886 by Jose Losada, who had designed the botafumeiro three decades earlier.

while most people simply walked through, pausing briefly to look at the reliquary, there was one man taking his time before the relics, kneeling on a prayer bench. there was a small box for offerings, though no items left behind by peregrinos, such as their scallop shells or walking sticks; I don’t know if the Cathedral has cracked down on the practice of bringing and leaving items from your Camino in the crypt, but at one time enough got left behind that they had to haul everything out at night and develop a plan for dispensing items to appropriate  parties. frankly, I couldn’t shake a feeling of slight claustrophobia — the means of entrance and egress from the crypt were narrow and steep. moreover, despite the fact that the Cathedral has stood on its current foundation for nearly a millennium, I couldn’t shake the feeling that all those tons of marble pressing down from above, onto this low ceiling, could collapse and pulverize anyone or anything in that tiny space. as fascinating as it was to see and be in that space, I was hugely thankful to get out, and back into the open air plaza in short order.

ritual and the botafumeiro

Compostelas in hand, we dropped our packs at our hotel, a neat, modern place just beyond the limits of the old city walls, then headed back to the cathedral for the noon peregrino mass — featuring the botafumeiro! 

while the exterior facade of the Cathedral (added in the 1750s) is quite stunning, the inside is pretty plain, particularly in comparison to some of Europe’s other grand cathedrals, though well kept and clean. I suppose, when one stops to think about it, it isn’t the fanciest cathedral in Spain by a long way, and perhaps not even the snazziest cathedral on the Camino; simply the most enthusiastically anticipated. I suppose the organ pipes jutting out over the heads of peregrinos in the middle aisle is rather striking…

we arrived “late” to the peregrino mass, a mere fifteen minutes before the hour, and all the seats, as well as the best of the standing room, were taken up by others eager to hear the Mass or see the botafumeiro in action, depending on religious persuasion. we still managed a decent spot standing near the intersection of the nave and transept which afforded us with a closer view of the action. they delivered a pretty standard and benign (at least to my non-Catholic ears) homily. it got somewhat heavy-handed and blunt at times about the importance of having the Church and Jesus in one’s life, which Andy was luckily immune to by virtue of not understanding Spanish. they began the service, however, by listing all the home countries (or cities, if they were from Spain) of the peregrinos who’d arrived in Santiago de Compostela in the previous 24 hours. (as I write this in January, 5 peregrinos arrived in Santiago today.)

as a non-religious person who could count on one hand the number of times attending a Catholic Mass of any variety, it was interesting to attend a Catholic Mass in a Catholic country with a group of people that includes those who walked at least 100 kilometers to reach Santiago. there was a young-ish woman standing immediately to my left who knew all the words and all the ritual of the Mass by heart; it was somewhat arresting to observer her and so many others go through the routine of their devotion. the last time I remember memorizing something to repeat it back on command was in my 10th grade French class — La Cigale et La Fourmi par Jean de la Fontaine — and I haven’t had reason to recite it in more than a decade and probably couldn’t muddle my way through it now.

homily concluded, they prepared for the event many people came to see — getting the censer to swing from the roof on onside of the nave to the roof on the other side of the nave. there are several vessels they use for this demonstration; we probably saw La Alcachofa (literally: the artichocke) in action that Friday in June. the Botafumeiro is an alloy of bronze and brass, plated with silver, was crafted in 1851 by a silver and goldsmith named Losada. it’s normally on display in the cathedral library. it’s one of the largest censers in the world and stands at 1.6 meters tall. La Alcachofa was crafted in 1971 and can be filled with about 40 kilograms of incense, which wafts over the heads of peregrinos in the transept as it swings from side to side at speeds of up to 68 kph. the top of the swing is about 21 meters up and takes about 17 swings by eight red-robed tiraboleiros to reach that speed, after about 80 seconds of pulling.

some hold that the use of the botafumeiro dates back to the 11th century; there was need to deaden the smell of the arriving peregrinos, weary, sweaty, unwashed and it was believed that the incense smoke also served the purpose of deadening “plagues” or epidemics carried in by peregrinos. in the 15th century Louis XI donated money to replace the silver medieval thurible; Napoleon’s troops stole it in 1809.

while it’s well secured by the ropes that the tiraboleiros pull on, there have been several instances of malfunction ranging from the botafumeiro flying out a window to simply tipping coals onto the ground. the most dramatic incident came when Catherine of Aragon stopped in Santiago while on her way to marry Arthur in England — during the swing, the botafumeiro flew out the Platerias window (over the south entrance to the Catedral), but somehow managed to not injure anyone. the last incident occurred in 1937. it was smooth sailing for La Alcachofa for our visit.

Underground Seattle

elevated indoor latrine

as many of you know, each year several of my college friends meet up for a mini-reunion weekend and, along with all the catching up, watching cheesy movies, and generally having a rollicking good time, we make it a point to visit someplace “odd” or go on a tour of someplace kitchy or uber-touristy. while the more fantastic-than-kitchy Chihuly exhibit would have sufficed, we’d already penciled in a trip beneath Seattle’s streets around Pioneer Square.

in the heart of the northwest woods, the original buildings of Seattle were made of timber. in June of 1889 a cabinetmaker knocked over flame and set his glue alight; when he tried to extinguish the fire with water, it simply spread. upon responding, the volunteer firefighters overtaxed the water pressure by using too many hoses and as a result some 31 square blocks of the fledgling town were destroyed. this devastation proved something of a boon for city planners, however, who had plans to improve living conditions in the city but lacked the means or mode to make it happen.

essentially, the relationship between the sewer system of early Seattle and tide waters into which the effluent flowed wasn’t terribly favorable for those who wished to keep sewage in sewers rather than all over the insides of residences and otherwise clean and sanitary buildings. while the tide was out, the plumbing worked just fine with the aid of gravity, taking the unwanted materials out to the low tide flats at the edge of Puget Sound; when the tide came in, however, it went rushing back up the pipes with unwanted effect. city planners wanted to level out the grade of the Denny Hill, bringing it down from something ridiculous (I swear our guide said 45 percent …) to something reasonable (along the lines of 10 or 12 percent) but the presence of buildings and business owners with businesses in said buildings who opposed the idea of closing down for the years a regrade would require made that challenging. even the fire and destruction of those buildings didn’t temper the protests of the business owners — the regrade was projected to take upwards of a decade and they had no intention of waiting that long to rebuild. so the two sides came to a compromise of sorts: the business owners would go ahead with their speedier plans and rebuild on the same level and in the existing grid pattern while the city would move forward with their regrade project and deal with the height disparity when the problem presented itself. between 1902 and 1911, water from Lake Union was pumped to the top of the hill where hydraulic mining techniques basically flushed the top of the hill down towards the bottom of the hill.

former underground marketplace

thus the Seattle Underground. even though the regrade project began in 1902, with retaining walls put up to protect sidewalks before filling and repaving the streets at the new level, the elevation of sidewalks didn’t occur for several years. instead, ladders stood at corners and people were obliged to climb up and down them to access businesses. according to our guide, this proved somewhat dangerous for the largely-male population of early-20th century Seattle; go out for a few rounds with mates, get confused about where (or whether) a ladder stood and end the evening with a tumble in to the underground. allegedly, several death certificates from this period have “involuntary suicide” down as the cause of death.

eventually, new sidewalks went up, supported by brick archways, but that didn’t eliminate shopping on the now-underground level — it just became an early indoor mall which was great in Seattle’s weather. to make the underground shopping experience more appealing, some areas of the new sidewalk included glass blocks that allowed light to filter to the subterranean level. initially, the glass was clear using the recently discovered technique of adding manganese to the process. now those same blocks appear amethyst in color due to the effects of time on manganese.

deciding under purple light
to walk through the dark bank vault

as business shifted to the upper levels, the lower were given over to less savory elements — including a huge rat infestation. underground markets had been held on wooden platforms built over hard packed dirt floors, allowing plenty of space and resources for vermin to thrive and potentially spread unwanted diseases, like the  bubonic plague. stemming from fear of a disease outbreak at an inopportune time, Seattle condemned the lower levels of buildings in 1907 though they remain, quite clearly, structurally sound and the routes the Tours take are cleaned up though in varying states of upkeep. it was incongruous to see some, situated beneath abandoned or disused buildings, filled with detritus and broken furniture while another, situated under a thriving department-type store, was swept up, well-lit and immaculate.

when our guide discovered that our group consisted entirely of people over the age of consent, she gave us a choice of how to make our way out of the second-to-last underground space: with the lights on like scardy-cats or like spelunking adventurers (my phrases) using naught but the light of our collective cell-phones to guide us. we opted for the latter and, just as we set off across the uneven footing she told us that the ghost of a failed bank robber was rumored to haunt the abandoned bank vault through which we were about to walk. in the dark. said alleged ghost did not attempt to snatch any of our party.

once back on the surface, it was back across the intersection of Yesler and First, under a wrought-iron pergola built in 1909 and knocked over twice by semis in the last eleven years, back underground for one last nugget of tawdry history and out through the conveniently-connected gift shop and “museum.” the area’s now recognized as an historic district and resides on the National Register of Historic Places.

oh! and once again, one of my favorite forms of social-media-based entertainment had an entry that inspired me to get working on a post I’d been mulling for some time! check out the “Subterranean Cities” episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class for more about some famous or infamous underground places. they don’t make any mention of the Victoria Arches in Manchester, though, which sound fascinating and a bit like Underground Seattle!