Fun with Highways: Seattle

After New York and San Francisco, Seattle has recently been among the top cities for this site and our Facebook page. So today we are paying tribute with a visit of some of the city’s highways.

Two of the major highways in the U.S., I-5 and I-90 meet in downtown Seattle at this massive interchange:

I did actually travel to Seattle through this interchange a few years ago, while on tour with the band that would later become Reconnaissance Fly. I-5 may look wide here as it passes under I-90, but further north it felt narrow and windy, more like the highways inside New York City, with buildings on either side of us.  We took the exit for Madison Street and headed up the hill to our gig, not far from some cool-looking transmission towers (Is it weird that I actually remember these particular details?).  It was a bit of a nostalgic trip to go back and read the gig report, and see how far we’ve all come musically since then.

To the west of I-5 is State Highway 99, the Alaskan Way Viaduct. This is a double-decked elevated highway along the industrial waterfront, and actually seems quite interesting, both looking at it from the bay and for the spectacular view of the city and bay that one would see while riding it.

In some ways, it seems like the former Embarcadero Freeway in here San Francisco, including the fact that it is scheduled to also be “former” soon. Plans are to demolish the elevated highway and replace it with a tunnel, and surface boulevard that connects the downtown to the waterfront. The replacement plans seem to be as controversial as the highway itself. Both fall along predictable lines, the typical reaction of many who see a highway like this as an “eyesore”, and those who are worried about the costs of replacing it. The bored tunnel seems quite impressive, and more walkable space seems like a good concept. The replacement of the Embarcadero Freeway here with an open and walkable waterfront space seems quite successful (it was all done before my time), but I still felt a little sad seeing those last vestigial bits of the old infrastructure get demolished last year. I thought they were architecturally interesting (and photogenic). These views (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) show the underside and details of the Alaska Way Viaduct.

Hopefully the project works out well for Seattle. Demolition began earlier this year.

Seattle

The last performing stop on the tour last week was Saturday in Seattle:

Not exactly the Space Needle, but still some impressive communications towers, and not too far from our venue, the 1412 Gallery:


Photo by Polly Moller

I played a solo set, which I think was the best one of the tour, musically. I look forward to hearing the recordings soon. And of course, we did our Polly Moller and Company show:


(Click to enlarge)

Polly has written a bit about our performance in Seattle, including how it was somewhat sparsely attended. This was in part due to the “Much Bigger Show” that occured in direct conflict to ours, and counted much of the experimental/improvised music community as audience or participants. We did get a chance to hang out together with them at Murphy's Irish Pub afterwards, where much drink, conversation and merriment was had by all…