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The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation has announced that the Seattle P-I Globe tops their 2009 list of endangered historic properties. The familiar, neon-lit globe was constructed by PACCAR and is a true landmark, currently sited above the waterfront offices of Seattlepi.com, the online daily that has replaced the newspaper which ceased its print edition earlier this year.
There has been much discussion about the Globe's future, ranging from putting it in a museum (like the new Museum of History and Industry planned for South Lake Union) to returning it to its original site at the old P-I building or using it to highlight a memorial for park for the death of daily journalism as we've known it.
Many have expressed the wish that it be added to the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park, a near-neighbor to the present P-I building. That is where this year's most endangered list will be announced, on May 26th. The list includes at-risk properties from around the state.
At least three others on this year's list are in Seattle. Last year's list included Washington Hall, the Nuclear Reactor Building at the University of Washington, and the Murray Morgan Bridge in Tacoma.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, May 20, 4:22 p.m. Inappropriate
I hate to think of dignifying the SAM Do-Not-Touch-The-Rusting-Hulks Park (aka Kill The Waterfront Trolly Park, aka Hempfest Schmempfest Park, aka Eyesore Of The Seattle Waterfront Park) with something as historically important and classy looking as the P-I globe. The globe would make a nice centerpiece to the soon-to-come MOHAI at Lake Union.
Posted Fri, May 22, 11:39 a.m. Inappropriate
Los Angeles' Museum of Neon Art would be a perfect venue for the PI globe. Maybe we could get them interested in opening a Northwest annex.
Posted Fri, May 22, 2:54 p.m. Inappropriate
A Globe tidbit from Crosscut reader Steven Camp:
Here is a sidebar on the P-I Globe you might find interesting.
Yes, Paccar built the globe. The neon tube lighting for the globe was made by Electrical Products Consolidated, in their "sign shop" at the corner of Mercer and Yale in South Lake Union. What's amazingly coincidental about that is the sign shop was the original Kenworth truck plant before it became the Seattle headquarters of EPCON. You would probably agree the neon lighting added a lot to the spectacular wow effect of the globe when it first started spinning.
My late father, Willis Camp, was the GM of EPCON in 1948, and very proud of their contract for this amazing neon sign project, among the biggest on the West Coast in the late 40's. Unless I dreamt this, as kids we would visit the shop on "family nights", in awe of the early-day Dale Chihuly's blowing and curving glass, such as was done to create the outline of the continents on the globe, and the gold eagle atop. Early day craftsmen for sure, and probably an art form now done by machines.
Steve Camp
Posted Fri, May 22, 4:09 p.m. Inappropriate
Most neon signs are one-offs and are still made by hand.