Hot town, summer at the MOHAI

To celebrate summer and the holiday weekend, my mom and I decided to head down to the Museum of History & Industry again to see what's new since it opened in December. It was a beautiful, sunny Seattle summer day, so what better way to spend it than on South Lake Union, taking in some history?

I think we both had the theory that since we were already there when it opened, and spent 15000 hours walking through it, this visit would be a much quicker trip. Indeed, we even had three stops planned for after the museum; however, the only one we actually got around to was the one that was five blocks away. So, here's my tip for anyone who enjoys history and is planning on visiting MOHAI more than once: plan for just as much time on your subsequent visits as you did on the first! With revisiting your favorite exhibits, playing at spots you couldn't get to the first time, and new games and exhibits, you're going to get sucked in for just as long every single time.

We knew going in that we were going to go back to the Seattle's past-and-present film and Seattle's Great Fire. In fact, the Great Fire was going to be our first stop, until I saw the theater for the other film and veered her in there. Even on the second or third viewing, the music is so great! All those great Seattle musicians! We agreed that the film is put together so well that it makes us feel proud to be from here. My mom even wondered if you could feel that way about any other city. (I think probably so, as long as the film about the city is edited and narrated well, but it's just so easy to feel proud to be from the Seattle/western Washington area! All of the technology and innovations from here, the music, and the breathtaking scenery...)

After that, we went through each floor rather haphazardly. We went in the general chronological direction, but having seen so much of it last time, there were portions we knew we could either skip or go through quickly. But one place we weren't going to skip was the Great Fire film. Even on the second (or third?) viewing, we still loved the singing typewriter and glue pot (with its Scandinavian-accented "I'm yust a glooo pot."). I think that's going to be a destination every time we visit.

But here's the best part of the day's trip: new games and exhibits! Already! I figure some of them were probably things that were there the first time but that I couldn't get to, or were things that they were planning on putting in but hadn't been able to by the grand opening. But still, they were new to me! Fun!

The most fun one was one I'm sure wasn't there in December: at the end of the "World City" wall (I believe we were still in that area) was a section about authors from the northwest and books that take place in the region. But! There are two interactive kiosks where you could "write" your own book about the area! You choose the words for your title from a bunch of options (but your title can only be x words long; I had to edit mine a couple of times), then select artwork that you want to use. Next, you write the synopsis of your "book": you have the choice of either writing it completely on your own, or being guided, which reminded me of Mad Libs. Once you're done with your book, you're asked if you want to display your book on the wall of books created by other visitors, as well as real books by local authors or about local areas. That was pretty cool, seeing my "book" pop up on the big screen for everyone to see. And then! the kiosk lets you read about the real books, and it even gives you a list of recommended books, based on the book you created! How crazy and cool! I was seriously amazed when I saw the recommended books. I felt like a little kid, amazed that the machine could read my mind or something :)   (Ah, fun museums, they can make everyone feel like a kid.) Not only was I impressed by the fun of creating my own "book" and seeing it displayed, but I was also just flabbergasted by how many different ways this one kiosk could be used: a game of making your own book, a learning center about local authors, a learning center about locally-based books, and a book recommendation machine. Four birds with one stone! One very fun stone! MOHAI people, I've said it before, and I'm saying it again: You're amazing.  (Can I come work for you? If not, can I just come live in your museum?)

*sigh*

The next fun thing that I didn't do in December (but I think this one was there then) was the Neighborhoods game. I was looking at the Boeing display when my ears suddenly perked up at the unmistakable notes of "Soul Bossa Nova" in the distance. I followed the tune until I found, off in a corner room in one of the exhibit areas (the 1960s, perhaps), a touch-screen with a colorful and fun-looking image. It had a map of the Puget Sound region, with groovy shapes representing different neighborhoods; at the bottom of the screen was the word "neighborhoods." The fun thing about that is that each letter comes from a picture taken around the region. For example, the first thing I noticed was that the R was the Rainier R. If you touch the letter, the full picture pops up, so you can see the complete context of the one letter. When you close the picture, the letter's picture changes to a different one, so you have a new version of the letter! (On the way home, I was giggling to myself because I kept seeing the real-life version of many of the letters in the "neighborhoods" image.)

When you touch one of the actual neighborhoods on the map, an information box pops up, telling you about that particular neighborhood and any comments visitors have left about that area. That was cool, but then my mom pointed out that there was a game you could play! Ooh, more games! Okay, let's play. Similar to the Shaping Our City area, the screen asks you multiple-choice questions about your preferences. These questions were things like where you'd rather go if you only had an hour to spend (watching a band, walking along the waterfront, etc.), which mode of water transportation you prefer (yacht, sailboat, kayak, etc.), what type of restaurant you prefer (a cafe, take-out, etc.), what type of named neighborhood you'd rather live in (one named after a person, one named after geographical features, etc.), things like that. At the end, it generates a neighborhood that's perfect for you, and one that isn't. Mine actually came out pretty good. If you know the region well enough, you kind of get a feeling for what neighborhood(s) the game is thinking you might like, or which neighborhoods each option would lead to. At one point, I thought it was going to tell me I should live at Green Lake or downtown, which would be fun, too. But in the end, it gave me the U District. Perfect! Me, the UW, the artsiness and eclecticism of the Ave... yeah, the game got that one right.

Other exhibits in the museum are already rotating, which shouldn't have surprised me, since it's been open for over six months now. The third floor's exhibit room is now the museum's "Still Afloat" feature about houseboats of Seattle. Here were mini layouts of houseboat fronts (e.g. the front door and front lawn of the boats), a little diorama of waterfront (minus the actual water) and a houseboat (The diorama was even completed with trash under the water level, like bottles, cans, and a toilet, as well as seashells.), and big, bright magnets that kids (of all ages :D ) could use to create their own waterfront scene on a magnetic wall. Items on the ground floor had also changed (the UPS truck has been moved out and a logging truck has been moved in, but not in the same location), so I wonder if even those larger items, which seemed like they'd be permanent, will rotate. I guess I'll have to go back in a few months and check ;)

Museum of History and Industry - 3rd & 4th Floors

I'm back, and it's time to finish our little journey through the new Museum of History and Industry on Seattle's South Lake Union.

As I mentioned before, the third and fourth floors aren't full floors -- they're almost like exhibit boxes floating above the main floor. The third floor, the Linda and Ted Johnson Family Community Gallery, is another space for a temporary exhibit. Right now, the exhibit is "Punctum/Poetry," featuring work of high school students. There are poems written by Seattle high-schoolers, some based on pictures from MOHAI's photo collection; one wall also has three video screens showing videos of students interviewing each other with basic oral history interview questions -- "What do you want to be?" "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?", that sort of thing. Considering the Shaping Our City tower and the Personal Stories tower, MOHAI seems to be really in to gathering stories from people -- everyone, even commoners like us -- to keep for all time. That's pretty cool.

The fourth, and final, floor is the McCurdy Family Maritime Gallery. True to its name, this room is all about boats and boat life. There's a little display about Foss Maritime, and lots of pictures of boats and waterways in Seattle (to go along with the photos on the second floor, just after the Seattle's Great Fire exhibit). The two major items in the gallery are a Fresnel lens from the lighthouse on Smith Island, which guided sailors from 1885 to 1957, and a periscope. Not only is the city of Seattle, with all its lakes and maritime history, a great place to have a periscope, but MOHAI's new location -- right on a lake with lots of boats, near hills with big trees and fancy houses, a major freeway, and just blocks from the Space Needle and Seattle Center -- is a great place to have a periscope, so you can see the enchanting city outside, from inside. Even on that limited opening day, though, there was a line to play with the periscope, so if you go, be patient (especially when little kids don't realize there's a line of people waiting, and just run up to it and throw themselves at it).

One especially cool thing about MOHAI's new location is that it's on the water. Well, duh, I know, it's on a lake; but when a city's history is largely based on water travel and the many uses of major waterways, it hits home more when you can look right outside the window (which the building has plenty of) and actually see the water. From the windows on the second floor, you look out and you're looking almost directly into boats. From the windows in the Maritime Gallery, the entire view is water and boats (and the pretty city beyond the lake). It's all pretty well-placed, and MOHAI takes advantage of its location (Coincidence? Rule #39).

View from the second floor

Another upside to all of the windows in the armory is that MOHAI is able to create a couple of pretty cool "Now and Then"-type moments. There are two displays that show pictures of part of Seattle back in the 1900s (some are early 1900s, some are later 1900s), followed by text to the effect of "If you look up from where you are, out the window, there's that same site!" At the old location, you couldn't do that. Now, with all those windows, you can.

So, that wraps up our visit to the Museum of History and Industry. I'm really impressed with the new location, and what they've done with it. I don't think it's just the sparkle of something new; I think everything will last and hold up well. Plus, everything was planned well: there are lots of places to sit if you need a little break from all of the walking around, there are lots of touch screens and other interactive displays for both kids and adults to play with, and there's a cellphone audio tour for 13 items in the collection.

Even though we spent five hours at the museum, I KNOW we didn't see everything. The films that run on loops in various exhibits, every picture, every display in every nook and cranny, every word on every sign... I KNOW we didn't see everything. But I can't wait to see what they do when they rotate items in and out. So much to explore!

And one more news item:
Seattle Times photo gallery

Museum of History and Industry - 2nd Floor (part 2)

Ah, that was a nice rest, wasn't it? Let's continue on with the second floor now, focusing on the big display areas.

When you first go up the stairs from the main floor, if you take a hard left, rather than a slight left into the "True Northwest: The Seattle Journey" exhibit area, you end up in the Joshua Green Foundation Theater. I don't know if this is permanent, but inside was a pretty spiffy 8-minute film about Seattle, the history of the city and visions of the future. But it's not your normal "Indians lived here, white people came, built a city." It talks about history like the Native Americans who were here and Chief Sealth, but it also talks about the history of Seattle as a business city, with Starbucks, Microsoft, etc.; the history of the city on the world stage, especially as the site of the 1999 WTO; the history of Seattle as a music hub; the history of Seattle as a home to medical technology companies, and things like that. It was a nice little movie. Plus, it was shown over two side-by-side screens, so the screen on the left showed one thing, while the screen on the right showed another thing. The two were related, but it was cool the way it was like split-screen, especially because sometimes the two images juxtaposed each other (juxtaposed with each other? against each other?), or sometimes a quote would start on the left screen, and finish on the right screen. PLUS, the music. Oh, the music! Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Death Cab for Cutie... and not only was there good local music during the film, but also during the break between showings. Scott McCaughey (solo? Young Fresh Fellows? Minus Five? I'm not sure), Damien Jurado... Whoever put the film together and whoever chose the music both were the winners of the day, in my view. And, according to the MOHAI gentleman at the door of the theater when we went in, the seats came from the Cinerama.

Another big part of the second floor is the Walker Gallery, which houses temporary exhibits. The first temporary exhibit at the new MOHAI is "Celluloid Seattle," a history of Seattle on film and theaters in the city. It's a local pop culture geek's heaven. Various places of the gallery are set up like mini-theaters, where themed montages play, like "The Sleepless City," which shows clips from Say Anything..., Georgia, Sleepless in Seattle, The Ring, Singles, and 10 Things I Hate About You, among others. There's also a mock drive-in theater, with a car as the seats, where I heard a mother explain to her son what a drive-in theater was! The gallery also has the living room set from Frasier, and clips of Seattle on TV shows (Here Come the Brides and The Simpsons, for example). The museum also displays various items from Seattle theaters, like light fixtures, ticket takers' stands, and restroom signs.

Hello, Seattle. I'm listening.

But the COOLEST part of the second floor is the Seattle's Great Fire exhibit. In 1889, a massive fire broke out in Seattle, destroying most of the wood-based business district. In 1952-3, Ruddy Zallinger, a local artist, painted a mural of the fire for MOHAI. The mural was used as the backdrop to the Great Fire exhibit at the old museum. In the new museum, though... whoa. Okay, I've mentioned many times now that the new MOHAI has lots of interactive exhibits, but this one is REALLY an interactive exhibit. That is, it interacts with itself. The Great Fire exhibit is now off in a little theater-type room, with artifacts from the fire lining the walls of the area. There are plates, marbles, and coins that were fused together in the fire, a couple of dolls, fire helmets, a wheel from the fire wagon (I think that's what it's from), and ... the glue pot that started the fire (Dunh dunh dunhhhh). Now, in the middle of the mural, there's also a screen... that shows a film about the fire... told in song. And who sings the song about the fire? The artifacts in the exhibit. There's a typewriter; it sings. There's a newspaper; it sings. There's a money bag; it sings. The fused plates sing. The dolls sing. The glue pot sings (It sings, "Don't blame me!"). As each item sings, a spotlight shines on it. Oh my God, it was AWESOME. So much fun! The words to the song are displayed on the screen, along with pictures from the fire, and as each word is sung, a little icon bounces over them, like a sing-along, and the icon corresponds to the item singing. When the typewriter sings, an "A" key guides you. When the newspaper sings, a rolled up newspaper icon bounces along. The glue pot? Represented by a glue pot. Plus, the mural and the film interact with each other, with the screen showing most of the mural, but the edges shown on the wall, so that the fire hoses are held by firefighters on the wall, but are spraying the buildings on the screen. It was all pretty cool.

Seattle's Great Fire film and mural. You can also see the doll and glue pot.

Of note back among the smaller displays are an interactive activity about how far you'd be willing to go for social change (which, at the beginning of the game, plays "Takin' It to the Streets," so wink-wink and a nod for that); the first Ultrasound machine made by ATL, based on technology from the University of Washington; and the one thing many, many Seattleites are glad MOHAI owns: the 1979 NBA Championship trophy the Seattle Supersonics won. (Harumph)

I hate Clay Bennett

Toward the end of the second-floor excursion is the World City area, which is another pop culture lover's dream. This area focuses on sports and music. The first display case you come across when you enter has jerseys from Edgar Martinez and Freddy Montero, a Gary Payton lunchbox, penants from all the professional teams of the past few decades, and other little pieces of pro sports memorabilia. Next to the display is a television that plays highlights from major Seattle sports moments, like Rosalynn Sumners at the 1984 Olympics, Apolo Ohno at the 2002 Olympics, Edgar Martinez's "The Double," the Storm winning the WNBA championship, the UW Huskies in 1992, and the Seattle Seahawks going to the 2006 Super Bowl.

Going through a little doorway after the sports area puts you in the music section. Everyone who's paid attention to almost anything in the world in the past 20 years has a pretty good idea what's in this area. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, just like you'd expect. But there's also Screaming Trees, SubPop Records, "Louie Louie," Modest Mouse, Fleet Foxes, and Heart (What? No Posies?!? No Harvey Danger??). A lot of the Nirvana-, Pearl Jam-, and Screaming Trees-related stuff are actual items on display (just a few, though), and the rest are featured in a video playing on one wall.

Now we're nearly at the end of the second floor. The whole floor is wonderful, but those are my personal favorites.

Tomorrow, we'll finish our little tour of the very large museum.

One more article about the new MOHAI:
King5, 12/29/12

Museum of History and Industry - 2nd Floor (part 1)

It certainly seems like I could have spent an entire day on the first floor, but that would have mostly just been standing in the middle of the atrium, looking around at all the things you can see from the floor, the high ceilings, the well-designed exhibit fronts... The second floor, though, I think you could *actually* spend a day going through everything. That's where we spent most of our time, and where I realized we'd already been there for three hours!

So now, let's venture upstairs. You saw in yesterday's post the cool staircase that goes up to the second, third, and fourth floors. There's also a glass elevator that I have a feeling would be extremely cool. You could look at all the exhibits as you approach or depart from them. I, though, wouldn't have the guts to ride in that thing. It's one thing when the walls are glass and you can see through them. That's no problem. It's a completely different thing when you can see through the floor, too. Instead, I admired it from a sturdy floor... even though that made me a little disoriented, too. But I did watch the gears as the elevator made its rounds, which was cool.

Okay, so let's go up to the second floor. This is where the main historical exhibits are. From Native Americans to the Denny expedition to a growing city, railroads, gold rush... Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition to World War I to Depression... Prohibition, WPA, World War II... suburbia, civil unrest, technology industry, the world stage... this floor is where everything about "history" is.

There are some pretty cool things on the second floor, and lots more interactive fun. There's a display about the different languages of place names around western Washington (Native American, Spanish, Russian, "American"); a game where kids can watch a video and help "build" a railroad (which is a VERY LOUD game... I recommend either having earplugs, or going quickly through that area); and a "game" about the Red Scare, among other interactive activities.

Another thing MOHAI totally got right was the interactive moments that will remain after the visitors leave. Sure, it's fun to make signs light up or to build a railroad, but the Shaping Our City exhibit on the first floor actually leaves something with the museum; in this case, the statistics of people's answers to the questionnaires. On the second floor, in the Seattle By Design area, there's a little nook with a sign that says "How would you redesign the city?" and Post-It notes and pencils so people can leave their thoughts. Even by 1 o'clock-ish on opening day, there were lots of notes already. I don't know what the museum's going to do with all these, but I hope they're saving them. Maybe pull them out in 50 years and put on display of "Here's what people in 2012 wanted the city to look like. What ideas really happened? Which sound ridiculous now? Which ones would you still like to see happen?"

The towers on the second floor are The Microsoft Story, Seattle's World's Fairs, Boeing Takes Off, and Personal Stories. The Seattle's World's Fairs tower is pretty cool because it puts the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and the 1962 World's Fair back-to-back. The only bad thing is that it's in a tower, which is sort of like a walk-in closet, so there's not a lot of room for stuff or room to move around. But I do like the idea of them being together.

The Personal Stories tower is the one above the Shaping Our City tower and features oral histories from notable people, or from local people about notable events. Again, the exhibit is interactive. There are three listening/watching stations, and at each one, you touch the screen to select the era you want to explore, then select the photo of the person whose interview you want to listen to. I kind of loved this tower, given my recent foray into transcribing (and attempting to plan) oral histories. It made me feel warm and fuzzy about the work I've been doing, and also reaffirmed some questions I've been having (For example, different oral history style guides approach dialect and slang like "cuz"/"'cause"/"because" differently. The two MOHAI interviews I saw transcribed the shortened version of "because" as "'cause," so that contradicts one style guide I read, but confirms the way I've been doing them. That made me happy -- if it's good enough for MOHAI, it's good enough for me!).

Paul Allen interview in Personal Stories tower

Whew! I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired. I think we need to take a little break. Oh, look! There are lots of places to sit! There are couches in the Getting Started area, the Visions area, the World City area, and an interactive display where you can sit in the Changes area, not to mention a theater with seats and a couple of sit-and-watch exhibits in the Walker Gallery. Plus, another set of bathrooms. Let's say we sit for a little while, and we'll reconvene tomorrow to continue with the second floor.

Museum of History and Industry - 1st Floor

I'm back, with more in-depth descriptions of the Museum of History and Industry's Grand Opening. Since there was so much to see, I'm going to do one floor per post.

So, Thursday, December 27, 2012, was a grey day, with a few sunbreaks off in the distant clouds, but still threatening to rain all morning. Getting to the museum could have been a challenge: not only has MOHAI moved to a new location we'd need to find, but the main street (Mercer) to the area has been getting a facelift all year, changing the street from one-way that veers immediately after exiting the freeway to a two-way six-lane road. It was our first time in that part of Seattle since the street was redone, so it would be all new to us. Luckily, we didn't go the wrong way at any point :) Whew! Okay, now we could find a parking spot and go in.

MOHAI at Lake Union (picture from KIRO TV)

The building's exterior is absolutely stunning. It used to be a naval armory, and now the bright white paint and blue accents make it look sharp. From the south side, it looks impressive; from the west side (the main entrance), it looks breathtaking.

When you first walk into the museum and pass the information desk, you're amazed by how expansive it seems. The first floor atrium is wide open, and as I mentioned yesterday, the upper floors don't go all the way across the building: the second floor lines the wall, and the third and fourth floors are only on the north side of the building.

Main staircase leading up to floors 2-4. Notice the original Boeing B-1 airplane overhead.

To the right, there's a picture box-like display of models and artifacts: the Rainier R; a model of Mt. St. Helens (I think. I don't remember seeing it say "Mt. St. Helens," so maybe it's a generic mountain/volcano); a model of a Boeing airplane; a model of the Hat & Boots from the Georgetown gas station; a "Greetings from Seattle" postcard; a model of the Kalakala ferry; a model of the cougar Eddie Bauer shot on his property; a sign from the Dog House restaurant; Black Bart, who welcomed visitors to the 1962 World's Fair; a Rainier Beer bottle and bottle opener from the commercials; and one of Ivar's clams. What's more, this is the first interactive exhibit you run across: turning various hand cranks lights up the R, makes the volcano spew lava, lights up the box for Hat & Boots, changes the Seattle postcard to another scene, lights up the Kalakala, hides Eddie Bauer's cougar behind bushes, moves plates at the Dog House, makes Black Bart draw his gun, makes the bottle opener approach the Rainier bottle, and makes Ivar's clam dance, respectively.

Hanging from the ceiling to the left is the Slo-mo-shun IV hydroplane, and hanging almost directly above you is the original Boeing B-1 airplane.

A nifty thing they have going on in the museum are the towers, most of which are highly interactive. There are four towers--three on the east side of the building, one in the southwest corner--and each tower spans (can you span vertically?) the first two floors. Each tower has its own theme, and since they rise up two floors, that comes out to eight themes, total. The first-floor towers are Building a Game (how video games go from concept to production), Building a City (a little playroom for kids where they can play with blocks to make a neighborhood), Starting a Business, and Shaping Our City.

Participant = exhibit

Shaping Our City is a damn cool interactive exhibit, if I may use such a naughty word in describing a piece of Culture. This portion of the tower, smartly, is a great companion to the upper-floor theme, Personal Stories. The Shaping Our City tower allows visitors to answer a series of questions, like "How do you deal with the rain?", "Why did you come to the museum today?", "What brought you to the Seattle area?" and "How do you take your coffee?" The profiles then created are amazing for two reasons: One, they become part of the exhibit. On the outside of the tower are pictures of famous local people, the type of pictures you'd see at a historical museum. The tower's wall, though, also includes three frames, which display pictures people took of themselves while answering the questionnaire inside. I LOVED that part! *We* become part of history! Here's this wall of newsmakers' pictures, and here's a picture of a visitor, right in the display, like she's a noteworthy person, too. Not only that, but inside the tower, visitors can then read others' profile on the display screens. Select a profile to view, and the screen will show you that person's answers to two of the questions.

I'm famous! "How do you handle the rain?"

The second really cool thing about the Shaping Our City exhibit is that the information gathered from the questionnaires is then collected to learn statistics about the museum's visitors. For example, I think one stat I read said that 2% of the visitors that morning came from Peru!
 
I think by the time my mom and I got to this point in our exploration, we'd already been at the museum for an hour, and had lost my dad twice. But it was fun! And thanks Mom, for having the genius idea of taking a picture of my UW sweatshirt as my profile pic. She's so smart! I could be in the exhibit without actually having to have *my face* be a part of it :) The one sad thing about this exhibit is that the computer only holds 32 profiles, so once 32 people have come in after you, your profile goes *poof*. The answers, though, are still part of the museum's statistics. So even though no one after about 1 pm on Thursday saw my picture or could view my profile, I still count as part of the small percentage of people who answered that they don't drink coffee, or the percentage who said they came to the museum because they're interested in local history :)

After we finished playing with that, my mom and I went back outside the tower and stood there, waiting to see if my picture would pop up on the wall display. We waited a few minutes, but it never did (and I later went back and watched for a few more minutes a few hours later :D ), so we finally moved on to the second floor, which I'll describe in my next post. Stay tuned!

(Oh, I'll also mention that the first floor has two bathrooms, the original Lincoln Toe Truck, the Compass Cafe, and the temporary gift shop.)


Some other articles about the new MOHAI:
The Kitsap Sun, 12/28/12
Seattle Times, 12/7/12
KOMO, 12/29/12

MOHAI Grand Opening

Hey, folks. Just a quick post today -- it's a very Seattle-flavored two days for me, so I don't have much time. I'm off to see Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker (the *only* Nutcracker, in my opinion) in about an hour, so I'm just writing a quick note, in preparation for some much longer posts coming later.

Yesterday I treated my family to Museum of History and Industry's grand opening preview and we LOVED it. The new, 50000-square-foot museum opens to the public Saturday, December 29th, and I think I want to live there.

When you first walk into the building, a former armory, you're absolutely struck by how BIG and spacious it is. The hardwood floor is amazingly friendly (How can a floor be friendly? I don't know, but I swear it said to me, "Come in! Visit! Stay a while. Play!"), and the main floor is wide open. In all, there are four floors, but floors 2-4 line the walls, rather than being full floors stacked on top of the first floor (That might make more sense once there are pictures involved... Just wait a couple of days, I'll get them up.).

Since this is supposed to be a quick post, I'm just going to briefly mention the highlights of each floor, and I'll go more in-depth on subsequent posts.
First floor: The Rainier beer R and bottle with bottle opener; an Ivar's clam; the Shaping Our City tower
Second floor: Getting Started (an exhibit about Seattle as a growing city); Seattle's Great Fire; the Personal Stories tower (oral histories! Yay! Awesome); a film about Seattle's past and future in the Joshua Green Foundation Theater (I must remember to gush about the awesome music in that film and between showings). Also, the current special exhibit on the second floor is "Celluloid Seattle," an exhibit about movies and films based in Seattle, as well as theaters in Seattle
Third floor: the current special exhibit "Punctum/Poetry," with poems written by Seattle high school students, many inspired by photos from MOHAI's collection, and an oral histories wall, with videos of students interviewing each other
Fourth floor: Waterways to the World/the Maritime museum. Best part: the periscope.

I highly recommend that anyone who's interested in Seattle history (or the history of a growing city, or how a city grows from wilderness and Native Americans) go to the new MOHAI at some point. If you go, plan to spend the day. Seriously, the day. It took me nearly five hours to go through everything at a leisurely pace, watching all the films, playing with most of the interactive exhibits.

And as a bonus, as my family was wrapping up our visit for the day, a beautiful rainbow emerged, above the lake and boats, visible from the gift shop at the back of the museum. (You can see a great picture of it here.)

University of Washington WPA Murals tour

It was brought to my attention the other night that I never wrote about the Museum of History and Industry's walking tour of the WPA artwork and murals on the University of Washington campus.

I think I first visited the UW campus in fourth grade, during a field trip (But why we were there, I have no idea. I just remember walking on the tree-lined paths, thinking, "I want to go to school here some day..."), and later that year began a string of 13 recitals that were held at Meany Theatre. After that, I went to the campus many, many times, from recitals to excursions to the massive libraries to concerts to just hanging out. But in all that time, and all those trips, I never realized how much artwork was on campus and in the buildings. Even when I was a student there, I'd only sort of half-notice art in the hallways, blinded by tunnel vision as I was rushing from class to class, getting pushed around by the throngs of other students who were rushing from class to class. So the idea of an art tour of the UW campus was both intriguing and puzzling -- I was curious about the artwork I'd seen on campus, but honestly, I didn't think there was that much art on campus.  (But I was also intrigued by the MOHAI note that "many of the best pieces are off display and hard to see. ... [Y]ou'll see works of art few have ever seen..." Ooh! Exploring! Hidden things! Poking around the UW! Okay, I'm in!)

The tour began at one of the prettiest locations on campus, Drumheller Fountain/Frosh Pond (while not a WPA work, still a magnificent landmark to meet at). There, Roger van Oosten, our art historian/tour guide gave us a bit of background about the WPA, specifically the art-side of it. He described how artists would all work in the Alaska Building in Seattle, punching the time clock when they arrived and left for the day, and of course how working on a schedule seems so contrary to the artistic spirit. The other thing he told us that I found interesting was that many WPA-era artworks looked back to past glories and ahead to the bright future, avoiding the depression of their present time.

From there, we went into the adjacent Bagley Hall. Given that the building is the Chemistry building, the first two pieces of art we looked at were chemistry/science-related: hanging lamps shaped like glass globes in the main hallway, and a two-panel tile mural that looked back to early science in ancient Egypt and to discoveries in modern chemistry.

Modern Chemistry, R.B. Inverarity, tile, 1941.

In the Communications building, there was a four-panel mural, two panels in one classroom, another panel in a different classroom, and a fourth panel in a back hallway of one of the upper floors. I thought the two that were together were especially stunning -- oil on canvas, the browns and greens I tend to think of when I think of murals from the 1930s and 1940s, and, fittingly, relating to newspapers and journalism. The other thing I liked about this mural, especially the panel pictured below and the one that was in the hallway, is that you can see how the mural was taken apart for transport. If you look at the upper corners, you can see seams running diagonally from top to side. I always wondered how they move art that isn't displayed where it's created. Now I know. (van Oosten pointed out that the fourth panel also shows where some well-intentioned person or people tried to clean the mural at one time... Not so successful. Thankfully they stopped before it got too bad.)

Men Sitting at a Table, Eustace Ziegler, oil on canvas, ca. 1930

I think perhaps my favorite mural of the tour, though, was in Hutchinson Hall, part of the School of Drama. On the top floor, there's a rehearsal room that apparently is super-special, and you need top-level security clearance to get in, along with knowing the secret handshake, the password, being able to find and make your way through the secret tunnels and passageways, and you have to submit a blood sample to enter the room. Okay, maybe not, but it's apparently a super special room that not everyone is allowed in to. But! Because we were on the MOHAI tour where "doors would be unlocked," we got to go in (And let me also say that one of the official members of our tour was a UW security guard who had keys to all of the buildings and rooms. So yes, doors were indeed unlocked just for us.). In this fancy rehearsal room (Which--let me digress again--I could have lived in. Or, someone could be tortured in. It was on the top floor, and I think it might have been the only room on the floor, or at least the only room on the top floor of that wing. It had a high ceiling with ... wooden planks? ... lining it, church-looking huge arched windows, dark red drapes (maybe velvet), and a super-awesome chandelier that looks like once upon a time it held candles, instead of electric lights. Seriously, I could see this room being the place of doom in a castle, where the fair maiden is held captive by the villain... and yet, it was so cool. But I digress.) was a series of three panels: Theatre of the East, Theatre of the West, and Theatre at the Time of Shakespeare, all done in 1937 (and more of the theme of looking back to past greatness). The colors of the mural were vivid and popped from the canvas, and each panel had different figures representing the theme of the panel. Something about those colors just made me like it. Plus, it was in the super-top-secret room, so that made it even more special and significant, since so few people get to see that one.

Theatre of the East, oil on canvas, 1937.

In all, I think we saw 16 pieces, forming 8 murals, on our 1.5-hour-long tour. There was a variety of mediums--tile, oil, cast iron--and surfaces--canvas and directly onto walls. I honestly never realized the buildings on the UW campus had so much artwork--and those are just the WPA-era works! I think I'd like one day to go from building to building, looking in every hallway, office, and classroom for art hanging up. It would be like a scavenger hunt!

(And just like MOHAI promised, we got to go places that most people don't get to enter. Not only did we visit the rehearsal room in Hutchinson Hall, but we finished our tour in the Smith Room in Suzzallo Library, a place so special that you have to reserve it and pay to use it, and is where candidates for UW President are interviewed. Fancy. And really, the room is majestic. The windows are the same grand windows visible from Red Square, with all their stained glass, and the furniture is a beautifully-stained dark wood. It's lovely. I'd like to live there, too.)

Century 21, part two: The Seattle Center, circa 1990s

As I've pondered before, what's present to us will be history to someone in the future. Similarly, what we think of as ordinary, everyday, insignificant events or places might one day be of interest to someone else. Of course I thought about this more while on the Museum of History & Industry's walking tour of the Century 21 World's Fair grounds at Seattle Center in June -- I was one of only four people on the tour (and one was a baby, so she shouldn't count) not alive during the 1962 World's Fair and thus wouldn't have my own memories of the grounds. I realized, though, that probably not many of the people on the tour have been playing at the Seattle Center campus much in the past decade or so, so then I have memories of a time they wouldn't share. And then I realized ... Wait! I remember playing in the Flag Pavilion during Bumbershoot, in the rain. But the Flag Pavilion isn't even there now! So my memories are already history! (And then I grumbled about changes, and "updating," and feeling old...)

My main interaction with the Seattle Center campus has been during Bumbershoot, the annual summer arts festival at Seattle. I have such vivid memories of Seattle landmarks during Bumbershoot. Who hasn't run through the International Fountain on a warm summer day at the Center, or leaned up against the nozzles, or seen how long it would take to fill up a bottle from the fountain's spray? I've also spent a few twilit evenings during Bumbershoot dancing at the Fountain with a few hundred people, listening to drum bands.

1996

I think I absolutely fell in love with strawberry shortcake at Bumbershoot--now it's my favorite festival food, and I feel like I have to have it any time I go to any festival anywhere--much like some people first experienced and fell in love with Belgian waffles (with strawberries!) at the World's Fair!

Then there's the Flag Pavilion. Each pole had a state's flag on it, and at the World's Fair, on each state's ceremonial Day, their flag would be flown especially ceremoniously, and, well, ceremonies would take place there. In the late 1990s, the Flag Pavilion was still there, and I always thought of it as a maze. An open space, with a floor of rocks, and 50 flag poles to weave your way through. It was by no means a real maze, since it was so wide open, but I always envisioned it like a maze, dodging between poles. I don't remember the last time I saw it, but it's one of those things that one day you realize it's not there any more. I think I was at Bumbershoot in 2004 when I realized that it was gone. Now it's a grassy area, part of the Fisher Pavilion. And yes, the area is nice now, but it was the Flag Pavilion! I have pictures of being soaking wet in the rain there! You can't demolish places I have fond memories of!

The Space Needle,
seen through the Flag Pavilion, 2001.

The Flag Pavilion, 1996.
Now imagine 50 of those poles throughout the plaza --
what a beautiful maze.

Row after row of flags. 1996.

Where the Flag Pavilion used to be, 2012. Pretty, yes,
but not as cool as the geometry of all of those flagpoles.
Notice the lonely little pole in the center-back.

Also gone now is the Fun Forest, originally the World's Fair's Gayway. At one time, the Fun Forest was a hopping alley of games and rides, but over the years, it became less popular. Now it's gone, and at the south end is the new Chihuly museum. I have fond memories of spending a night playing Skee-Ball with a friend over and over and over, not realizing it was getting dark around us. We wanted those plush toys, darnit, and no one was going to stop us! I wonder how much money we spent just to get two $4 stuffed frogs :)

Skee-Ball! Lanes and lanes of Skee-Ball!
Fun Forest, 1996.

As I mentioned in my previous Century 21 post, the upper floor of the Center House never really had a definitive character in my mind. The one thing I really remember about it (other than going to Bumbershoot in high school and one of my friends tying another friend's shoes to a chair) was a couple of Christmases when there was a store space that was used for creating videos of sleigh rides. You'd get on a sleigh in front of a green screen, and then they'd record your "trip" across the world. That's it. And it being deserted. I always thought of it as sort of the cool, undiscovered hangout at the Center House. You could look over the balcony at all of the chaos going on on the main floor, but very few people were upstairs to bother or crowd you. It was a nice little getaway.

What I would think was possibly one of the biggest "Ooh, ahh"s of the new World's Fair grounds (along with the Space Needle) was the Monorail. I've always loved riding the Monorail, though over the past few years I've been a little more apprehensive about getting on it. Luckily I've never been on it when it stopped operating mid-run. Or crashed. Still, there's something very cool about zooming through the sky of Seattle, especially the portions of the trip when you're even with the upper floors of office buildings. And I love being underneath the Monorail tracks -- 50 years later, I think the underside still looks futuristic.

A few more (quick) memories of the Seattle Center campus:

• Memorial Stadium, and the big shows every year at Bumbershoot, including the first R.E.M. concert I went to.
• Watching the Black Eyed Peas concert at Memorial Stadium from the Observation Deck of the Space Needle. Did the designers of the World's Fair imagine that moment happening?
• Seeing Pacific Northwest Ballet at McCaw Hall (previously the Opera House, once part of the World's Fair).  (And oh, yeah, I saw R.E.M. there once, too.)
• One particular Bumbershoot evening, my Sophomore year in high school, being with a friend and he and I were both a little... umm... affected by the smell of a certain substance near us for a really long time. Sitting in the grass near the Mural Amphitheatre, which was (of course) designed for the World's Fair. Did the creators of the World's Fair imagine that moment, especially considering apparently everyone dressed up in their fine clothes to attend the Fair? I don't think marijuana was offered at the Food Circus.
• And speaking of the Mural Amphitheatre, that's where the traditional dance groups often perform during the Folklife Festival, held on Memorial Day Weekend. I remember seeing Los Bailadores del Sol there in 2001, and I felt like I had found my people. I sat, mesmerized, watching their bright costumes and the women's swoopy skirts, and thought, "These are my relatives. That could be me, if my family hadn't moved to the U.S. a generation ago. I wonder if they're from my family's village, or if I'm related to them. Wow, this music... it's in me. Maybe this is why I'm a dancer." The Mural Amphiteatre also hosts Movies at the Mural, an outdoor cinema during the summer.
• And speaking of the Amphiteatre some more, shout out to Chinook, whom my mom stalked there in her teen years.

Los Bailadores del Sol
Mural Amphiteatre, Folklife Festival, 2001.

Anyone out there with memories of the Seattle Center they'd like to share?

Restore the R

There are some things that are so iconic that even if you don't buy/use/whatever-appropriate-verb them, you still love them anyway. Rainier Beer is one of those things for me.  I've never been a drinker, and I was just a child at the height of its popularity, so I obviously wasn't using their product back then. Still, though, it's Seattle, and I always have and always will love Seattle. Rainier Beer commercials were on TV all the time, and as a youngster, didn't I just love to mimic the commercials and say,"Raaaaaaaiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiier Beeeeeeeeeer."

Along with the commercials, which were legendary, the Rainier "R" sign was iconic. The red neon sign was practically parked on the shoulder of southbound I-5 just past the downtown Seattle exits, marking the site of the Rainier brewery. Now it's a Tully's factory, along with other uses, and the company has a large green T marking the building (and I always wondered if that was a nod to the previous occupants). The Museum of History and Industry acquired the R sign and for a while it was the backdrop of the gift shop area, until MOHAI began its move to a new location this year.

So anyway, there's now a MOHAI/Rainier "Restore the R" campaign in preparation for MOHAI's reopening and the restoration of the iconic sign. The campaign's website features 258 challenges to do involving Rainier Beer or the R (find a cloud that looks like the R, take a bath in Rainier Beer, "Make a Mt. Rainier replica entirely of Rainier cans and/or bottles," etc.). As each challenge is completed and submitted to the website, a lightbulb on the virtual R will be lit up. It's a pretty cute little idea and looks like a lot of fun, especially if you have friends who like to do wacky things.

And now, in honor of the big, red R, some videos:

Frogs


Cycle

Raaaaaaaiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiier Beeeeeeeeeer

Home Fresh Home

These always creeped me out a little when I was young. Something about the legs coming out of those bottles.

Rainier Crossing



MOHAI Minute: Rainier R



King5 story: "Rainier Beer invites fans to restore iconic 'R'"

Restore the R

Century 21: The 1962 World's Fair

 1962: The world came to Seattle.

Being a "young'un," I obviously wasn't alive for the 1962 World's Fair, so the 50th anniversary celebration is a chance for me to find out more about my city and experience history, rather than relive memories, like a lot of people are doing this year. With that said, taking the Museum of History and Industry's walking tour of the fairgrounds was a chance for me to explore how these buildings and this "park" that I love came to be.

The tour lasted just under an-hour-and-a-half, and took us around the fairgrounds, beginning at the International Pavilion on the west side, south to the various theatres, the Fine Arts Pavilion (now Pacific Northwest Ballet), east to Memorial Stadium, then north to the Center House, the Space Needle, the Pacific Science Center, and the Flag Pavilion, among other stops.  Of course, the MOHAI tour complemented the different books and articles written about the fair that have been coming out lately, as well as the Next 50/Jack Straw audio tour (which my mom and I did that same day, after a hearty lunch at MOD Pizza at the Center House... No, The Armory).

Even though I've been reading books about the World's Fair, it was nice to be able to see the buildings that the books have referred to, and to be able to match up the "Then" pictures in the books or on the maps with the "Now" buildings that I've seen for years. For instance, it didn't click in my head that the Fine Arts Pavilion is the building where Pacific Northwest Ballet has its offices and studios now. So now when I pass by the building, drooling that there are ballerinas and costumes inside, I can also imagine what the interior and wonder must have been like in 1962, when this was the building where people experienced Art, some for the first time. Plus, the tour guide told us a bit about the architecture of the building, which I've always kind of liked, but of course I now can't remember what style it is. Still, I realized that I don't stop and admire the building's structure as much as I used to and should. I used to wonder about it -- I mean, look at that roofline! It's ... arch-like, but not really. And it repeats along all sides of the building -- but I think now I'm just too enchanted by that sign that hangs on it, and the upper-story windows you can try to peek in to. Taking the tour reminded me to appreciate the outside of the building just as much as I fancy what goes on inside. I can't imagine how the building must have seemed in 1962 -- so new, so big, so strange in our little backwoods (Okay, not backwoods. We weren't hicks like it sounds like the rest of the world thought, and still think. Still, though, Seattle wasn't exactly a large and mature city.).

If you know me, you know I got giddy on this part of the tour.

I also learned non-Fair-related facts about the Seattle Center House. For those who don't know, the Center House is basically the Food Court for the Seattle Center. It's across a little walkway from the Space Needle (and now the new Chihuly museum, too), and next to one end of the Monorail. It has three levels -- the bottom floor is a Children's Museum; the middle floor has the eateries and a performance space (yes, my many memories of performing there every other Christmas season); and the upper floor has had small shops and exhibit spaces, but it seems to me that that space has never really had a permanent character (or maybe I just don't visit it enough). The Center House was originally an armory, and was converted to the Food Circus for the World's Fair. What I didn't know was that the building was built in 1939 as a WPA project. And now it all makes sense -- I always wondered about those eagles outside the north entrance. They always seemed out of place, very Regal and Patriotic, and completely unusual for a building that housed Orange Julius and Pizza Haven.
















The tour guides, as well as the books, also pointed out the general architecture of the building, mainly its size and the windows (and the roofline, too, I can see now). Now I really see that this building has a much more impressive history than just pizza and sandwich shops.

The other thing I learned is that it's being rebranded as The Armory, rather than the Center House. There used to be a very large, bright, energetic, "This is a party place!"-type archway/entryway on the south side of the building (and one on the north side, too, with the eagles. If you look at the above left picture, you can still vaguely see where the sign was attached to the brickwork), but it's been taken down (which made me kind of sad -- I always liked that sign). I guess neon with a party font doesn't fit the image of an Armory. So the Center House is no longer a party place and is being reformed to sophistication and ... military? The playful entrance is gone (which, really, I don't mind. I mean, restoring old buildings to how they originally looked is a good thing), and I think I read months ago that the windows and skylights are being redone to let in more light while at the same time making the building look more like its original use. (Which, of course, I find odd, given that there's still a Starbucks sign outside, as well as MOD Pizza's sign now, with their outdoor seating. *shrug*)  (And this is history-related two ways: 1) it's a return to the historical building; 2) decades from now, the way the building looked in the 1990s will be considered old and historical! So this little digression is still history-related, and not just me rambling.) (And speaking of rambling, I think there might be a related post someday soon with my general memories about the Center.)

In review, this tour is worth taking if you're in the Seattle area and interested in the World's Fair, architecture, or the history of the buildings that now make up the Center grounds. It's an easy walk (the Center grounds have minor slopes, but nothing difficult, and you make a lot of stops along the way), and if you're lucky, you'll get tour guides who really know what they're talking about. You can also add to the day, like we did, by doing the audio tour and also visiting MOHAI's temporary location, at the International Fountain Pavilion, which is currently displaying -- what else? -- Century 21 artifacts (which had a lot of cool stuff. My favorites were the uniform a Bubbleator operator wore, Century 21-inspired fabrics, World's Fair posters, and songs about the Fair.). I give the day two thumbs up.

And of course it wasn't until I began writing this post that I realized that this tour probably has a pretty obvious split of how people experience it -- there are people like me, who didn't attend the fair but live in the area now, who didn't know that such-and-such building was originally built to be so-and-so exhibit at the World's Fair; then on the other side, you might have people who view these buildings today and think, "I remember when that was the so-and-so at the World's Fair." Everything's a matter of perspective.


The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World's Fair and Its Legacy 
Seattle's 1962 World's Fair (Images of America)
Jack Straw Productions celebrates the World's Fair
Next50
MOD Pizza

Edit: Puget Sound Business Journal/KOMO article (July 6) about the Armory reconfiguration