Chop Suey, Chow Mein, Dancing
I’ve stood on this corner before. Many times. There is nothing inherently remarkable about the intersection at Jackson Street and 7th Avenue in Seattle – lying in the shadow of I-5, an optometrist on one corner, the Chinatown Market on another - and yet I’ve made it a point to pass by nearly every time I am in the neighborhood. It is the view from the corner that calls to me. Across Jackson and a few lots down 7th is one of my favorite ghost signs – faded advertisements painted directly on the brick, reminders of a bygone era. I’ve seen these signs across many of my journeys – Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boulder, Denver, Pueblo, London, Dublin, Kilkenny. From major cities to forgotten burghs in the middle of nowhere (anyone heard of Anaconda, Montana?), but Seattle is where I fell in love with them and that is where I find myself once again face to face with the old favorites. I’ve told myself that I am here to try out a new GPS tracking application for my phone, to give it a field test in a known environment before relying on it to map a new adventure. And that is partially true. But it is also a trip down memory lane. Not only my memories, but those of a city. It is an opportunity to catch the smallest glimpse of the city that was amidst the city that is, to see a ghost town contained by…consumed by the living city.
Chop Suey, Chow Mein, Dancing…
This intersection is a perfect example. While the sign, which reads Chop Suey, Chow Mein, Dancing (the makings of a fine evening out on the town), appears to be in fairly good condition the wall it is on shows signs of age as the top has begun to crumble. Another sign lies immediately beneath the Chop Suey sign, painted over to hide the advertisement, the business long gone. Golden West Hotel. Steam Heated. Hot and Cold Water. The wall looks down on an old gas station that now houses a mechanics shop, which looks itself as if time has passed it by. The garage has been for sale as long as I can remember and one wonders what may happen to these signs if a developer were to buy the place. The least objectionable scenario has played out just down the street where the more recent roof of the China Gate restaurant obscures a large part of the old Shanghai Hotel sign. However, a newly opened Cajun seafood restaurant elsewhere in Chinatown and signs advertising modern lofts for sale just down the street leads one to believe that more aggressive development of the area may not be far behind and that may not bode well for the signs.
I begin to meander through the streets of Chinatown and before long I am lost in the journey, walking through the streets, heading down unfamiliar alleys, backtracking and chasing circles around glimpses of different signs, trying to find a vantage point that more fully reveals the hidden treasures. The Jackson Heat Co., the Milwaukee Café, the Washington Shoe Mfg. Co., Chase & Sandborns, Burnside, Gim Ling Restaurant, the Michigan Hotel, Hotel Alpo, Hotel U.S. (where rooms are fifty cents). While stopped to take some shots of another well preserved sign, this one advertising Optimus Soda Fountains, I am approached by a man, clearly in search of some spare change, who tells me he can turn my name into a poem in 45 seconds. I give him my name and in return get:
Pouring rain of faith onto
A sheet of dreams and
Under the
Light of a divine and cosmic truth
I give him a dollar and continue on, more backtracking and journeys down new streets. The Frye Hotel Garage, Washington State Ferries (this one has been painted over another ad for Sperry’s), Rainier Beer. Every street I pass reveals potential for more signs. Every alley I pass earns a backwards glance to see if I’ve missed a sign on the opposite side. I try to imagine every sign in all it’s freshly painted glory, I try to picture the city as it was. Approaching from a different direction, I realize that the Optimus sign was one I had taken a shot of down an alley back in 2004. I had seen it from different sides several times and somehow managed to focus on different parts each time, never actually putting the two together. Looking down the same alley now I realize that there is another sign, much more faint and easily missed on an adjacent wall, a wall I had walked by several times. I had just never looked hard enough. Entering the alley I find two more signs, two signs I had never seen, two signs hidden back in the alley, hidden from the eyes of the average tourist. I wonder how many people have found themselves in this alley, how many locals know about these signs.
Optimus Soda Fountains…
As I continue to walk I become increasingly aware of how often we pass through life looking down, averting our gaze, eyes on our feet. I think back to the man who wrote my poem, the man who is himself like the signs – there, but forgotten, covered up by the new city. Being the season I think of the words of Scrooge’s nephew who regards Christmas as “the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” Intending nothing more than a leisurely stroll I had had my own Christmas Carol moment. I had set out to see the hidden city and found the forgotten people. I returned to Chinatown a few days later hoping to find the same man, wanting poems for friends and family, but never saw him again. Like the signs, he had blended back into the landscape of the city. But the lesson had not been lost with him. Like the ghost signs, these people are there if we take the time to look around, and like the signs they should be remembered.
Click on photos for larger views.
For more photos from my holiday travels, visit my flickr page…
For other shots of Ghost Signs I’ve seen please follow the link…
