A few work lights in cages hung at random intervals to cast deep shadows into the mist-heavy corners. Once again the throngs of ghosts were thick—even thicker down in the underground than they’d been on the surface.
“Now we’re under Occidental Avenue, but when this was originally built, it was called Second—notice the sign up there. Once the sidewalks were completed, people still used the underground sidewalks as a sort of covered mall to avoid the rain, and the doors on the old street level remained open until the underground was officially closed in 1910 due to a second outbreak of plague.
But despite that, much of the underground never really closed at all; it just became the underworld. This stretch of Second, from where we are now to about where Qwest Field stands today, was the most crime-ridden, vice-filled, and profitable part of the whole city.
“Along this stretch there were several hundred women who listed their occupation as ‘seamstress’ and yet not a single one of them owned a sewing machine. For many years, Seattle’s Seamstress’ tax paid for the fire brigades, police, streets, and schools the more upright members of society demanded without ever having to legalize Seattle’s most lucrative trade—prostitution.”
I suppose I should have been appalled, but after having seen their ghosts—both the adult women on the street and the sad girls in the alley cribs—I wasn’t so much outraged as sad to hear my worst imaginings confirmed.
I missed something of the tour patter while I thought of those ghosts and only heard the guide say, “Once the sidewalks were installed, most of Seattle’s vice, drugs, and gambling sank to the underground levels in spite of the official closure of the underground and was still in full swing when Prohibition hit and gave the old place an infusion of new blood—highly alcoholic blood—and crime. Prostitution ceased to be our most profitable underground business in favor of bootlegging.
“Now, let’s move a little farther along here…”
As we walked down the vaulted corridor, the space was raucous to my ears—filled as it was layers of time and packs of ghosts. We paused in front of a building labeled “107 Saloon” as the guide described later efforts to preserve the underground with earthquake-proof structures and shoring up the walls that were already up to six feet thick in some places. I thought any monster that could go make a hole in the four-foot-thick walls of the Great Northern Tunnel wasn’t going to be much deterred by the stone and brick of the underground’s street buttresses, no matter how thick. I listened with only half an ear to the tales of the city’s halfhearted efforts to clean up the vice and crime in the underground—somewhat hampered by the involvement of police and politicians in the money-making end of the enterprises—while I looked around the section of sidewalk for possible phantom informants. The darkness inside the shell of the 107 Saloon wasn’t dark to me—the space was thronged with a party crowd of speakeasy patrons whooping it up among the thinner ghosts of the Klondike’s miners and lumberjacks. I glanced in at them and was struck by the sight of a familiar face.
Among the crowd of illegal drinkers, I spotted Albert—the ghost who inhabited the home of my friends Ben and Mara Danziger. For a moment, I tried to catch his attention, but I soon realized I was seeing a mere loop of history—a bit of the old buildings memory of its past. I watched Albert with narrowed eyes and recognized the quick twist of his head and the gleam on his spectacles from a far more recent encounter. I ground the feeling of unpleasant familiarity through my mind until the image and idea clicked together. He was the second spirit that had been riding the zombie I’d released under the viaduct. Damn Albert! What was the bastard up to? I’d have to find out. I didn’t like the idea that the unpredictable specter might be involved in the deaths of undergrounders. It might not be true, but I still needed to know.
I barely managed not to fall on the uneven slope of the floor as the guide led us out and up to the alley behind the Merchants Café. My knee made a popping sound as I stumbled to keep my footing. I’d need to ice it and do an extra set of stretches to keep it supple after this.
From the alley we could see down to Occidental Park—right to the lot where the Kline and Rosenberg building must have fallen.
Our guide continued his speech. “During World War Two, the military used the underground, but once the war was over, it was abandoned once again. From 1946 to 1952, the underground became a dumping ground for trash and broken furniture as well as a scavengers delight for antique collectors who stole most of the period bits and pieces including the doors right off the buildings. Without the doors, the underground became a highway for burglars, and most of the businesses in Pioneer Square were hit at one time or another by enterprising thieves who came up from the unprotected basements. It also became a haven for the homeless and several fires were started by transients trying to stay warm. In 1952, the underground was officially condemned and closed—supposedly for good,” he said.
He pointed down the alley to the park. “Normally, I’d take you down to the park for a look at the totem statues of sun and raven, the bear, orca, and Tsonoqua—the ogress called ‘nightmare bringer’—but it’s pretty cold and dark today.
They are very interesting sculptures, however, and I urge you to come back when the light and weather are better. Now, follow me across the street and we’ll wrap this up under the Pioneer Building.” As we crossed the street he told us we’d be going down one of the few original staircases still intact. “Most of these were removed in 1952 when the underground was sealed, but this one was preserved under its cover. When the lower levels of this building were reopened for business, the staircase was restored for our use. The original staircases had no rails, so try to imagine, as you descend, what it was like to use these steep, open stairs every day.” We followed him down the stair and I shivered at the thought of taking those slippery steps without a handrail. Especially if I’d been drinking like a miner or a lumberjack. No wonder people missed them and became “inadvertent suicides.”
We entered the final room of the tour, filled with strange objects that had been found in the underground. The guide pointed out a tin bathtub that had been found inside one of the walls—suspected of being used to brew up literal bathtub gin—and a bored out cedar log from the water system. There was also an early glass plate photo of a Madam Lou Graham and her “sewing circle” with a note attached that said Madam Lou’s brothel—where the photo was taken—had been housed at First and Main, probably in the building that was currently the Bread of Life Mission. Quinton and I both smothered chuckles over it. Finally, the group moved on and followed our guide into the gift shop, where Quinton and I cornered him at the cash counter.
His name was Rick and he was the tour’s historian. I introduced myself and said that we were doing some research into myths and legends of the underground.
“Well, I covered a lot of the more interesting ones on the tour,” Rick said, “but, of course, there’s more than a ninety-minute tour has time for. Some things don’t play too well, so we don’t use them on the tour, and others aren’t exactly family fare. We make light of the vice and crime, but it was pretty rank. For instance, the age of consent was ten and not a few Klondikers disappeared and never showed up again. It’s really safer to talk about toilets, rats, and political corruption in pursuit of the almighty dollar.”
No doubt, but sewage wasn’t my topic of interest. “We’re specifically looking for anything about Indian activity in the underground, any legends about monsters or ghosts that were banished from the area and when those might have occurred.”
Rick shook his head. “Aside from the story I told you about the shaman, I don’t know much about that. The local Indians haven’t had much pull with the city historically, so if they wanted to do anything or thought there was something going on, they were pretty much ignored until the eighties or later. Even the totems in Occidental Park were a pretty late sop to the native population.”