ABSTRACT
In the early 1990s, a number of influential people began pushing a proposal for The Commons, a grand new park at the north end of downtown. Seattle is a great city precisely because it is a rich melange of distinct, different and sometimes disparate pieces. It is a lovingly crafted quilt—odd bits of fabric sewn together over years of time into an exquisitely eccentric, bumpy blanket. Although the schooner Wawona is moored there already and the Center for Wooden Boats is certainly fine, Seattle deserves to have a first class museum of maritime history. Many of the businesses now found in the area could well remain as tenants in new buildings, though perhaps with a different form of operation. Van Ness Avenue in the heart of San Francisco is surrounded by housing but is still lined with car dealerships, although they are located inside multi-story structures.
