All posts in: Pike Place

08 Nov 2015

RIP Seattle’s Gum Wall

photo cred | Flickr

In the saddest piece of news that I’ve read all week, the Seattle gum wall in Post Alley next to Pike Place is coming down! First off, two decades worth of chewed up spit up gum is up on this wall and while some people find it to be completely disgusting, guess what – I don’t hate it. Not one bit. I still take every person that has ever visited me in Seattle to this place because I think it’s fantastic. Why the city would want to clean this thing up is beyond me. They should probably worry about the random poo poo on the streets instead of this.

The sticky spread currently spans 54 feet and climbs eight feet high up the alley wall—there’s an estimated 150 pieces of gum per brick, and over one million wads total. It’s a collection 20 years in the making, started by audience members waiting in line for improv shows at the Market Theater.

The cleaning will start sometime this week and is expected to last a couple of days. Yeah, there’s THAT much gum on it. I wonder if people will start throwing up their gum after the cleaning. It’s what I would do. This thing is an icon.

[Source]