Or - Not Quite A Night At the Museum . . .
P*A*Y*D*A*Y
Hahahaha, it is the day, as we use to say in the Marines/Army, when 'The Eagle S**Ts!!' And, by golly, I look forward to it as much as I did back then.
I can still remember payday in the Marines. We'd get dolled up in our dress uniforms, get in line and present ourselves to the pay officer, salute and then sign on the line. Right after we left his table, there was the Gunny collecting for the Old Soldier's Home and other charities.
Then it was time for Liberty!! Pow!! Back into another line for the much desired Liberty Card!!
Ahhhh, good times.
And so, on this especial day we were ready to head downtown and get into line . . . at the bank.
It was a blustery and overcast day. Rain was threatening on this typically gray and cool day.
Ahhhh, Seattle. You're so predictable.
I've been having a lot of fun working with the leaves this year. From stopping by Coulon to check on the progress of the colors to finding them on the ground it's been a lot of fun.
I'm sure, if I put myself into it I could find some good compositions thrown about the area. This was a quick stop 'n shoot. Remember, when it's gray and cloudy a simple rule to remember while shooting is to look down.
Hahahaha, I'm a wealth of knowledge.
Street Art!!
We were coming up to the corner of Othello and MLK and found this intriguing picture lying on the sidewalk.
I have no earthly idea what it is suppose to be saying or how it got where it was but it is interesting. Like with most modern art, it's not really a matter of what you've done but how well you're able to 'sell' what you've done.
This is better than some things I've see in several of the Art Gallerys Carol and I have visited.
Ah, here we are!! Othello Station for Our Link. It's been a big part of our enjoying Seattle, this Link. There we are, fourth stop from the bottom (South) of the line.
Getting our Tickets.
It's a $1.50 for a round-trip for the day. Hahaha, just about the right price for me. Punch the buttons, put the money in and we're off to the races.
And on board the Link we get to see advertisements for our stop. There are a Big Bunch of Ethnic Restaurants along this part of MLK.
In fact, there is a new Laotian-Thai Food Restaurant being finished just a bit down MLK. It is replacing the old Thai-Laotian Food Restaurant that couldn't make it at that location.
I wonder, sometimes, what the thinking process is when selecting locations. I guess it has a lot to do with what you can afford.
Woo, woo!!
It's become our monthly trip, riding the rail down to Westlake so we can go to our banks. In addition, we wanted to visit the Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum. We'd passed it by a couple of days ago and this gave us a good excuse to visit it since we were already downtown.
Out on the street, heading on over to 4th Avenue.
Because we both love to live on the wild side, hahahaha, I couldn't say that with a straight face, still, we decided to take a different exit from the Link and see where it came out.
It's just a little bit farther down from where we wanted to go and it gave us a new view of the City. I do like the window displays and especially those during the Christmas Season.
I like the play between the reflections and the actual display inside the window.
We had to go up Pine to get to where we wanted to be and passed by this Seattle Icon . . . The Monorail. It is so easy to get around this town. And, really, everything is pretty much packed into a small area.
We headed up behind the Starbucks and passed some of the small kiosks set out for the Season. See that one on the left? It's for UW!! Yeah, they've got a store downtown just for selling UW stuff and they even get enough trade to put up a small kiosk for selling Huskie gear.
Amazing!!
NMSU would have folded its doors long ago and a kiosk?
Fuhgetaboutit!!!
OK, the picture above was taken from the same place as this picture.
Love. The. Zoom!!
Hahahaha, a Seattle Christmas. Wet, gray and not too cold.
There she is showing off her Seahawks Umbrella.
And since we were there already we decided to go for another . . .
Christmas Ornament Reflected Selfie!!
Artsy-Fartsy Alert!!
Spur of the moment, a Happy Accident. On an impulse, I leaned over and held the camera out and towards the base of this tree decorated with Christmas Lights with the lens pointing skyward and shot. I couldn't see what I was getting right then (no, I didn't look at it although I could have) and was pleasantly surprised when I got home.
Hahahaha, sometimes you have to learn to wait for the good things.
And, here we were. Our Wells Fargo.
It's so cool, we found this Wells Fargo and then discovered the Chase Bank just down the block from it. Used to be we'd drive either to Columbia City or to the Wells Fargo over by Sam's in Renton for our banking and then we'd go back to the Chase by the Othello Link Station.
Now, at least once a month, we have a built-in excuse to head on down to The Emerald City for our banking. Once a month on payday, we get to head on downtown.
And we get to meet nice people. Here's Sequoia. She helped us during our visit. An engaging young lady, she's from the Tukwila area and, oddly enough, is taller than both her parents.
To be honest, she told us that tidbit but I think she misunderstood what we were asking her. Hahaha, that's happened a lot to me, giving an answer that nobody understands.
We had to double-back to the Wells Fargo because we forgot an umbrella, and when we were leaving, walking down 4th Avenue, we passed Sequoia coming back from her break and got a great big and cheery "Hello" from her.
That was pleasant.
The Star on Macy's.
I love that they've put this Star up. It's a stand-out at night and a constant reminder that this whole Season is about something bigger than just making sales.
Hahahaha, I admit it!! I'm having too much fun with window reflections.
Here's the Christmas Carousel reflected in a store window across the street.
Just a nice composition that emphasizes the lights in the trees against the clock. I do like the touches of the old-fashioned clock and street-lamps.
And, in a wink, we were at Chase.
I love that both banks are sooooo close to each other.
While Carol took care of her business, I grabbed some shots.
Like this corner shot at 4th and Pike. Sounds a bit naive, but I am taken with the foot traffic always out in Seattle. It's a Wednesday and lunchtime is coming up soon. Mostly, though, we were seeing shoppers.
And the Christmas Carousel was doing a good trade.
Here he goes again with his stupid leaves, Mildred!!
Hahaha, they are something else, aren't they. Autumn will be gone in a week and a half and shortly after all these will be memories so I'm gonna enjoy them.
Coke Truck!!
Hahahaha, ten points!!
(This is an off-shoot of the Punch-Buggy game.)
Don't leave me standing around with a camera in my hands and nothing else to do. Because it usually ends up like this.
Waiting for Carol, I glanced up to the transparent overhang that protects the pedestrians from rain. Mainly, right now, it was collecting leaves.
I deployed my screen so I could easily see what I was shooting without craning my neck upwards and composed this shot. Plus a lot more but I am only using this one . . . You're welcome.
The Macy's Star again. This time from a far different angle and a bit closer.
Yeah, this one appeals to me in several different ways. I like the lines and angles as well as the obvious beauty in the architecture of these older beauties. I'm a big fan of bricks. Wouldn't it be cool having an apartment up there?
And, down on the ground, I grabbed this shot down Pike towards the Public Market while waiting for the light to change.
A lot of color in this picture. Always the omnipresent bus. I hadn't realized how many busses were running all the time until I began taking pictures of the street scenes.
We had finished our bank business and were heading, at a leisurely pace, south on 4th Avenue towards the Police Museum on 3rd Avenue. We're approaching Union now and I got this street scene. I'm working on taking candids along the streets. I have a ways to go, I know.
And we both were on the look-out for Christmas Trees. It's a simple thing but it is fun to look around for these trees and call out when we see one. And they are a pleasure to see.
Look at the detail in the frieze of this building. I'm sure it was a bank at one time. You can sorta see it in the high ground-floor windows and the second floor. What a great building.
And now . . . and now it's a Starbucks.
But cheer up!! Here's another Christmas Tree!!
I'm not sure but it appears to have been constructed of lamps, like strobe lights. Like the use of the lines and shadows in the background.
Whup!! Here's our City Library. It's one butt-ugly building but one great library. Seriously, when you visit you've got to schedule some time to come gaze at this embarrassment and then go inside and take the walking tour.
(Yes, Virginia, they do have a walking tour through the library.)
And right across the street, in front of the SafeCo Plaza, is this Christmas Reindeer.
We were underneath the library here. You can see a bit of the overhang in the upper left corner. Looking across at SafeCo and the surrounding buildings. I'm a-liking the reflections.
We went down a couple more blocks and came upon The Rainier Club.
Woo, woo!!
The Rainier Clubs is a, hahaha, private club. It's been referred to as Seattle's preeminent private club. The clubhouse building, completed in 1904, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Club itself was founded in 1888 in what was then the Washington Territory (statehood came in 1889). As of 2008, the posh club had 1,300 members.
The club is named after British Admiral Peter Rainier. The name may have been chosen because of Seattle's rivalry with nearby Tacoma. Tacomans at the time were a bit strident in their support for the native name 'Mount Tacoma' for the mountain now known as Mount Rainier. In 1892, the club actually sent a delegation to Washington, D.C. to argue the 'Rainier' side of the case.
Since territorial law in 1888 didn't recognize private clubs, the Rainier Club was initially officially incorporated as a men's boarding house and restaurant. It reincorporated in January 18, 1899 as a private club under a revised 1895 state law.
Hahaha, kinda takes a bit of the wind out of their sails having started as a boarding house.
Originally all-white and all-male, the Rainier Club admitted its first Japanese-American member, in 1966; its first African-American member and its first woman member in 1978
I couldn't find out too much about what the clubs does. Nothing like the Elks or Kiwanis.
Here, I'll let you read what they say about themselves from their own webpage:
The Rainier Club is one of the most distinguished private city clubs in the Pacific Northwest. Centered in the heart of downtown Seattle Washington, The Club caters to its membership's business and social needs and provides the community a sanctuary from the fast-paced urban life (WTH!?!?! Seriously!?!?!) by offering a vibrant sense of camaraderie in an elegant, yet comfortable, atmosphere inside our mansion walls.
Jeez!!
Still, it's a good looking building.
The Columbia Tower.
Yikes!!
Street scenes. A decorated fence around a construction site. The city is aware of empty spaces.
Seattle does like its color.
You constantly are treated to sights like this. Look at these buildings along Marion!! What a cool apartment house. Also, you get an idea of how steep the inclines can be on some of the hills in Seattle.
So we rounded the corner and came to City Hall Park . . . directly in front of the City Hall.
I don't understand it. They even let the Valued Homeless pitch their tents directly in front of the City Hall. I don't understand it. I guess they can't pitch their tents in the City Hall Park but along the sidewalk is perfectly alright.
It was drizzling pretty good by now and so we headed as quickly as we could over to the Police Museum.
And we couldn't resist another classic . . .
Museum Reflected Window Selfie!!
So we made it. The Police Museum was formed in 1997 by Seattle Police Officer Jim Ritter and other officers who transformed an abandoned building into the largest privately operated police museum in the U.S. representing a major U.S. city and county.
Although it is a small museum, there is plenty to see in it. Honest, I went through and really tried to cull out the photos and get the ones that best represented our experience.
I'll interject when I have something to say but you'll be able to scroll through and get a good feel for the History of Seattle's Finest.
The Little Ol' Lady who was running the place was quite proud of this photograph. Seems it is the earliest known picture of the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and it was recently discovered and donated to the Museum.
She walked us through the first part of the Museum and, for a while, I thought we were going to get a personal tour of the whole Museum. She just got us to this prize and then left us to our own devices.
Seems they couldn't make up their mind which style to use.
Yeah, they did a couple public hangings here. I guess it hasn't always been the Liberal Loony Bin it is now.
Uh, ouch?
Evidently, having a mustache was a required part of the uniform.
The Flatiron Building built for the use as Police Headquarters. Pretty nice, eh?
It's still standing at the corner of Yesler Way and Terrace Street. If what they say in the blurb is still true, it is still being used by King County.
The keys to unlock the Police Boxes and a whistle that patrolmen would carry with them while on patrol.
Don't laugh!! Remember, this call box was once High Tech!!
One-Adam Twelve, see the man . . .
Hahahaha, I've seen that radio on TV and in the movies.
A bunch of old-fashioned Tasers!!
Ahoy, Matey!!
I can't imagine having to much confidence in this Diving Mask.
You won't see any revolvers being carried by today's cops.
Woo, woo!! Prices are down 25%!! Now only $365!!
I'll take two, please.
Ummm, yeah, it has. Why?
Uh, ouch?
Hahahaha, I want one of them red pushie phones, please!!
Not so much, anymore.
The Tommy Gun and stills. Love that Prohibition Era!!
This would be a scary little sucker in a close-quarters gun fight.
And it was all done by hand. From gluing the pictures on to typing in the description.
Whew!!
The Grand Ball
c. 1913
Bertillon? Wha . . . ???
The techniques of IDing criminals that are used today are rooted in the science of anthropometry, which focused on the meticulous measurement and recording of different parts and components of the human body. Generally, law enforcement of the late 19th and very early 20th centuries believed that each individual had a unique combination of measurements of different body parts, and comparing these measurements could be used to distinguish between individuals.
Alphonse Bertillon was a French criminologist who first developed this anthropometric system of physical measurements of body parts, especially components of the head and face, to produce a detailed description of an individual. This system, invented in 1879, became known as the Bertillon system and quickly gained wide acceptance as a reliable, scientific method of criminal investigation. In 1884 alone, French police used Bertillon's system to help capture 241 repeat offenders, which helped establish the system's effectiveness. Primarily, investigators used the Bertillon system to determine if a suspect in custody had been involved in previous crimes. Law enforcement agencies began to create archives of records of known criminal, which contained his or her anthropometric measurements, as well as full-face and profile photographs of the perpetrator.
The Bertillon System was introduced in the U.S. in 1887, by the Warden of the Illinois State Pen at Joliet. The System continued as the dominant criminal id method both in the U.S. and Europe for almost three decades. In 1903, the case of the West Brothers demonstrated the fallibility of the Bertillon System.
In 1903, a man named Will West was committed to the pen at Leavenworth, KS, where he was photographed and measured using the Bertillon system. Will West's measurements were found to be almost identical to another con at the same penitentiary named William West, who was doing time for murder in 1901 and was serving a life sentence. Oddly, the photographs of the two men showed they bore a close physical resemblance to one another, although it was not clear that they were even related.
In the confusion surrounding the true identities of the two men, their fingerprints conclusively identified them and demonstrated clearly that the adoption of a fingerprint id system was more reliable than the older Bertillon System.
Science Marches On!!
Let's take some fingerprints, 'Kay!?!
Here are some of the accoutrements carried by Seattle Cops.
They gave a pretty big space to the biggest case thereabouts . . .
The Green River Killer
Gary Leon Ridgway is the Green River Killer. He was initially convicted of 48 separate murders and later confessed to nearly twice that number. As part of his plea bargain, an additional convection was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49.
He murdered numbers of women and girls in Washington and California during the 80s and the 90s. Most of his victims were alleged to be prostitutes. The press were the ones to give him his nickname after the first five victims were found in the Green River. He strangled the women, usually by hand but sometimes using ligatures. After strangling them, he would dump their bodies throughout forested and overgrown areas in King County.
On November 30, 2001, as he was leaving the Kenworth truck factory where he worked in Renton, Washington, he was arrested for the murders of four women whose cases were linked to him through DNA evidence. As part of a plea bargain wherein he agreed to disclose the whereabouts of still-missing women, he was spared the death penalty and received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
He is currently in the Federal Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington, where I hope each and every day of his wretched, ugly and miserable life is filled with misery, pain and hopelessness.
Ah, back to some more history.
The pump-action shotgun. Now that sound will definitely get your attention!!
Hahaha, I remember that symbol from when we would practice our A-Bomb drills.
Even Lovely Rita, Meter Maid, got a display.
Now this was some great police work. The WTO riots. Actually, the cop in the street did his job but the leadership he had was sorely lacking.
And they had a gift shop!! T-Shirts, lapel pins and more.
Like I said, it isn't large . . .
. . . but it is filled up with some good stuff.
I shot this window the other day and cropped it to just one pane. I tried it again and decided to keep both panes. I don't know. It has potential, this shooting scenes reflected from windows.
We didn't have far to walk. We'd gotten off at the Westlake Station and walked the mile or so to the Museum. But to get back, we just had to go a couple blocks north to the Pioneer Square Station.
But it was getting late in the afternoon and we were both hungry and so we decided to try a little restaurant we've passed several times in the past few months.
Main St. Gyros
It, like the Museum, wasn't a big place.
But it was warm, dry and smelled very, very good.
We decided to split a Lamb & Beef Gyros.
It was pretty plain and straightforward on the inside.
And quick. We had our plate in no time at all.
Not bad. I did sorta miss the goat meat but, hey, you deal, right?
While we were eating, we had a ringside seat to the goings on in the street right outside our window.
For a dull day, it was full of bright bits of color!!
There was an Art Gallery right across from us, The White Gallery. This version of a Red Bull was on display.
Hahahaha, get it? Red Bull? The other version is the drink.
Jeez, it's not funny if you have to explain!!
Ah, the Holier-Than-Thou Seattle Biker.
Haha, I rule and you drool, now get out of my way EVERYBODY!
It'd been raining pretty steadily for most of the morning.
Standing on the corner, watching all the world go by . . .
Ho, ho, ho!! Tis the Season to be jolly.
A pensive Carol waits patiently for me to 1) Refill my soda, and 2) Take all the pictures I'm going to take.
Now this serious set of wall art was right across the street from the restaurant. I don't know why, but it is dedicated to the Good People of Seattle - 2012.
Not bad.
Heading out to catch the Link. Interesting the way the buildings come together.
The rain was coming down pretty steady and, by this time, we were both feeling a bit tuckered out. So I got one last picture, hahaha, hitting my old favorites, brick walls, windows and painted building advertisements.
Hahaha, tough toenails, I like'em.
What a day. We had a good time, as we always do.
Got to see some new things and learned a bit about the history of our beautiful city. Got to eat someplace new . . . and tasty.
And it rained for most of the time. We were laughing about it . . . hahaha, we're real Seattlites now.
Bottomline is, life is good.
Hooah!!
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