The night of Nov. 11, 1957, the largest and most expensive sewer collapse in the U.S. to that date occurred at Ravenna Boulevard between 16th and 17th Avenues NE. The hole was 60 feet deep but the sewer trunk in question is 145 feet below the street. Repairs took two years to complete, including first a sewer bypass through Ravenna Park, then stabilizing the broken trunk with a newly devised grout material and re-boring the tunnel.

These photos are from the Seattle Municipal Archives website. They have been downsized and contrast adjusted for detail and impact.

Historical accounts:

www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPag e=output.cfm&…

www.sewerhistory.org/grfx/misc/disaster. htm

Original web photos (search “ravenna sewer):

clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~public/phot1.htm

It amazes me that there’s this big tunnel down there that almost no one knows about.

I recently learned that in 1976, another house in the same area experienced a sudden 5-foot slump in the basement floor.

Steve Forbes
Via E-Mail
8/7/2009

All that remained was concrete. Concrete and some old worn pilings seen only during the lowest of tides. Forlorn, it was. Nearly forgotten, Luna Park. But it wasn’t always that way. No, during the heyday of Luna Park lights glowed, children laughed at clowns, adults squealed aboard the Great Figure Eight Roller Coaster. Families packed the boardwalk entranced by Don Carlo’s Trained Monkey and Dog Circus, marveled at the Original Human Ostrich, became stunned as they stared into a live bear pit. While their children rode the Zeum Carousel fathers imbibed in a beer or a stiff drink at “the longest and best-stacked bar on Elliott Bay.” The ladies, parasols in hand, promenaded to the Natatorium, home to heated saltwater and freshwater swimming pools – crystal clear. Under the muck of scandal, however, West Seattle’s twinkling jewel of a park faded, closing six years after it opened. The Natatorium remained until 1931 when an arsonist set it, and the remains of Luna Park, ablaze.

“The Greatest Amusement Park on the West Coast” is how it was heralded. Designed by Charles Looff, who carved and installed Coney Island’s first carousel, it grew in 1907 on acreage near the Duwamish Head in West Seattle. Hailed it was, what with its Trocadero Theater, its Cave of Mystery, the Joy Wheel, the Dance Palace, the Summer Garden Restaurants serving up roast beef sandwiches to hungry park-goers, the Great Whirl, the Infant Electrobator, the Shoot-the-Chutes, the various games of chance, the cool drinks on hot days.

Those peering over Elliott Bay from downtown Seattle at night would see the glittering lights, the oasis of fun for both young and old. But was it really family friendly? There were those who thought not. “The Forces of Decency” saw the park, particularly its nighttime festivities of boozing and dance hall girls, as a thre at to the moral fiber of the community at large. Prohibitionists, progressives, and women who now had the right to vote, rose up crusading against the park.

A scandal at the mayor’s office didn’t help Luna Park’s backers. W.W. Powers, manager of Luna Park and a supported of Seattle’s mayor Hi Gill, got wrapped up in a scandal involving Seattle’s chief of police, finances changing hands, and a 500-room brothel in Beacon Hill.

In 1913 Luna Park closed. The rides were disassembled or sold away. The music halls were shuttered. The restaurant kitchens grew cold. The theatrical acts pulled stakes, moved on. The Natatorium remained until an arsonist lit a match on April 14, 1931.

Pilings remain. That’s about all. Travel to Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco if you want to see vestiges of Seattle’s fabled Luna Park. It is there that calliope music still plays. Luna Park’s carousel, Looff’s four row carousel he carved himself still revolves. The laughter of children still resides there, filtering back, it does, into the mists of time, mingling with the joyous shouts of Seattle’s children one hundred years ago.

Jonathan Shipley
8/20/2009

Enjoy your photos.

My grandfather (left) owned and operated “Cliff Tooley’s City Hall Meat Market” for 50 years. It was located where the SeaFirst building now stands. Here is a photo from the 1947 reopening celebration. My dad is behind the counter.

The picture of the sword was published in the Seattle Times. The article Featured my dad returning to work after WW2. The Japanese sword was sort of a gag that the photographer didn’t know about.

Tom Howell
Via E-Mail
8/8/2009