Seattle Landmark Pergola Restored

by Steven Michael Vroom


On January 15, 2001, the historic iron and glass Beaux Arts pergola at Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle collapsed when it was struck by a truck around 5:45 a.m. The pergola and the nearby Tlingit totem pole (which is not damaged) are national historic landmarks. The pergola, designed by Seattle architect Julian Everett, was built in 1909 as a stop for the Yesler and James Street Cable Car Company

The Victorian-style, iron-and-glass structure, about 60 feet long and 16 feet high, was built in 1909 as a cable car stop and a grand entrance to a lavish underground restroom. It was not built on the Alaskan Yukon Pacific Exposition grounds located on what is now the University of Washington campus. The pergola stood above a historic "comfort station" (now sealed over), known by some as the "Queen Mary of the Johns," also built in 1909. This was indisputably the nation's most elaborately appointed underground rest room, with white-tiled walls, terrazzo floor, brass fixtures, and marble stalls. After the facility opened in September 1909, the toilets were flushed on an average of 8,000 times per day; 15,000 times on Sundays when saloons were closed. There were 16 stalls for men and nine for women. The toilets were closed after World War II. Cities preparing for large, tourist driven events, such as world's fairs, often spruce up public amenities like lampposts, railings, water fountains, and public restrooms. At the corner of Yesler Way and First Avenue, it has become one of Seattle's most famous meeting spots.

The pergola sits in a park in Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood, the area of downtown where the city was founded. The area includes the site of the city's first sawmill, and the "skid road" on which logs were brought down the hillside to the mill gave rise to the term "Skid Row" for rough neighborhoods.

The district has become home to fashionable shops, art galleries restaurants, condominiums and offices, though homeless people still populate the parks and the street corners.

The cable car tracks have long vanished and the marble and brass restroom has been abandoned for decades, but the pergola has sheltered countless residents and tourists from the rain and occasional sun.

Seattle welcomed the Pergola back in its full splendor with a grand re-opening event on Saturday, Aug. 17, from 10 a.m. to noon in Pioneer Square Park.