The Sewer Dispute on Front Street
A citizen protests the city's plan to shut down the Front Street cable line for sewer construction, fearing it will kill business for retail shops in the north end.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It was announced in your paper yesterday that the city authorities intend to shut down the operation of the Front street cable cars during the construction of the proposed sewer on Front and Commercial streets. To this the writer enters an earnest protest. There are a large number of patrons of the line living north of Pine street to Battery street, and north of Mercer street to the top of Queen Anne hill who have no other convenient route. The business men of Front and Commercial streets will be even more seriously affected, as the immediate effect will be to lessen their trade. If any excess of earth should still accumulate, let it be taken to the intersections of cross streets in wagons or wheel scrapers and put in a pile that need not block traffic in any way. Of course, this will increase the cost, but as the sewer is to be built in midwinter for the purpose of giving needy men work, a few dollars more or less is of small moment. It would be cheaper to the taxpayers for the council to appropriate $5,000 to buy food and clothing for the needy, and not begin the work until next June.
“The sewer is to be built in midwinter for the purpose of giving needy men work, a few dollars more or less is of small moment.”
This 1893 debate over infrastructure construction disrupting transit and local commerce—and the city's use of public works as a form of unemployment relief—mirrors modern Seattle's perennial tension between transit access, business vitality, and public funding during major regrades or utility projects.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.