The Perils of Seattle's Cherry Street

There is no east and west street in the city that can surpass Cherry Street, and few that can equal it in the number and elegance of fine private residences, built along both sides of the way all along back to Eighth Street. For this reason, if no other, it is fitting that the street should receive a little better attention in respect to some important matters of convenience and hygiene. There is no lamp on the street above Front Street, yet in addition to the fact that there is a heavy throng of travel along the blocks from the water front to Fourth Street, there is a precipitous place at the Third Street crossing and a number of awkward holes in the sidewalk, where, on dark nights, pedestrians who are not as familiar with the locality as Mark Twain’s pilot was with the channel of the Mississippi, are in jeopardy of life or limb. There is no point in the city where a lamp is more needed than there. Another unpleasant feature of the street is the want of sewerage. The house drainage of that part of the city discharges along the sidewalk between Second and Third Streets and diffuses a redolence that is more savory than agreeable. The health of the city and its credit abroad demand a more assiduous attention to these matters now than was requisite in bygone days, when Seattle was only a more scattering hamlet.