The Bluff Above Pacific Avenue Is Coming Down
Commissioner McGregor's engineers put a first price on holding up Cliff Avenue: $26,000 — and admit a real job would cost several times that.
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.
Commissioner McGregor has the engineering department busy trying to figure out a plan for bulkheading Cliff avenue to prevent the bluff from falling down onto Pacific avenue. Preliminary estimates indicate that a wall for about $26,000 would remedy matters materially, but to do a real good job and fix the whole thing as it should be will probably cost several times this.
Some day the whole bluff will probably be bulwarked and parked and laid out in paths and walks, forming an attractive view for newcomers entering the city.
“Some day the whole bluff will probably be bulwarked and parked and laid out in paths and walks, forming an attractive view for newcomers entering the city.”
The clay bluff above Pacific Avenue still slumps onto the roadway after a hard Tacoma rain, and the city still writes checks to hold it back. The 1909 estimate of $26,000 for a retaining wall reads like a joke now; the engineering department's admission that a proper fix would cost 'several times this' is the same sentence every Tacoma infrastructure report has opened with since.
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