The Great 'Zigzag' of Seattle's Waterfront
In 1876, a frustrated editor took on the city's chaotic street planning, where Commercial Street dead-ended into a 'higgledy-piggledy' row of stores, forcing travelers to detour just to reach the waterfront.
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 is an unfortunate circumstance that our main business street, instead of running continuously along the city front, is intercepted at its junction with Mill and James streets by a jog, or what in miner's parlance would be called a 'fault.' In the distance of three or four blocks, Commercial Street is checked by a row of stores along Mill Street, and the throng of travel and business is compelled to swing off to the east and north-east a half a block and then zigzag again to the north-west in order to get down Front Street. The effect of this higgledy-piggledy arrangement of the streets in the business center is a serious inconvenience to the public, an obstacle to the progress of Front Street, and an unsightly mar to the appearance of the city. The matter of remedying this disadvantage has already been discussed in this Journal, but has hitherto been postponed on account of the expense it would involve. Now that an ordinance has passed for the immediate grading of Front Street, a reasonable occasion is afforded for calling the attention of the public to the matter again. If it is to be done at all, it stands to reason that the sooner it is done, the better, and the less the cost, for the property is steadily rising in value.
“The effect of this higgledy-piggledy arrangement of the streets in the business center is a serious inconvenience to the public.”
This 1876 complaint captures the chaotic, ad-hoc growth of early Pioneer Square, where topography and rapid, unregulated development created a grid that fought against itself. The struggle to reconcile historical 'faults' in urban planning with rising property values remains the central tension of Seattle's ongoing infrastructure debates today.
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