Post by xaria on Feb 25, 2020 21:42:59 GMT -6
Ben
Street Influence
Seattle is a tourist city and most of it is polished, well lit and frequently patrolled. But its long term inhabitants recognize there are places best avoided unless you know the right people, the right names, and even then there are no guarantees.
In a metropolis of nearly 800,000 people, there are a lot of places it is ill advised to wander into, but one spot specifically stands head and shoulders above the rest. If asked, most of the ragged souls that move in and out of these less then wholesome locations have no idea as to the why of it. They simply know that Yesler Way, is called the ‘The Deadline’ and once crossed the rules are different.
Beyond the Deadline one can find an ungodly mixture of dives, dumps, pawnshops, hash houses, dope parlors and enough else that the et-cetera would keep the police guessing for months. Which means that there is usually a handful of interesting individuals to observe from the patio of a particular cafe that sits nestled comfortably in the Square; but it doesn’t take telling that the sort of people that traverse the Line are the same sort that never take well to eyes that linger where they aren't invited.
There is nothing especially menacing about the architecture of the East-West street located immediately South of Pioneer Square. Yet, just beyond Yesler, anyone familiar with the Emerald City discerns quickly that it isn't the cops that keep the law. So far as they are concerned, there is an empty space of 25 square blocks in the heart of Seattle. 25 blocks that had been paved over and built up out of the muck that had remained after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 swept through.
Those that listen might catch stories from the old timers that set the rules. Tales about the Underground's origins. About how they had taken root eight years after the flames. Wistful recollections they themselves had been told in their youth. Recounts of the Yukon Gold Rush that brought 100,000 adventurers through Seattle en route to Alaska and the resultant financial boom they brought to Pioneer Square. All manner of entrepreneurs, including barmen and gamblers, con men and madams. Then when the rush was over 10 years later, how those slippery people had stayed on and gave the area a bad name. Reputable businesses moved uptown and Pioneer Square was quickly forgotten by Seattle's more upstanding citizens.
It was inevitable though. That eventually those that had, for nearly two-thirds of a century, turned away from the ruins of Pioneer Square would mistakenly believe the city’s birthplace would simply lay vacant. Like the ruins of Pompeii. Until it occurred to one of them that they might have a use for it.
It did not take them long to realize just how mistaken they were.
There was a bloody clash of the lawmen and the lawless.
It didn't take them long to recognize that Vesuvius itself would have proven an easier adversary to contend with then the decedents of the barmen and gamblers, con men and madams who built their homes within its forgotten walls all those years ago.
If one were to go looking, there is nothing to find on paper between Seattle's Underground and the city officials. No declaration of domain, but all the same...
it isn't the coppers that keep the law beyond the line.