Not Great Meaning Good but Great Meaning Big

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Downtown Seattle before the Great Fire. Photo by Peterson & Bro., c.1883.

The Great Fire, June 6, 1889.

Downtown Seattle after the Great Fire
(First Avenue between Columbia Street & the Skid Road).

[Images from the Museum of History & Industry, via KUOW. Visit KUOW.org for more images and recently-found audio clips of survivors of the Great Seattle Fire.]

Made Me Look

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Some photos from my recent quick trip to NY...

My brother's bulletin board

Laundromat in Park Slope

Crombie, taking meetings in the Shark Bar.

Cable-knit top tube pad

Blenheim Ginger Ale at Jones. I recommend ordering one of these after you eat your brunch.

Botched self-portrait with J. Ralph Phillips and Chad, at Union Pool

Jane B.

His & Hers

Log bench at Droog. Basically this is a big log with seatbacks attached to it. The thing is, some rich person will buy this and put it in their loft in Tribeca – and the juxtaposition would be cool – but for the rest of us, it's just an idea that we could emulate or be inspired by ourselves. That's one thing I really like about Droog, you get the feeling they don't care if people buy the stuff, they just want to think up cool ideas and try them out.

The "D" fell off my brother's coat but the FDNY was out of "D" patches, so they replaced it with an "O." The day I got there, Sky had a 2-alarm fire and smelled like smoke when he got home. The day after I left there was a 7-alarm in Chinatown. Pretty crazy.

Do I Sound Like A Musical Robot?

Neck Face Book

Best Gravestone Inscription Ever

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Coots Matthews: Cantankerous Hellfighter
Read about the legendary oil well firefighter, who died last month at the age of 86, here. (That's him, above far left, on the set of the 1968 John Wayne movie Hellfighters.)

American Experience

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CCC Firefighters in Washington State, 1937

I missed posting about this in advance, but I think it's worth putting up anyway. I'm working late and I have a TV in my office, and right now PBS is showing an American Experience documentary on the Civilian Conservation Corps, the cornerstone of FDR's New Deal that put millions of men to work during the Great Depression. Commentator Jonathan Alter:

Someone approached the economist John Maynard Keynes and asked him, 'Have we ever seen anything like this before?' And he said: 'Yes, we have. It was called the Dark Ages. It lasted 400 years.

So – we don't have it as bad as they did, and there are some signs that things are looking up, but I was saying to someone the other day that it seems like every other person I meet lately is out of work. I firmly believe that we need a jobs program in this country today and I think if Obama initiated it, it would change a lot of the haters' minds. It feels good to work and earn money, and when that's taken away, it can break a person, and break a country. In my mind, it's the most important thing to fix as we try to dig out from this financial crisis.

My grandfather Don Woodfin was a Firefighter in the CCC (old timers call it the CC's) in the mountains of Idaho. I'll write about that some time soon.

Preview the CCC documentary at PBS.org – it's worth looking out for a re-run or tracking down the DVD.

Up the Down Staircase

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My brother Sky is in the FDNY (Engine 3, Ladder 12 in Chelsea). This weekend he'll be in Seattle to participate in the Columbia Center Stair Climb, benefiting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you want to sponsor him with a tax deductible donation, go here. If you think of it while you're filling out the form, please designate that your donation is in honor of Sky Shepard / Firefighter Stairclimb / FDNY.

The Columbia Center is the second tallest building west of the Mississippi. It takes 69 flights of stairs, 1,311 steps, and 788 feet of vertical elevation, in full gear, to reach the 73rd floor. I used to work up in that brioche as a file clerk at a law firm (my first job after WWU). The Columbia Center is built to sway 12 feet in either direction when it's windy, and I remember people getting seasick and leaving work early when that would happen. I DJ'd a wedding there a couple years ago when our good buddies Lily and Matthew got married. We marveled at the views from the top floor. It's not a short building but my brother is raw dog and I know he will make it.

Here's a little about the event: The Scott Firefighter Stairclimb supports the mission of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, raising money through sponsorships, individual and department fundraising, and entry fees. In 2007, the event brought in a record $365,000 for blood-cancer research and patient services. Awards are given to the fastest climbers and to the top fundraisers.

Raw dog. Please donate if you can.

Update: here are some photos from the stairclimb (click to enlarge).