TARGET 160413

A BARED GUMMY (WALL)

November 10, 2015: A city worker steam cleans used chewing gum from a wall in downtown Seattle, Washington.


^{How it all started}

The wall is by the box office for the Market Theater, and the tradition began around 1993 when patrons of Unexpected Productions' Seattle Theatresports, standing in long lines to get into the theater, stuck gum to the wall and placed coins in the gum blobs.



^{Then it caught on}

After a while, more creative people began to do more than just put a blob of gum on the wall. They started smearing the gum to leave their personal marks there.


And to leave messages or ask questions.




^{The alley beside the theater became a landmark "site to see" and have your tourist photos taken.}
Since 1993, theater workers have scraped the gum away twice, but eventually gave up after market officials deemed the gum wall a Seattle tourist attraction around 1999. It can even be found today by typing "Gum Wall, Seattle, WA" into Google Earth.

In 2009, however, it was named one of the top 5 germiest tourist attractions in the world, second only to the Blarney Stone, in Ireland. But still, it is both the starting place for a ghost tour and a popular site with wedding photographers.

A scene for the 2009 Jennifer Aniston film "Love Happens" was shot at the wall in 2008.


<sup>City governments, however, have to deal with supposed health hazards and "beautification projects", and that reputation of it being the second germiest tourist location in the world sort of got their attention, too. So, it seemed to them that things were getting out of hand.





It's no wonder they might have thought that.</sup>

So, on November 3, 2015, the Pike Place Market Preservation & Development Authority announced that for the first time in 20 years the gum wall would be receiving a total scrub down for maintenance and steam cleaning, to prevent further erosion of the bricks on the walls from the sugar in the gum.






Work began on November 10 and took 130 hours to complete, with over 2,350 pounds (1,070 kg) of gum removed and disposed of.



The cleaning was finished on November 13, and by the next day gum began to be re-added to the wall; among the first additions were memorials to the November 2015 Paris attacks.

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If you got impressions for which this feedback is insufficient, more information,
pictures and videos can be found at the following web sites:

King5.com
Wikipedia
The Gum Wall's Facebook page (has a video of the cleaning)

Many thanks to Gail Husick for this target.