2 Million Bricks

This site at 7th and Madison housed four different school buildings over a 75 year period, concluding with this impressive edifice. Seattle's Central School was opened in 1889 and was almost immediately overcrowded, forcing the district to rent annex space from a number of nearby churches. As the 20th century unfolded the school had the opposite problem as downtown residences were replaced with office buildings. After surviving social and economic shifts and several earthquakes, the school was demolished in 1953. The lot was leased for parking until the site gave way to the construction of Interstate 5 in the early 1960s.

 

OddWA #32 - The Atomic Man

On August 30, 1976 a workplace accident at the Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant exposed plantworker Harold McCluskey to what should have been a lethal dose of radioactive material. His radiation level was so high McCluskey set off Geiger counters fifty feet away, earning him the nickname "The Atomic Man." Miraculously, he was treated and survived for years, though his life had new challenges: Some of Harold’s friends and fellow church members were uneasy around him and avoided him, some going so far as to request he not visit their homes. McCluskey eventually died of heart disease in 1987.

CK