Things Get Dirty Underground
The ad in the Weekly caught our eye: Opium! Graft! Sex! Debauchery! All this printed over a picture of a moll who'd fit right in at Belltown's Whisky Bar.
We're suckers for old-timey vice. We had to go on the Underworld Tour – from the people, noted the ad, who brought you the Underground Tour. So we reserved a spot on a recent Friday night tour.
Turns out the Underworld Tour is basically the NC-17 version of the Underground Tour. (Actually, it's more like the R or hard PG-13 version. Sex is discussed, but no Saxon-derived vulgarisms stronger than "crap" were used on our tour.)
One's interest in the Underworld Tour is likely to be inversely proportional to how long it's been since you went on the regular, family-friendly version. A fair amount of information, especially during the first half, is the same. You get an overview of the regrade project that created the underworld. You get Bill Speidel's amusingly cynical take on Seattle's founding. You get the same damn "Thomas Crapper invented the toilet" urban legend repeated as fact, along with bonus false etymology about the origin of "graveyard shift."
Once the scene is set, however, the Underworld Tour gets frank about Seattle's early days as Gomorrah on the Pacific Coast. At least in Speidel's version of history, early Seattle owed its survival to prostitution. We got to see the site of Seattle's first brothel, the Illahee, where the Longhorn Barbecue and a Tully's now stand. We learned about the financial boons provided by several pimps and madams, including the largest monetary gift awarded to Seattle Public Schools until Bill Gates came along. (Which turns out to be another urban legend. Take the tour for the storytelling, not the accurate account of history.)
We saw a few rats, and we learned why it wasn't a good idea to ask turn-of-the-century prostitutes for a silver dollar, at least if you were a sanctimonious do-gooder.
When the tour ends after an hour or so, we ordered our free drink from Doc Maynard's and mused on just how far Seattle's come. Once we were a city driven by loose women and hard wood. Now we'd like to make sure no one comes within 4 feet of a stripper. Some kind of cooties epidemic or something. (For more info, see this PDF.)
Progress moves in mysterious ways.
The Seattle Underworld Tour runs Friday and Saturday nights through September. It starts at 7:30 p.m. at Doc Maynard's, 601 1st Avenue in Pioneer Square. The tour costs $15 and includes a voucher for a free drink. Call 206-682-4646 x118 (or just ask for the Underworld Tour) for reservations.
