Thank You, Mr. Crowley

We live a little further away from the Blue Moon now; however, it is conveniently located between UW --our second home for the next five years-- and our actual home. We'll have to settle for an evening refresher after a day of classes, raising a pint to Mr. Crowley, before stumbling to the bus stop and boarding our decrepit, urine-soaked, and much beloved #44 to Ballard.

Here's a lame letter that we would have written:

Dear Walt,

I moved here in the autumn of 2002 from the Midwest, ostensibly to go to grad school but moreso for a change of scenery. I'll remain a patriotic native Chicagoan forever, but I have settled in, spread roots, and accepted the city of Seattle as my home. I see that you, too, are a Midwest transplant --it seems that 3 out of every 4 Seattleites are. It's an exciting time to be here, I think, as the city is in all sorts of transition, good and bad, right now. I like having the opportunity to butt in on those conversations.

It wasn't until my arrival here that my interests in local history, historic preservation, architecture, and urban planning blossomed into something beyond just a personal hobby. I've also taken a liking to more esoteric subjects like urban geography, graffiti, and communication with public spaces. In my dabblings, I refer to your site quite heavily. Forget Google, if it's a local matter, I go first to HistoryLink. Also, your site is among the top online resources to which I refer my students. Thanks for putting together such a wonderful resource and making it available to the public.

For such a young city, we have a tremendous history full of irreverent characters and colorful events. It's nice to walk around and stumble upon little traces of that history left behind like pieces of an incomplete puzzle. Thanks for pointing out the background behind them; it's helped me to appreciate Seattle's quirks, think about where we might be headed, and, more entertainingly, form half-baked opinions about where we should go. For all our history, I still see Seattle as somewhat of a lump of half-formed clay on a spinning wheel. We've got a lot of potential.

If you ever see a suspicious miscreant out on the streets juggling a camera and an audio recorder --and frantically jotting down notes on scraps on paper-- yell disparagingly at him and then come over and introduce yourself. Chances are it'll probably be me.

Cheers,
tom

There is a thoughtful eulogy over on BlatherWatch as well as a nice reflection on why we write on sites like this over at Metroblogging Seattle. And here is the appropriately authoritative
HistoryLink page. If you feel generous, you can donate to HistoryLink. We might also just wear a bowtie in tribute whenever we next give a little presentation.

From the Seattle P-I article:

Pam Heath, current historylink.org board member, said the Web ideally suited Crowley's broad ambitions for history's role in a democracy. "He wanted the information to be free and to be accessible to the most people. He believed the Internet provided that opportunity."

...

Now, Historylink.org site boasts more than 3 million words and 12,000 images with writers ranging from hobbyists to retired investigators and journalists to Crowley himself. It's a national model for similar sites that have sprung up in cities across the country.
Heath said Crowley considered it his crowning achievement. He wanted historical information to be a public utility, "as vital as running water or your lights."

"I think we've done that."

Absolutely. Well done, sir. If it's not too presumptuous of us, we'd like to think that our side project carries on some part of that work.

Thank you.

image swiped from historylink.org