Seattle Monuments and Memorials: Pike Place Market

A monument or memorial is a tangible, permanently located entity that represents a dimension of history that we choose to remember.

Seattle does not have many traditional monuments, and I choose to consider Pike Place Market. It is a living monument, still active and used practically yet representative of Seattle's history. Pike Place, which fulfills the quality of permanent location, is filled with Seattle business, Seattle art, Seattle street music, Seattle coffee and food. Our identity as a city reveals itself in this place: the identity of who were are in relation to others within Seattle, and who we are in relation to the rest of the world. While Pike Place does this for current-day Seattle, it has been integral to our identity for many years. It was there when farmers in the Pacific Northwest got together and protested against corporations, it endured through immigration and Japanese internment, it gave the Seattle community a place to say "here we are, in all our forms and flavors". Today, when Seattle has expanded and encompasses a greater international and national role, we hold regard for the first Starbucks, the flying fish, the locally grown produce.

Ghosts of Pike Place include the Japanese-American-owned stalls in Pike Place, which constituted two thirds of the market. After Pearl Harbor, these stalls were confiscated or stolen. I appreciate the continuation of the market as a functional monument. It balances between being a strictly historical memorial site and a forgotten example of community.