From the Space Needle in 1995 (Seattle, Washington)

Business took me to western Washington in 1995. A coworker and I looked at the beach at Ocean Shores, facing the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of Grays Harbor. Southward sediment transport had built a wide beach against the north jetty. Developers were building condominiums on the beach. Was this a vulnerable location? Were there feasible escape routes if sirens warned of a tsunami? What would happen to the beach if the sediment transport shifted to moving north? 

After the field trip, we had a few days to spend in Seattle. My coworker had never been to the city and was intrigued by the Space Needle. A fellow we met under the Needle generously offered us two free tickets for the elevator. It was a gorgeous sunny day, so, of course we took the lift to the viewing balcony.

Room with a view: Space Needle from the Mediterranean Inn (Fuji digital photograph taken with a Jupiter-8 lens)

2004 panorama of South Lake Union district from Eastlake Avenue E

First, the general setting. This is a 2004 panoramic photograph of Queen Anne (the hill to the right), South Lake Union, Uptown, and Belltown districts (taken with a Hasselblad X-Pan camera). The Needle is the iconic tower built for the 1962 World's Fair. In the 1970s, when I was a student here, this area south of Lake Union was a commercial district of warehouses and manufacturing. By the early 2000s, it was transforming into condos, clubs, museums, and modern businesses. In the photograph above, the red building in the foreground is part of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, one of the foremost cancer research institutes in the world. Click the picture to enlarge the scene and see the snowy Olympic Mountains in the distance.

Port of Seattle, view south from Space Needle

Now, let's ascend to the viewing balcony on the Space Needle and look south. Seattle is a high value seaport. It is a spectacular natural harbor because it is ice-free, deep, and sheltered from Pacific Ocean storms. In the photograph above, you can see the container terminal in the distance with a freighter in the roadstead. A ferry boat is on its way to Bremerton. Many Seattleites commute daily via the ferries. Seattle is also a major cruise terminal, but I do not see any cruise ships in this scene. 

To the left, you can see two features that are now, thankfully, gone. 

The big white dome is the infamous Kingdome. I recall some of the controversy during construction in the 1972-1973 period. It was sited in the Industrial District south of Pioneer Square. African-American businesses were displaced (i.e., forced out at low real estate values). Construction was plagued with errors, poor design, and a contractor who was unable to complete the work. The building suffered water problems. Parts of the roof collapsed in 1994. Finally, controlled implosion brought down the nasty structure in March of 2000. A century-old African-American community had been replaced by a boondoggle that lasted 27 years. King County taxpayers had to pay for the bonds for another 15 years. Hmmm, is it possible some corruption might have been involved?

Alaskan Way Viaduct before demolition (from Wikimedia, based on Open Street Maps)

To the right of The Kingdome is the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a double-decked freeway that carried State Route 99 along the waterfront. The city built the viaduct in three phases between 1949 and 1953. It cut off the city from the waterfront, similar to the way the Southeast Expressway in Boston became a barrier between Boston, the North End, and the waterfront. The web site, The Historic Pacific Highway in Washington, has more information about the viaduct. 

Engineers knew that the viaduct was vulerable to earthquakes. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in Oakland, California, destroyed the similar Cypress Street Viaduct, causing 42 deaths.  The 2001 Nisqually earthquake in Seattle damaged the viaduct and its supporting Alaskan Way Seawall. The steel flanges, girders, and bolts that I saw in 2004 were attempts to shore up the structure of the viaduct.  

My coworkers at the Corps of Engineers were well aware of the viaduct's earthquake vulnerability. They told me which lanes to use in case the upper structure collapsed. By carefully driving between the concrete support rows, my car would be only partly squashed by the descending concrete roadway. I was so reassured....

After long and heated debate, King County, the city, and the Port of Seattle decided to bore a tunnel under the route of the viaduct and totally remove the concrete eyesore. You know the story: the tunnel cost vastly more than originally predicted and numerous technical issues slowed construction, but it finally opened to traffic in February of 2019. Demolishing and crunching up the viaduct took only a year. The city now has access to the waterfront without the concrete eyesore. 

On recent trips to Seattle, I have driven Route 99 instead of fight the traffic on I-5. The tunnel appears to flow well while I-5 is bumper-to-bumper. Cameras automatically tag your car to identify where to send a bill for the toll. 

Union Bay with University of Washington Campus in the distance

Turn to the northeast and look at the body of water. Union Bay is a freshwater bay in the center of Seattle. The Fremont Cut (to the left) lets boats reach Puget Sound via the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks. The Montlake Cut, beyond the I-5 bridge in the distance, gives access to Lake Washington. Museums, shipyards, houseboats, and seaplane companies line the shore of Lake Union. "Sleepless in Seattle" takes place in these houseboats. The Vashon Glacier excavated the lake about 12,000 years ago and sculpted most of the contemporary geomorphology in the Puget lowlands.

Lake Union view south

This is Lake Union from the Gasworks Park, the site of a former coal gasification plant from the early 20th century. 

This ends our much too quick overview of Seattle. I want to look at my 1970s archives and see if there are more photographs from downtown.

By the way, if you want to see a really bad Elvis movie that features the Space Needle, watch "It Happened at the World's Fair." As TCM described it, "The Monorail and Space Needle are prominent as Mike (Elvis Presley) and friend Sue-Lin (Vicky Tiu) take in the sights". It is an utterly absurd plot, but Elvis sings. What more could you want in a movie?

On the Pier at Old Orchard Beach, Maine

The ocean pier is a time-honored cultural and recreation tradition in American beach communities. The pier typically housed restaurants, a dance hall, snack shops, penny arcades, and places for people to fish. It was the fun place to foregather after sunning in the sand to meet your friends, eat hotdogs, and play arcade games.

Atlantic City, New Jersey

Heinz Ocean Pier, Atlantic City, New Jersey, after the September 1944 hurricane (photographer unknown, Beach Erosion Board Archives)

This is the remains of the Heinz Ocean Pier, also known as “The Sea Shore Home of the 57 Varieties,” in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The September 1944 hurricane tore off much of the famous boardwalk and part of the pier. It was demolished after the storm.

Old Orchard Beach, Maine

Old Orchard Beach is a popular tourist destination in southern Maine. Its famous pier first opened to the public on July 2, 1898. This original pier suffered from storms over the century, and the Great New England Blizzard of '78 washed away the remnants. From gothavelmaine.com:

The middle of the century saw the heyday of the Pier Casino Ballroom, which held as many as 5,000 people. The Ballroom was noted for its moving picture shows and live entertainment, featuring acts such as Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Guy Lombardo, and Benny Goodman. Over the years, a series of storms ebbed away at the pier causing the casino to be razed in 1970. Then the great blizzard of 1978 destroyed what was left of the pier. The Pier, as we know it today, was re-opened in 1980, and houses many fine shops and restaurants. The current Pier stretches 500 feet into the Atlantic Ocean. The wooden walk way is lined with souvenir shops, food vendors, restaurants and a night club at the end of the pier.

The view under a pier is a photographic cliché, but it is fun nevertheless. This is the new (1980) pier. 

It is a short beach season in Maine, so locals and tourists soak in the rays.

The gift shops and snack bars on the pier are the fun places to explore. 99¢ for a hot dog (of dubious ingredients) and a Coke? An Internet cafe with AOL? I love it.

I took these photographs on Kodachrome slide film (probably K25) using a Pentax Spotmatic camera with 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super-Takumar and 28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lenses. Great optics, and still totally usable today.

From the Archives: A Couple of Days in Paris

Once awhile (well, rather often now), your airline schedule gets confused or abruptly changes. "You will be flying to Charles DeGaulle and your next flight out will be three days later. You said what? Well, OK, I can handle a few days in Paris. Who couldn't? But, um, who will pay for my hotel and food?

Regardless of the logistics, I had a pleasant if short sojourn in Paris in summer of 2009. Being an American in Paris is great fun, but I did not run into Gigi, Ernest Hemingway, or Ninotchka.  

The tourist office in the airport found an inexpensive hotel for me on the commuter rail line part way between the airport and the city center. 

Room with a view

Loo with a curtain

Not a bad room for a reasonable price (on Paris standards). The rooms looked like prefab modular units inserted into a building built for the purpose. The breakfast was basic, but the coffee and croissants et confiture put the vile offal at any American chain hotel to shame. 

The Seine River of history and literature. In preparation for the Olympics, it is clean enough to swim in again!

The Seine in 2001 (Kodachrome 64 film)

This photograph is from a previous trip to France. It is a medium format Kodachrome 64 transparency that I took with a Rolleiflex. Kodak made the 120 size film from 1986-1996. These slides were spectacular when projected. As I recall, Kodak announced that they would do one last processing of the 120 Kodachrome at their UK laboratory in Luton, so I used all my remaining stock that summer. Photographers from around the world sent their 120 Kodachrome to Luton, similar to the way that 35mm Kodachrome users sent their film to Dwayne's in Parsons, Kansas, in 2010 for the final processing.

On the left bank

Oh oh, another digression into the past. Once upon a time, we were young, energetic, healthy, and dressed reasonably well. And Notre Dame was still intact.

From the roof of the Musée d'Orsay

Lunch behind the clock at the Musée d'Orsay

Former rail platforms

The Orsay Museum, once a railroad station, contains the world's largest collections of Impressionist paintings and Art Noveau rooms, decorations, and furnishings. It is spectacular. Spend a day there.  

The famous independent book store, Shakespeare and Company, opened in 1951 in this spot in the Left Bank. (The side of a river is denoted when you are looking downriver, meaning towards the sea.)

Quiet afternoon in the left bank

This covers our short sojourn to Paris. All too soon, I had to return to the airport and board my flight to Atlanta. What a culture shock to return to the USA after a month in Europe.

Charles de Gaulle airport

Even CDG has some interesting architecture. I have always found it to be a confusing airport, partly because it is always crowded and the signage is difficult to interpret. 

Regardless, Paris is a gem. Book a small hotel on the Left Bank and spend a week exploring. Better yet, rent a flat for the autumn or spring. Get immersed in art, culture, and music. Eat a family-owned bistros, toss back a glass of wine. Live life.

From the Archives: Summer on the Beach in Calabria (Italy)

Cosenza study area

In mid-2000, two of my coworkers and I conducted a study of beach processes and structures along the west coast of the Province of Cosenza. The Provincial Government of Cosenza asked us to examine coastal structures and beach erosion. The beaches had suffered serious retreat over the years, and various types of seawalls, beach armoring, and detached breakwaters had not stabilized the coast. 

This is the rugged and mountainous part of Calabria in southern mainland Italy facing the Tyrrhenian Sea. The first major landforms to the west are Corsica and Sardinia. The Aeolian Islands, including the active volcano of Stromboli, are also west near the north coast of Sicily. I had never been to Calabria, so this was a geological, cultural, and culinary treat. 

Our hosts were fantastically generous. They provided some superb meals (Calabria has a distinctive cuisine), a helicopter, boats, and a van with a driver. He was a burly, friendly fellow. When he wore his sport jacket on certain days, he had a mysterious bulge under his left armpit. Hmmm...  But seriously, there were no security issues of any sort. Everyone we met was friendly and curious. 

Here are a few Kodachrome slides from our project, organized from north to south. There were many more slides, but I sent them to the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association along with thousands of other beach and marine photographs. 

Beaches and coasts

Marina di Belvedere view south

This aerial view of Belvedere Marittimo shows the complicated topography and modified coast in this part of Cosenza. In the foreground, the beach was massively armored with detached breakwaters but this did not result in an attractive recreation beach. One major failing: the engineers did not artificially add sand on the landward side of the breakwaters after initial construction. All of these types of structures need sand to be mechanically added.

Eroded sandstone and poorly consolidated riverine sediments south of Diamante

Near Diamante, the geology is a challenge. The rail line is perched between an eroding upland and a retreating coast. To prevent mud- and rockslides from disrupting the railroad, the engineers built concrete protective walls. But then sediment no longer enters the marine littoral system, contributing to sediment starvation on the beaches. But storm waves cause the shore to retreat. So, to protect the railroad, construction companies added huge rocks along the shore. The result: no beach and a vulnerable railroad.

Recreation beach at Guardia Piedmontese Marina

Here, you can see a sand and gravel beach, with the railroad embankment immediately behind. During especially rough winter storms, salt spray reaches the rail line and causes arcing across the electric lines. This is the main north-south rail line along western Italy, and service disruption has major economic consequences. 

 

On the way it to the beach, Guardia Piedmontese Marina

  Here, the rail line is reasonably safe because it is well above the level of the parking lot.

Historic houses, Marina di Fuscaldo

Marina di Fuscaldo is a resort village with a number of pre-1900 houses clustered next to the beach. Fishermen pull their boats up across the gravel beach. The road runs above a concrete seawall.  

Former railroad bridge near Marina di Paola

This railroad bridge is an example of the beautiful stonework by master craftsmen during the original construction of the railroad in the late-1800s. The original rail was run along the landward edge of a formerly broad coastal plain. In this area, the coast retreated almost a kilometer in a century. The new railroad bridge is a short distance behind the historic bridge. There is no more room for the railroad to relocate further landward. 

San Lucida, south of Paola

These monumental T-shaped groins near San Lucida are in too deep water, the gap is too wide, and the builders did not add sand. This section of coast is sediment-starved. 

San Lucida

Checking the catch at San Lucida

Reviewing beach measurements in San Lucida

The old town of San Lucida is up on the bluff. The plaza was secured with a monumental concrete buttress and wall. 

Typical Calabrian lunch

What do you do after a morning of surveying the beaches, riding boats, or flying in a helicopter? Well, of course, you eat a giant Calabrian lunch. Add a bottle or two of wine.....

Little Cars

Ready for a ride, San Lucido

On the beach, Guardia Piedmontese

We were surprised that the tiny Fiat 500 cars (the Cinquecento) are popular again and are being restored. Fiat produced them in various models from 1957-1976. These were a brilliant way to help Italians motorize in the post-war era, and they remained in production into the 1970s. Nice! 

Motoring in Cetraro

Addendum

If you are interested in more technical details, here is the Coastal Sediments '03 conference proceeding. It is a .pdf file that the link will open. 

When Photographs Go to a New Home

My office at home holds boxes and boxes of photographic negatives, prints, slides, and Kodak Carousel trays. I needed to seriously downsize (i.e., discard junk). But I hated to throw this body of work in the trash. Did anyone want it?

Coastal and Beach Slides

Examples of pages containing slides

During the years I worked at the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, I took thousands of photographs (mostly Kodachrome slides) of beaches, coastal features, harbors, and bluffs. They included the Great Lakes, Long Island, Florida, Alabama, California, Calabria, Chiapas, Greece, and more. I stored them in archival pages in black 3-ring binders. On each slide, I wrote a date and location. When I retired, the binders came home in cardboard boxes. But I never looked at them. Someone surely could use them. 

After some emails, the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA), the publisher of Shore & Beach, said they would like the collection. I promised that I had only saved technically good slides and they would not be receiving faded generic beaches with no location or date information. I had published some articles in Shore & Beach before, so we had a personal connection. ASBPA was in the process of scanning slides from Mr. Orville Magoon, a famous coastal engineer who practiced in Hawaii and California for decades. His pictures are on a very clever ArcGIS display of the California coast.

Binders organized by location

Boxed and ready to go, March 2023

I looked at each and every page and removed non-pertinent slides. I also added extra annotation to some of the labels. My steel bulk slide boxes also contained some coastal photos, especially extra photographs from Greece. I placed them into archival pages and added them to the binders. Finally, I made new labels for the binders, packed them in new cardboard boxes (U-Haul Small) and sent them to ASBPA. 

 

Examples USA

Here are a few samples of coastal photographs.

On the breakwater at Los Angeles Long Beach Harbor

A coworker and I went to the Los Angeles Long Beach harbor to change data tapes and batteries in the SeaData wave gauges. The tower at the end of one arm of the breakwater held one of our radio antennas. We stayed in a cheesy motel on shore, but then I discovered we could have slept on the Queen Mary within the per diem rate. I recall my coworker knew a lady at the motel.

Cape Hatteras view north over Diamond Shoals, February 1993

A coworker and I rented a plane from Naval Base Norfolk and flew the shore from Cape Henry south to Cape Hatteras. The light was hazy. The stormy seas outlined the double sand bars that extended almost this entire stretch of the Outer Banks. The rough water in the lower part of the picture is the infamous Diamond Shoals. These shoals were treacherous for sailing vessels and were called the "Graveyard of the Atlantic". In 1993, the Cape Hatteras lighthouse was still in its original vulnerable location next to the ocean. You can see it in the photograph above (click to enlarge to 2400 pixels wide).

Cape Hatteras Light House at its original location. 

View north from the Hatteras light house. The town of Buxton is to the left.

The National Park Service generously opened the tower for the coastal processes class that we taught at the Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility (FRF). This was a beautiful day with a much gentler sea that the one during the 1993 flight. You can see the single offshore sand bar.

Rocky (granitic) coast, South Harpswell, Maine

South Street Seaport, Manhattan, New York City

Boardwalk at Rockaway Beach, Queens, New York

Erie Harbor North Pier Light, Erie Harbor Entrance Channel, Presque Isle, Pennsylvania

Dredging and maintaining the entrance channel at Erie, Pennsylvania, was one of the earliest civil projects conducted by the US Army Corps of Engineers. President Monroe signed the first Rivers and Harbors Act in 1824, which directed funds toward initial improvements of the harbor at Erie. 

Examples Europe

Guardia Piedmontese, Calabria, Italy, June 2000

The Provincial Government of Cosenza sponsored three of us from the lab to conduct a survey of beach structures and coastal erosion and advise what could be done to mitigate the erosion. Note the train on the embankment just behind the beach. One critical problem was that during winter storms, sea spray caused arcing between the overhead electrical wires and train service had to stop. This is the main rail line between Naples and Messina.

Storm-cut scarp on a gravel beach, Agios Ioannis, Pelion, Greece

Greece has a rugged and complicated coast. Years ago, a coworker and I proposed compiling a book, Coastlines of Greece, which would have been one of the Coastlines of the World series by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Sadly, it never happened.  

 

Agios Dionysios Monastery, Moni Athos, Greece (founded in the 14th century)

Agios Panteleimonas Monastery, Moni Athos, Greece (founded in 1169; rebuilt after a major fire in 1968)

Moni Athos, or the Holy Mountain, is a peninsula southeast of Thessaloniki, Greece. It has been a semi-independent and self-governing community of monks for over a thousand years. The scenery is utterly spectacular because the mountains have never been forested. The coastal scenery does not get much better than this. 

The monasteries, some of which date back 700 years, are self-contained communities. They now constitute a Unesco World Heritage Site. The cultural aspects are extraordinary. For example, the Grand Monastery of the Lavron has frescos in the dining hall attributed to the painter Domenikos Theotokopoulos, better known as El Greco. 

Saint Panteleimonas is the Russian monastery and houses exclusively Russian monks, sent by the Russian Orthodox Church. The liturgies are spoken in Russian. President Vladimir Putin visited the monastery on September 9, 2005.

An unusual note: Most of Athos still uses the Julian calendar. After all, we are the ones who switched to that new-fangled calendar. But I suspect the monk's mobile phones show the new calendar, unless they have a conversion app.

Moni Athos is a popular trekking area, but for men only. Access is strictly controlled. You must get a permit to visit the peninsula.

Family Photos

Oh, oh, where did these hundreds of family photographs come from? I love the children but can't store the prints, negatives, and slides forever. They have gone to the appropriate parents. Here are a couple of examples.

A quiet afternoon with a book, Nerantza, Greece

Discussing beach processes on a gravel beach, Nerantza, Greece

This has been a lot of work, but I hope my old photos have gone somewhere to have another life. Will the recipients eventually discard them? Maybe, but I tried.