Planetary Stories Project

"To Act Globally, Think Locally – Through Stories"

Black Earth Institute

Place: Pioneer Square, Seattle, WA, USA

Portraits of Pioneer Square
and Before Solstice
Both By Judith Roche (November 2006)

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     By the time photographer Paul Petroff arrived in Pioneer Square in Seattle, 1985, the historical core of the city had run the gamut from a thriving Indian community, to early pioneer times, to the center of Seattle banking and commerce with shining marble halls, then to a run-down and seedy area, abandoned by the city’s money. The early 1980s saw a resurgence of energy and hopeful commerce, brought about by developers who refurbished grand old buildings and strove to capitalize on Seattle’s colorful past. They were not able, however, to move out the large community of the homeless who lived on the streets.

     Petroff had been told Pioneer Square was Seattle’s Skid Row. What he didn’t know yet, was that this was the original Skid Row, and why. Petroff remembers seeing a large group of well-dressed tourists gathered –were they here to see the homeless? Their tour leader stepped up to address the group, “Ladies and Gentleman,” he began. But the words were snatched out of his mouth by an elderly homeless Indian who stood up from his park bench and jumped right in with a loud and commanding voice, “Ladies and Gentleman, you are about to see my country.”  The tour group moved on to listen to their guide tell them what they would see on Bill Spidel’s Underground tour of Seattle, a commercial venture to show what’s left of some of the old structures and the city’s history.

     In the beginning there were glaciers scouring deep holes for waterways, volcanoes, fire and cataclysmic upheavals. When people finally came, they were the Duwamish and the Suquamish. They lived on the banks of what we now know as Elliott Bay in longhouses and hunted in the deep forests above, harvested in the salt marshes on the border between water and land, and fished the water itself, what we now know as Puget Sound. They were generally a peaceful and hospitable people, comfortable in the largesse of nature, and they welcomed the newcomers to their shores.

     Dr. David Maynard, known as Doc Maynard, was one of the first. He built the second log cabin in what we now know as Pioneer Square, the nascent community of settlers. He took care of the sick, including the Indians, and established a mercantile at what is now First and Main. Unfortunately, for him, he could hardly make himself bill patients of meager means (which included most of his patients) and he gave away as much merchandise as he sold, as most couldn’t pay for their goods.  He was the first Indian agent in the new settlement and was known, increasingly pejoratively, as an “Indian lover.” The tiny but growing settlement began to be called Duwamps, after the Duwamish River, but Doc Maynard suggested it be named Seattle for his good friend, Chief Sealth, also pronounced “See-alth” and sometimes “See-attle.” Shortly following Doc Maynard and the earliest pioneers, Henry Yesler arrived from Ohio and smelled money to be made. Yesler established the first steam-powered sawmill in on the West Coast, at what is now the heart of Pioneer Square, First and Yesler, to supply communities up and down the Coast with lumber for building developing settlements on the West Coast. San Francisco, the largest, had neither as many trees nor a steam-powered sawmill, but provided a lucrative marketplace for Yesler’s poles timbers and shakes.

     There was work in the new settlement and men came to take the jobs. They were sturdy enough to get here from the East and Midwest–not an easy trip in those days–with just the promise of work to be done, and rough and tough enough for the hard work.

     Those loggers cut the mammoth trees in the forests up the steep hill above the settlement, what would now be the center of the Seattle. With the help of oxen, they drug the trees to the road, then just a precipitous trail, now named Yesler Way. With the help of gravity they skidded the logs down hill to the millpond adjacent to the sawmill built on pilings at the foot of the hill and the edge of Puget Sound. Thus was born “Skid Row,” a term from this lumber operation that generalized to mean any down-and-out area of any city.

     The loggers, and later the railroad workers, were single men, trying to make it in a new territory without women. The next new industry was predictable. Mountains of sawdust from the mill were dragged to saltwater lagoon just south of Skid Row, aka Yesler Way, and a brothel established on unstable ground. The ladies-of-the night were called the Sawdust Women. The area soon became a brawling, boozing, brothel-filled settlement of day-workers with a good dose of crime, the occasional lynching, and little sense of community. By this time the Duwamish, the Suquamish and other tribes of the area had abandoned their land to the newcomers and had been pushed elsewhere. They signed a treaty for the lands, were promised money, and have not been paid to this day.

     Coming from New York, where Skid Row is not a place where tourists venture, Petroff was struck by the juxtaposition of homeless men and women sharing this historic area of Seattle with groups of well-heeled tourists and chic restaurants, art galleries, thriving businesses and nightclubs. Many were Natives but they were joined by a large number of the broken and disabled of all backgrounds, and many young people, some as young as twelve, living on the streets. As dangerous as living on the streets can be for a child, girl or boy, it can seem preferable to living in an abusive family. There’s abuse on the streets, physical, sexual, and spiritual, but it doesn’t seem as personal as it does from a father or mother.

     Petroff began by sitting on park benches day after day sketching what he saw, and taking notes in a personal language that uses Hebrew characters to phonetically spell out English words. Finally, a man he calls The Captain, after seeing him repeatedly, began to question him. ‘What are you doing and why are you interested?” The two became friends and the Captain told him, “Stick by me. You’ll be okay.” Accompanied by the Captain, Petroff learned to develop a relationship with people before he pulled out his camera. Soon he was almost as much a fixture in the community as those who slept on the benches, the doorways, and in the parks. They knew and trusted him.

     “I took these pictures between 1985 and 2000,” says Petroff.  “Most of these people are now dead.” The homeless in Seattle have an average lifespan of 47 years old. Many die from exposure: habitually sleeping outside in the rain and the cold, being malnourished, issues of hygiene and illness, and living in fear, even when they sleep (possibly especially when they sleep).  People living on the streets are more often hit by cars than others. There’s a high incidence of suicide and of murder. Marginalized people tend to be targets for those who would take their own frustrations out on the vulnerable.  Every year several are stabbed and beaten to death. A few months ago a homeless man in a wheel chair in an adjacent community was set on fire and died.

     But there is strong community. People also care and pay attention to each other. Love helps, but unfortunately homeless people are also powerless and their caring doesn’t translate into much practical assistance. Grace is in short supply. Like people everywhere, some are articulate and educated, some aren’t: some live by a rough honor and some don’t. Paul Petroff has many stories to tell about the people in his portraits, but he generally prefers to let the photographs speak for themselves.

This essay was written as an introduction to a book of photographs by Paul Petroff. The photos focus on the homeless living in Pioneer Square, the original settlement that became the City of Seattle.  Paul died in 2007, leaving the book unfinished. His daughter, Joanne Petroff, is completing the book for her father.

Before Solstice

The wind is howling at the door,
putting to shame his cousin
who harassed the Three Little Pigs.
Crash! – there goes another big tree branch.
Bang! – that’s probably a whole tree
down in the dell.
Crackle! –– that’s surely the power line
because now I’m in the dark,
pointlessly clicking at light switches.
Soon the cold creeps in, obsequious,
its slow encroachment, silently sliding
through doors I should have
weather-stripped, then later,
a full-frontal attack on the broadside
of inadequately insulated walls.
I’ve built a fire but the thermometer
drops dramatically, the cold now running 
amuck and the dark is thick. 

The fragile infrastructure supporting us, 
thin, naked as we are without a pelt
to protect. The cat doesn’t mind.
He can even see in the dark all my candles
barely penetrate. Even other primates
have enough coat and I’m miserable indoors.

But there’s plenty out there,
huddled under bridges, for whom
the cold is a nightly routine, though this
huffing and puffing wolf is unique to tonight. 
The battery-operated radio says 
days until we’re re-connected 
to power, for even the powerful
in their lakeside mansions, 
a forced equality, on this cold night.