The other-other day I was delivering mail when a busted chunk of a NO BICYCLES sign caught my eye. So I stopped and scooped it up. Later when I took a moment to take a closer look I decided to complete the loop and look for the remainder of the sign. When I found it I could see the spot on the wall where it resided for the past 30 to 50 years until sometime very recently when somebody decided to rip it down, bust it in half and chuck it on the ground.
Cue the electric ass bathtub mailman, stage left.
The sign was hanging just above a very large bike rack on the water side of the South Campus Center. Just a stone's throw from the corner of San Juan Road NE and NE San Juan Road. I’m not making this shit up. See red arrows on campus map above.
That sign, not that sign, that sign was painted by hand as you can see the brushstrokes are visible but confident and experienced. A textbook example of hand painted letters. I like to think of a UW sign painter in the 70’s earning a living wage in an affordable city enjoying their work while they smoked their cigarettes. No need to take “smoke breaks” because there were ashtrays everywhere all around all the time.
An article in the 01/02/1972 issue of the Seattle Times said of this new South Campus Center: “June tentatively is the time set for beginning construction of a $3.5 million south campus center on the shores of Portage Bay. It will be built under financing of special student fees. The center, to serve students and others in field of fisheries, oceanography and health sciences, will be between the Harris Hydraulics Building and the old Oceanography Building. There will be food service for 750 persons and recreational, meeting and lounge areas, including a multipurpose room for 200. Unlike the Student Union Building, the new center is not designed as a facility for student government. Services in the center planned are a branch of the University BookStore a barbershop, check-cashing facilities and a postal substation. There also is space for a future tavern, should the legislature permit it. The Bumgardner Partnership designed the center to contrast with the other south-campus structures ‘so that members of the community will be drawn to it’ in moments of escape from their work and study areas. A large terrace shielded by glass skylights cuts into the building mass and opens to the south for sun and view. A sloping lawn with perimeter stairs links the major social spaces with a campus road and the bay, The buff-colored reinforced concrete structure will have a total area of 71,500 square feet. Occupancy is expected in the fall of 1973.” (See Julie Emery, "U.W. beginning last big year of rapid capital expansion," Seattle Times, 01/02/1972, p, F2.)
Please observe no smoking areas and get your goddamn bicycles off my lawn.
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