Posted Aug 18, 2026
Gas Works, in Two Kinds of Contrast
A decommissioned gasification plant that Seattle decided to keep for historical purposes.
Most cities would have scraped this off the shoreline. Seattle’s plant cooked coal into lamp gas starting in 1906, switched to oil, and quit in 1956, leaving behind a poisoned waterfront bristling with towers that nobody wanted to look at.
Demolition was the obvious answer. Richard Haag argued for keeping the machinery instead, and when the park opened in 1975 the cracking towers were still standing. People were furious about it. Now it is the one silhouette on Lake Union that everybody can name.
Shoot straight into the sun and the towers drop to pure black. No rust, no detail, nothing but shape against weather. That is the honest version of this place, because the rust was never the point.
The second frame is the other contrast, and the reason I keep coming back here. Hard steel overhead, soft afternoon underneath, two people on a bench who are not thinking about industrial heritage at all.
