Folks are poking fun at mayoral candidate Mike McGinn for a press release giving the address of the Columbia City light rail station as Empire Way S and S Edmunds St., pointing out that Empire Way was renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Way after a contentious battle back in 1983.
But I just checked the trusty Map app on my iPhone and it insists that MLK Jr. Way only runs southbound, while the northbound lanes are correctly called Empire Way… and since Google surely would have fixed their maps had they been given two-and-a-half years notice, I can only assume that the Google is right, and everybody else is wrong.
It’s correct on bing’s map.
re 1: Bodda
at&t surveillance thanks you for your i-phone subscription and plug.
Check out the horsesass journalism credo to your (ahem) right. Reminds me of the Johnny Pissoff Credo from Sander’s Truckstop:
I, Jonathan Abner Tobias Pissoff, in the presense of the Universal God of Salvation …
What is notable is that McGinn (staffers and interns) lack deep roots in this city. To not know that once upon a time, MLK Way was Empire Way is right up there with not knowing who Royal Brougham was. Learn something about a city before you try to lead it (to pie in the sky).
@5,
Oh, come on. Are we really going to have a “my roots are deeper than your roots” debate? I was born here 31 years ago, and given that the name was changed 26 years ago, had no idea that MLK was once “Empire Way.”
Unless Joe Mallahan is the secret test tube son of Ivar Haglund and JP Patches, born with a piece of lutefisk in his mouth, this really doesn’t matter. (At most, it would ensure that the staff of Crosscut would vote for him.)
@5 generally I agree with that kind of thinking, but in Seattle’s case the old timer’s haven’t done a good job with their city.
This is probably a good example of someone being just a little too casual.
Don’t mess with the Google. Soon they will own the Intertubes.
Look, maybe I’m just painting with too broad a stroke here, but when I hear this kind of shit, all I can think of is some glib self satisfied hipster (I was one too) looking at the google and pressing send without ever considering “Here I am, writing about Columbia City, a historical district of note and recent re-surging interest, here I am and I don’t know fuck about what I’m doing so maybe I should zoom out a bit and take a look around. What the fuck is Columbia City anyhow and how the hell did it end up with an Empire Way? Hey, I’ve never heard of Empire Way in Seattle before, looks like some kind of a major transportation corridor, I wonder what’s up with that?”
So they missed all that, but so what, sure, why not.
But then, I hear all this shit about lets ditch that tunnel that took eight years of bullshit to build some semblance of political consensus, let’s just ditch that because it doesn’t jive with my vision of a less car centric future.
Arrogance! Absolutely no conception of just how hard it is to get any agreement about anything these days. And then, to pull out the Republican tax canard, make up numbers and pretend laws have been passed that haven’t…
It all starts to smell like a pattern.
Okay, so that’s a lot to read into “Empire Way”, but there you go.
Can’t say I’m thrilled about Mallahan either, but I think some of the criticism is most certainly a generic disdain for living life in a corporate world (like so many of us get to do), and again pretty fucking arrogant. He’s benign, and will probably train well enough. McGinn is fucking drunk. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, just not what we need for a mayor.
@6
Winner! You win.
Is that the best you got Will, awarding a “win”? I’m disappointed.
@ 11
Having been the campaign worker who has made his share of “Empire Way” goof-ups, I find it odd that you want to lay that kind of motive on the poor guy. That’s your call, but it likely isn’t so sinister a mistake.