Kingdome Before Demolition

Fourteen-years ago next month the Kingdome -- major flash point in state politics -- came down in a spectacular demolition. A buddy and I were there that chilly, clear Sunday morning in March, along with a lot (thousands) of other people. When he took this photo he must have been standing in the middle of Second Avenue directly across from the front entrance to the Seattle Fire Department. Note the explosive charges visible on the arches of the dome.

The hardball politics played by the owners and management of the Mariners and Seahawks in getting out of their Kingdome leases, and then finagling to have new, separate facilities built at tax-payer expense (all the while aided and abetted by captive politicians) offered the citizenry an excellent education in our flawed money-driven system of electoral politics.

King County is monolithic in the politics of Washington State. You can't win a statewide election if you lose King County by a significant margin; conversely, you can carry the state if you win big in King County. King County was the epicenter of stadium politics, and at the epicenter of stadium politics was the Kingdome.

From the rubble of the Kingdome rose not only a new stadium for the Seahawks, but sophisticated, tough, engaged voters, the kind who would elect a socialist over a corporate democrat.