This day has many busy parts. We about wore ourselves out with the sights we visited.
The Underground. Fascinating story of how downtown Seattle negotiated a "re-build" of the downtown area following the fire of 1889...raising the street level so that everything wouldn't wash out to sea with every high tide. The debate began when the "engineers" who redesigned the streets...and the "business owners" who had to rebuild their stores to keep their businesses going - both thought their projects needed to be done "first." There was a 10 year lag for whomever was "second."
The compromise: They started at the same time.
Businesses were built on the existing level. Dirt would be brought in to raise the street level even with the second floor.
Maze-like passageways were created to allow travel from store to store "underground"as the dirt was brought in...you can see the "skylights" which were part of the sidewalk on the "new" street level. As the pic below shows... a building which was erected before the dirt was moved into that area has rather plain doors and windows...however, the Fancy arches and such are on the Second floor level. After the dirt was moved in...the fancy arches were on street level.
The inventor of the toilet with the "high tank" and chain pull was John Crapper. As you might imagine - anyone sitting on the "crapper" in the low downtown area during high tide, might think it had been transformed into a bidet.
Many of the business in this area use their basements as part of their on-going business efforts. Some basements have been sealed off and abandoned to the creatures of the night.
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