Seattle: 1900-1920 -From Boomtown, Through Urban Turbulence ...

82 Part Twowould go and stump for it. As a confidant of Franklin D. Roosevelt on these matters, helater became the first administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA).Thomson joined the Washington State chapter of the American Institute ofArchitects (AIA) in promoting a plan to move government buildings northward and tothereby create a civic center. Real estate groups in the south end saw the architects’ plan as athreat to their plan to eliminate a building height restriction so that they could increase theirrent revenue. In 1903, the south-end interests had convinced the county commissioners tobuy land near Third Avenue and James Street for construction of a county courthouse. Andthey wanted the L. C. Smith of typewriter fame to build a skyscraper on adjacent property,once the height restriction had been eliminated. Smith applied for a permit in October 1910on the premise that the civic center would remain where it was. The city council liftedthe restriction, and construction began on the Smith Tower in November 1911. However,voters rejected funding for courthouse construction in September 1911 and, temporarily,the south-end business interests’ version of a civic center. The stage was set for a showdownbetween these groups.In January 1909 the state AIA chapter organized the Municipal Plans League. Withsupport from both the chamber of commerce and The Seattle Commercial Club, the leaguedrafted a charter amendment to establish a Municipal Plans Commission in time to qualifyfor the 1910 election. Voters overwhelmingly approved the measure. Thomson was namedthe commission’s head. Planners assumed one million people would inhabit Seattle andthat 150 square miles of land was appropriate. Thomson’s personal choice to devise a planof this magnitude was Virgil Bogue, an engineer in Thomson’s mold. Both saw the naturaltopography as something to be overcome, not accommodated. The other candidate was noneother than John Olmsted, whose landscape architectural firm always sought to integrate thenatural setting with commercial development, just as it had done when planning the city’sparks, boulevards, and playgrounds. Olmsted did not stand a chance. The code word wasefficiency.Bogue incorporated the architect A. Warren Gould’s 1908 plan for a civic centerwith his own plan for harbor improvements. Bogue planned to locate the civic center inthe regrade area near Fourth Avenue and Blanchard Street. But a clause was added thatrequired that the Bogue Plan “become the plan of the city.” The clause would later damagethe Municipal Plans Commission’s campaign. In the recent September 1911 election, twobond issues were defeated because they conflicted with the plan, even though it had notyet been accepted by the city council. One issue would have raised money for a museumand auditorium on the old Providence Hospital site at Fifth Avenue and Madison Street,and the other would have raised money for a new courthouse favored by the south-endbusiness interests. If the courthouse bond issue had passed, the civic center would haveremained north of Yesler Way and not moved to the regrade, as intended in the Bogue Plan.As the March 1912 election approached, the Municipal League and the local AIA chapterclaimed that these south-end businesses—the “Landlord Trust”—wanted the civic centernear Yesler to keep rents high.But the most devastating criticism was directed at the Bogue Plan. The Civic PlansInvestigating Committee issued a pamphlet questioning the wisdom of topping off the regradewith fourteen to thirty feet of fill dirt sliced off the south end of Queen Anne Hill and the