Thursday, July 28, 2011

Postcard: SLO's Original Bubble Gum Alley

2011-07-29 by Seattle Daily Photo
Photo & Text © 2011 Seattle Daily Photo. All rights reserved. No use, reproduction, alteration, "pinning" on visual collections websites or republishing in any media.
Many Seattle Daily Photo visitors have mentioned how unusual and gross they find the Market Street Theater Gum Wall started in Post Alley in the 1990's to be. This, however, is the granddaddy of all gum walls. It was started in the 1950s in San Luis Obispo, California. The small central coast college and mission town has a narrow alley off Higuerra Street that attracted a gum collection of amazing thickness and age (I learned it has been cleaned off twice at the request of the camber of commerce and this latest collection is only from the early 90s on). Of course we just had to find it. The under layers are. . .ah, shall we say rather black and grody. Several children came through as we watched and matter of factly plopped wads of gum low on the wall, as if it were daily habit. Ew factor. . .pretty big :-). Instead of pennies, people stick their business cards and gum wrappers to the gum. Lots of spontaneous, ah, art, I think.

6 comments:

Matteo said...

So I finally get to visit Seattle after drooling over your pictures for years and you are out of town! What a bummer! Hope you're enjoying your vacation!

Pat said...

I was in SLO this summer! Did you find my gum?

Montreal Photo Daily said...

Never heard of such a thing... ew! yuk!
Always fun to learn something new here, Kim.
Have a great weekend.

Anonymous said...

I've heard that CA had the first gum wall... haven't had the opportunity to smell, I meant see it! Hope you visited in the cool of the day! :-)

brattcat said...

this idea of gum-walls has intrigued me since you introduced us to it several years ago. even you sound impressed with this one, kim.

kelsey said...

i live 5 minute away from that! haha