A steam machine is blasting away the estimated 1 million pieces of gum, but not necessarily for purely hygienic purposes.
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THE famed gum wall in Seattle where tourists and residents have stuck used chewing gum for the past 20 years is finally being cleaned by city authorities. According to the Seattle Times, the contracted cleaning crew steam in protective suits cleaned the walls, causing the gum to melt and fall onto the ground. They chose steam over pressure-washing to conserve the historic market’s brick walls.
Described by locals as an “organism” that offered an “interactive” tourism experience, the wall’s “organic birth” dates to the early ’90s, when people waiting in line to visit the Market Theatre began using gum to stick pennies to the walls of the alley.
“It´s an icon. It´s history”. And to mark the big clean, the market is hosting a gum wall photo contest on its Facebook page. Since then, the “gum wall” has expanded beyond one wall and onto other walls of an alley, pipes and even the theater’s box office window.
There haven’t been any regulations put in place – no bubble gum wall bans, if you will – passed in Seattle though, so the bubble gum wall may make a triumphant return in the next 20 years. “But it also draws rats”, an onlooker says.
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The industrial strength cleaning will not mean the gum-sticking tradition will die, Mercedes Carrabba, owner of Market Ghost Tours in the marketplace, told the NPR station. The cleaning contractors, Cascadian Building Maintenance, are collecting and weighing the removed gum as they go and will have a final total at the end of the week.
