The so-called “gum wall” near the city’s Pike Place Market has had bits of gum stuck to it for the best part of 20 years by tourists and locals in Seattle.
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A few might not call a hodgepodge grouping of dried chewing gum “art”, but they probably haven’t seen Seattle’s so-called “Gum Wall” – an attraction that’s been compared to other weird landmarks like Ireland’s Blarney Stone. “But it also draws rats”, an onlooker says. Kelly Foster of Cascadian Building Maintenance, which is handling the clean-up, told the Seattle Times that “this is the weirdest job we have ever done”.
By Crawford’s rough calculation, there are about 2,200 pounds of gum on the walls.
Though it has developed into an ode to America’s beloved minty-fresh synthetic rubber, Seattle’s preservation community now fear the gummy display could tarnish the historic status of the Pike Place Market, which opened in August of 1907.
People first began smooshing their gum to the wall while waiting for shows at the nearby Market Theater.
The two-man contracted cleaning crew wore special suits and masks to protect them from the tutti-frutti flavoured gasses released into the air.
But now cleaners have been called in to blitz the site in Pike Market Place over fears it was creating a rodent infestation and eroding the wall’s bricks.
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“We’ll find out at the end of the week how right my guesstimate really is”, she said. It has been cleaned and recreated three times since then, according to Kent Whipple, marketing and development director for Unexpected Productions, the improv theatre troupe that works in the theatre.
