A Sticky Situation

The stickiest, you can't take your eyes off it, toursit attraction in Seattle

Seattle's Gum Wall, Post Alley, Pike Place Market

Some say Seattleites live in a certain type of bubble. Today we’re going to take a look at how a different type of bubble lead to a very sticky tourist attraction. Please join me for a brief walk through and history of Seattle's Gum Wall. 

It all started in the 1990s with Unexpected Productions, settling into a permanent home at the Market Theater. Its competitive comic showdowns, Theatresports, had developed a rabid following during stints at the Group and Intiman theaters, often drawing more than 400 spectators.

prior to the show, we would line people up in Post Alley 

Originally, whoever started it, they would put pennies on the wall. They would take gum, put the gum on the wall, and then press a penny into the gum. So it was actually a penny wall. And it just kind of took off.

There were these periodic cleanings because tenants in the alley were not happy with gum on their wall.

Due to complaints, there were periodic cleanings. But the gum just came back. Eventually, someone from the Market said ”It’s as quirky as the rest of the Market. You can leave it up.”

After more than 20 years of DIY cleanings, Pike Place Market management hired a contractor to deploy a more industrial method in 2015. Over 130 hours, workers used pressure washing to extract a literal ton (2,350 pounds) of gum from Post Alley

The cleaning went viral, reaching the front page of the NY Times, The Guardian, and South China News. 

Since 2015, the gum wall has been regularly cleaned to prevent erosion of the brick walls.

The company hired to clean the wall was surprised to find layers of gum a foot thick in spots. 

The alley was barricaded to facilitate the cleaning, and once the gates came down it was a Black Friday like rush to gum back on the wall. 

There isn’t a definitive story of how the Gum Wall started and that's what makes it so great. No one person can take credit for it. Over three decades, thousands of people have, piece by chewed-up piece, contributed to the Gum Wall, which is the ultimate form of collaboration. 

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