a day in Georgetown cut short
Jul. 13th, 2024 06:23 pmI finally made it to the Georgetown Steam Plant. It's a place where the high tech of a hundred years ago – turbines, reinforced concrete construction, coal-fired boilers – died and went to heaven.
It took me over ninety minutes to get there on mass transit, partly because I was foolish enough to assume that it was on Airport Way, the main commercial drag with all the other old industrial buildings. Nope: it abuts Boeing Field, the general aviation airport. Its access was weird, and got made weirder by 9/11.
But once inside, I got to see the turbine room with its — wait for it — turbines, and condenser towers. There's also an ash room and a boiler room.
If you'll recall, I had an ulterior motive for going there, namely scouting it out as a possible venue for my 60th birthday party. It'll do nicely: there are three main rooms that are big enough, but only two on the ground floor. They have plenty of plastic chairs, a Mackie sound system, and a mixing board.
I got to talk to the dude in charge of renting it out. He was the one who'd emailed me earlier saying to call back in three years. I thought he said that because he reasonably didn't want to deal with things that far in advance, but he has another reason. The non-profit that runs the GST has ambitious plans to mitigate its seismic hazards (!) and to make it more accessible. I'm hardly an expert on the former, but the latter sorely needs work because of the numerous steep stairs. Oh, and since my birthday is in the winter, dude told me a couple of things I'd already guessed: there'd be less competition for the date I want, but it would be cold inside. No worries; I have The Coat, nice boots, and gloves.
I thought of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gfish, who's a retro tech enthusiast like nobody else I know. He of course had been there, twenty years ago, and was allowed to venture into the places that are now off limits to visitors. He's welcome to them; it's a scary-looking place, having been built decades before OSHA.
I went back to Airport Way, had a beer at Georgetown Liquor – the successor to the late, lamented Highline. The vibe is still punk, but I didn't get to try the food (Foreshadowing!) and it doesn't look as if they have room for live music. I saw some art in a gallery called Fogue. And then I went to the book fair at Fantagraphics to see K the comic artist. Dancer was on her way to meet me for comic books and dinner. And then I got paged by work.
So yeah, I've just spent the last half hour "dealing" with an issue that resolved itself automatically and doing little chores that could have waited for tomorrow. I'm trying to salvage dinner with Dancer, who brought me home, for which I'm deeply grateful.
It took me over ninety minutes to get there on mass transit, partly because I was foolish enough to assume that it was on Airport Way, the main commercial drag with all the other old industrial buildings. Nope: it abuts Boeing Field, the general aviation airport. Its access was weird, and got made weirder by 9/11.
But once inside, I got to see the turbine room with its — wait for it — turbines, and condenser towers. There's also an ash room and a boiler room.
If you'll recall, I had an ulterior motive for going there, namely scouting it out as a possible venue for my 60th birthday party. It'll do nicely: there are three main rooms that are big enough, but only two on the ground floor. They have plenty of plastic chairs, a Mackie sound system, and a mixing board.
I got to talk to the dude in charge of renting it out. He was the one who'd emailed me earlier saying to call back in three years. I thought he said that because he reasonably didn't want to deal with things that far in advance, but he has another reason. The non-profit that runs the GST has ambitious plans to mitigate its seismic hazards (!) and to make it more accessible. I'm hardly an expert on the former, but the latter sorely needs work because of the numerous steep stairs. Oh, and since my birthday is in the winter, dude told me a couple of things I'd already guessed: there'd be less competition for the date I want, but it would be cold inside. No worries; I have The Coat, nice boots, and gloves.
I thought of
gfish, who's a retro tech enthusiast like nobody else I know. He of course had been there, twenty years ago, and was allowed to venture into the places that are now off limits to visitors. He's welcome to them; it's a scary-looking place, having been built decades before OSHA.I went back to Airport Way, had a beer at Georgetown Liquor – the successor to the late, lamented Highline. The vibe is still punk, but I didn't get to try the food (Foreshadowing!) and it doesn't look as if they have room for live music. I saw some art in a gallery called Fogue. And then I went to the book fair at Fantagraphics to see K the comic artist. Dancer was on her way to meet me for comic books and dinner. And then I got paged by work.
So yeah, I've just spent the last half hour "dealing" with an issue that resolved itself automatically and doing little chores that could have waited for tomorrow. I'm trying to salvage dinner with Dancer, who brought me home, for which I'm deeply grateful.
