Originally Published – The Globe, July 2001
Under a bridge in a vast city dominated by a powerful empire, lives a giant troll. A short walk from the beast’s dark hiding spot stands a statue of a faraway leader where the locals drink a potent brew for stamina. This is not a hobbit town in Middle Earth. This is Fremont, a suburb of Seattle, the self-declared Centre of the Universe.
Since the Centre of the Universe was ‘discovered’ in 1991, Fremont has become known for a growing collection of public art that all manages to live up to the official motto, De Libertas Quirkas, or Freedom to be Peculiar.
On a cold, grey day in April, a six block walking tour is a great way to exercise the body and mind. I walked east from the colourful signpost that points to the major attractions, ‘LENIN 2 BLKS’ in ochre and ‘ATLANTIS 663 FATHOMS’ in aquamarine. A block from the sign is a cold-war missile that once adorned the side of a surplus store in nearby Belltown. Now painted with the crest of the Fremont republic, the ‘Rocket’ is lucky to be there at all. The first attempt to erect the rocket in 1993 failed, allowing the locals to make a joke about the committee not ‘being able to get it up’. The rocket was finally installed in time for the 1994 summer solstice and the liberation of Fremont.
A short walk north from the Rocket, amongst the pink blossoms, next to the ‘Taco Del Mar’ sign, is a 16 foot bronze sculpture of Vladimir Lenin. Weighing 7 tons, the statue is the only known representation of the Russian leader that shows him surrounded by guns and flames instead of holding a book or waving his hat. Lewis Carpenter, an American working in Slovakia, found the statue lying face down after it was toppled in the revolution of 1989 and mortgaged his house to pay for the shipping back to the US. Carpenter planned to sell the sculpture as the world’s most unique garden gnome. The statue is still for sale for $US 150,000.
I was not wearing a long thick coat designed for Russian winter, so I moved on to boost my energy the way the locals do. In ‘Still Life’, a bohemian coffee shop, artists, writers and students buzzed. The drug of choice for these urban rebels was the same as the Microsoft campus dwellers, caffeine. I was still getting used to the super-brew and even with an asparagus and red pepper omelette on thick brown toast I could feel my eyes jolt open and my pulse speed up.
With the java beans aid I walked up the hill and under the north end of the Aurora Bridge I found the Fremont Troll. Sculptured in 1990 by four local artists – Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter and Ross Whitehead – who won a Fremont Arts Council competition, the 18ft concrete beast munches on a full size Volkswagen Beetle and leers at visitors with a shiny metal eye. As with much of the community’s installations, the Troll is a living exhibit that reflects local feeling. In 1998, when a man shot a bus driver causing the bus to crash off the bridge into the apartment building next to the Troll, a glistening tear appeared under his eye. The creature is also the guest of honour at “Trollaween” every October.
The wind rushed up under the concrete pillars of the bridge and bit deeper and colder than the cement Troll’s teeth ever could. The weather also drained the colour of the faces of the five passengers ‘Waiting for the Interurban’. The cold aluminium statues looked resigned to their fate, wrapped in the sporting colours of a local winning team. I paid special attention to the face of the dog with a man’s face, brought about by a dispute between sculptor Richard Beyer and aluminium recycler Armen Stepanian, the one-time honorary mayor of Fremont.
Trying to rid my bloodstream of caffeine, I walked away from the centre, along the cycle path lining the edge of Lake Union, past the houseboats made famous in Sleepless in Seattle to the decaying metal structures of Gasworks Park. In the shadow of the rusted boilers covered in bright swirls of graffiti I looked back at the Seattle skyline as the Fremont drawbridge tooted, cutting the republic off completely from the city, just the way the locals liked it.
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