A classic rare one story rustic northwest houseboat with flowers blooming, catches the afternoon sun on Lake Union in Seattle, Washington under command of skipper and chief navigator
PETER HOWARD.
Here in The Floating World website experience the creative discoveries and explorations of one persons love of art and photography while traveling south of the boarder to experience through the photographic lens the iconic culture, landscape and unique creative arts of beautiful Mexico.
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For more than 100 years Seattle has famously been host to remarkable clusters of floating homes that have helped define the town's social culture and maintain its reputation as a place where unconventional modes of living are enjoyed. Although Seattleites didn't invent houseboats, the young town saw early colonies of them arise at disparate locations along its numerous bays, lakes and rivers. Some of these communities, especially those off the Madison Park and Leschi neighborhoods on Lake Washington, were formed by the well-to-do who enjoyed summering aboard their fancy abodes. Others, along the Elliott Bay waterfront, the Duwamish River, Harbor Island, Salmon Bay, Lake Union, Portage Bay, and Union Bay -- were mainly inhabited by workers struggling to stay financially afloat. Because of the low-cost living, the colonies also attracted bohemians, political radicals, and a certain share of criminals. Scandalized uplanders, especially those in middle-class neighborhoods who literally and figuratively "looked down" on the waterborne communities, viewed them as squalid, lawless nests of anarchic outcasts, rowdy riff-raff, and the flotsam of society. City Hall responded to the landlubbers' concerns about property values and views, not to mention underlying outrage over moral turpitude, with decades of land-use battles, health department inquiries, and other legalistic crusades against the floating homes. Over time, several colonies were effectively decimated through zoning wars, shoreline-redevelopment schemes, and freeway-construction projects, but the shrunken-but-still-thriving colony (of about 480 units) on Lake Union, with its increasingly luxurious structures, one of which served as a key setting in the 1993 Hollywood blockbuster, Sleepless In Seattle, attests to the continuing desirability of this unusual lifestyle.
by
Peter Blecha
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
©
2023
PETER HOWARD