You Can Kill the Dreamer, But You Can't Kill the Dream: Chopp-Duct Lives On
In my favorite episode of the sitcom Just Shoot Me, Finch (David Spade) tries to score himself a threesome with a co-worker and a model. They recognize his scheming and, to mess with him, give him an impossible series of tasks to accomplish first. With the help of many male strangers who support his goal, he accomplishes the tasks, only to find that the women were messing with him all along. Devastated but defiant, he tells them, "You can kill the dreamer, but you can't kill the dream." (Watch the whole sequence here.)
So it goes for Frank Chopp. The House speaker suffered a bitter defeat last session when his totally reasonable proposal for a combo highway/apartment complex/office building with a park on top was roundly mocked and never seriously considered as an option to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. But perhaps somewhere, in some smoky backroom in Olympia or even Fremont, still smarting from his defeat (and from the fact that he helped shape a budget that is so harsh on the old and infirm that it's triggering lawsuits), the mustachioed maestro is taking solace in seeing his idea, as Modest Mouse would say, float on.
First, there's the movement to keep a chunk of Viaduct as a park, introduced in the Daily Journal of Commerce and seconded on Hugeasscity and Seattle Transit Blog. Suddenly, elevated parks are cool. Meanwhile, little ol' Edith Macefield's little ol' house is now slated for an elevated solution, with vertically aligned office space and park. Sure, it's an inversion of the Chopp-Duct, which features the park above, but, hey, ideas evolve.
Watch and be proud, Frank. You were a man before your time.
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