District 1 City Councilmember Lisa Herbold shared news about a proclamation issued to preserve Unreinforced Masonry buildings in the West Seattle and South Park neighborhoods

An annual tradition, on Valentine’s Day, the National Trust for Historic Preservation spreads love for historic places through their heart bomb campaign. Heart bombing is the act of showering an older or historic place with tangible expressions of affection and devotion.

The proclamation recognizes that “Significant cultural and architectural Unreinforced Masonry (URM) buildings are some of Seattle’s most beloved community gathering places, the sweethearts, and icons of many neighborhoods.” On this Valentine’s Day, the Seattle City Council pledged its “adoration for our architectural and cultural past while reimagining the future with safe, seismically upgraded masonry buildings.”

Here are Historic Seattle’s favorite URMs in District 1:

The Campbell building in the Junction and pictured below is a URM, you can see a list of other key historic URMs by neighborhood here.   And if you want to find out which ones have been retrofitted already and which ones have not been retrofitted, you can check here:  Untitled map (arcgis.com)

I want to thank URM stakeholders Historic Seattle, and Alliance for Safety, Affordability, and Preservation (ASAP) for bringing forward this proclamation and for their excellent presentation they gave to the Council. To read more about this year’s heart bomb campaign please check out Historic Seattle’s website here.