[Vision2020] Seattle Trolley Line Has Acronym: SLUT

[Tom Hansen]

All aboard the SLUT!

>From the Associated Press -

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Seattle Trolley Line Has Acronym: SLUT 
1 hour ago 

SEATTLE (AP) - Officially, it's the South Lake Union Streetcar. But in the
neighborhood where the new line runs, it's called the South Lake Union
Trolley - or, the SLUT. At Kapow! Coffee, a shop in the old Cascade
neighborhood, 100 T-shirts bearing the words "Ride the SLUT" sold out in
days, and another 100 are on order.

"We're welcoming the SLUT into the neighborhood," said Jerry Johnson, 29, a
part-time barista.

Some claim - incorrectly, according to representatives of Vulcan Inc., the
company that is developing the area - that South Lake Union Trolley was the
original name and that it was changed when officials belatedly realized the
acronym.

The $50.5 million project should be completed with streetcars running in
December. Underlying the lighthearted opposition, however, is resentment
over changes in the old working-class neighborhood.

"There was a meeting with representatives from the city several years ago,"
Johnson recalled.

"They asked us, 'What we could do for you?' Most people raised their hands
and said, 'Affordable housing,'" he said. "Then the people from the city
huddled together - 'whisper, whisper, whisper,' - and they said, 'How about
a trolley?'"

Since then, Cascade has been ignored in Vulcan brochures that lump the
neighborhood together with Denny Park and Denny Triangle under the term
South Lake Union. With the streetcar, said Don Clifton, a Cascade resident,
"We learned how fun it is to change the name of things."

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college
students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)