Illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare.
In the gift shop of Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour, an enormous black-and-white photograph looms over the T-shirts and history books for sale. A stern-looking woman with dark, frizzy hair commands the group in the picture. She sits, ramrod straight and draped in silk, wearing rouge seemingly applied by a small spatula. A sign beneath the picture tells visitors this is Lou Graham, the brothel boss who built Seattle. The women around her look out from under their glossy, finger-waved coifs with dour mouths and heavily painted eyes.
I’ve just completed my second visit to this oddball attraction, a guided walk through the labyrinth of basements,
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