BEHOLD! The Fremont Rocket. Where, oh, where, did it come from?

OK, let me tell you.

In 1991, the Fremont Business Association decided the neighborhood needed another iconic landmark to add to its growing collection (see Commie Week #1 and #2 below). One morning, a local news cast reported that a Cold War-era rocket, used to decorate a surplus store in Bell Town was about to be dismantled. The FBA swept in and saved it from the scrap heap.

A few years and several thousand "can't get it up" jokes would pass before the organizers would find a way to erect the rocket. In the spring of 1994, specialists were called in to rebuild the cone and add florescent lights and a smoke machine to the thrusters. After a crest was added with the neighborhood's credo, "De Libertas Quirkas," it finally found a home on the side of a local business.

There are plans to turn the 53' high monument into an FM radio transmitter. If this ever happens, the locals will no doubt use it to fill Seattle's airwaves with all sorts of communist propoganda.

After taking these pictures, I wandered into a magazine shop and asked the clerk if there was anything else Marxist to track down. Her response?

"Ummm, I'm not big into communism."

Another random factoid about Fremont: It's where the Red Hook Brewery was founded in 1982.