Читать книгу Walking Seattle. 35 Tours of the Jet City's Parks, Landmarks, Neighborhoods, and Scenic Views онлайн

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In their eternal obsession with being seen as “a world class city,” Seattle’s civic leaders successfully lobbied to host the World Trade Organization’s 1999 ministerial conference. Despite the presence of many Sixties Generation vets in the City Council and other official bodies, nobody seemed to think mass protests could occur against the WTO; even though it was widely reviled for, among other things, ordering national governments to change their laws to appease corporations.

On what the protesters called “N30” (November 30, 1999), more than 40,000 demonstrators took to the downtown streets, blocking Convention Center access. A smaller team of black-clothed anarchists, meanwhile, spray-painted and threw rocks at chain store windows. Police used pepper spray, tear gas, and rubber bullets to force the demonstrators out of the immediate area. The daylong Battle in Seattle was later fictionalized in a movie of the same name–mostly filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia.

CONNECTING THE WALKS