Doug Clark: Wall Street cleanup possible with shared effort

Nothing healthier than a good ol’ walk in the great outdoors.

Unless, that is, you’re following Chris Powell through a particularly shabby section of downtown Wall Street.

You might bust a leg if you don’t look where you’re going. But my biggest concern was trying not to upchuck my lunch when we got to the pillar under the railroad bridge.

It was splattered in a Rorschach pattern with what definitely looked like human feces.

This must be what that “Z Nation” actor meant the other day when she labeled Spokane as “apocalyptic ready.”

Powell grimaced.

“If you touched that you’d have to take your clothes off right here and go home and take a bleach bath,” he told me.

Powell, now retired, is the former head of security for the Davenport Hotel. In that capacity he was known as a tireless advocate for a cleaner and safer downtown Spokane.

Powell has also been my friend since way back, when he served as a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol.

So when Powell told me about his frustrations regarding this neglected section of Wall, between First and Second avenues, I gladly joined him Tuesday afternoon for a looksee.

Powell is an extremely logical guy.

Something broken? Fix it.

That’s the way he looks at the world. So it bugs him to no end that he’s been complaining about this to the powers that be for months without real result.

What galls him is that Post Street, just a block west, is clean, groomed and all but graffiti free.

Post, of course, runs past the Davenport complex. Do the math. There’s no way a perfectionist hotel owner like Walt Worthy would allow poo stains or other urban blight to mar his stellar enterprises.

Powell first noticed the shocking contrast between Post and Wall while walking home after a workout at a downtown gym.

“I know you can’t clean everything up,” he reasoned, “but this is very much in the downtown core.”

Powell figured a little adverse attention in a newspaper column might help his cause.

I’m down with that.

As Powell explained, the biggest victim here is Europa Restaurant & Bakery, S. 125 Wall St., one of the city’s much-loved places to eat. (The minestrone soup, by the way, is to die for.)

Powell pointed to a large round hole, several inches deep, in the sidewalk a short walk to the restaurant’s front door.

There’s no mystery how the hole got there. It once had a decorative tree growing out of it until, legend has it, an errant driver knocked it down.

It doesn’t matter if termites ate it. The sad fact is that the hole is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Really. One wrong step in the dark could snap somebody’s leg like a breadstick.

Powell said his complaints did produce a hazard cone that was placed over the hole until someone apparently made off with it.

The hole is where we began our tour. A few steps later Powell showed me another hole, except this one did have an actual tree rising out of it.

Which would’ve been lovely had the tree not been deader than Elvis.

“It would make some good firewood,” I told my guide.

We kept walking south until we entered the gloomy maw beneath the graffiti-scrawled railroad overpass.

We paused to appreciate where one of Spokane’s lower life forms spray-painted a large black letter on each of 10 bridge pillars.

“F***STONES,” the letters spell. “How long has this been here?” I muttered in flabbergasted tone.

“I’ve been looking at it since about May,” said Powell, sharing the moment.

Welcome to Lilac Wonderland, tourists!

Exiting the tunnel, we were greeted by two bottles that had been placed at the edge of a parking lot. Livingston wine. Mad Dog 20/20 peaches and cream.

There’s a cocktail for the ages.

“At least they didn’t break the bottles,” noted Powell.

There’s that.

We crossed the street and headed back under the bridge. Soon we confronted the aforementioned, um, fecal explosion.

After that, the rest of our journey was diminished by contrast.

“I’m going to need therapy to get that image out of my mind,” I confessed.

All said and done, however, cleaning up this section of Wall Street could be done in a day.

Plant trees. Cover graffiti. Pick up litter. Make Wall part of the regular downtown cleanup routine.

I’ve gone out of my way to avoid any he said/she said finger pointing.

From reading Powell’s complaining past emails, I believe a shared responsibility exists between the railroad, the Downtown Partnership and building owners.

They know who they are. They just need to get it done.

If not, I’m tempted to take some sand and a shovel and fill that damn hole before somebody dies.