Seattle’s gum wall at Pike Place Market gets a cleaning

SEATTLE – Seattle giveth and Seattle taketh away.

On Friday, the final pieces – literally – of Pike Place Market’s Gum Wall, one of the city’s most popular landmarks, came down.

But don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere.

“Like anything else, it just needs a good cleaning now and then,” said Madison Bristol, spokesperson for the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority.

Steam floated up the brick walls made anew and sweetness tinged the air as a crew pressure-washed the remaining wads off the wall Friday morning, the final hours of a five-day hose down. This week marked the wall’s first cleaning since 2019.

The Market PDA, which organizes the cleaning, initially planned an annual scrubbing, but there isn’t a schedule to it nowadays – “it’s just when we think it needs a good cleaning,” Bristol said.

When the Market PDA reopens the Gum Wall, “people will start putting gum back on it right away,” Bristol said. “In the first week, you’ll have a full layer once again.”

About 15 million people visit Pike Place Market each year, and the vast majority visit the wall, which started in the 1990s. Local patrons and performers at Unexpected Productions began sticking their used gum on the wall instead of beneath the seats inside the theater, and the rest is history. When the walls of Post Alley are covered, there are an estimated 180 pieces of gum per brick. The Gum Wall extends about 8 feet high and 54 feet wide, Bristol said.

“I like to think of it as an art project,” Bristol said. “It’s always changing, and it’s a fun representation of all the people that come here and contribute to it from all over the world.”