The Seattle P-I globe, a city icon since the late 1940s, could be headed for a permanent home in the vicinity of Myrtle Edwards Park, according to seattlepi.com.
"There are still other options that we can and might have to consider, but right now this is the option that has the most traction and seems to be the most feasible and to most closely meet the criteria of anything we've seen so far," Leonard Garfield, executive director of the Museum of History and Industry told seattlepi.com.
Getting this far has been a years-long process.
In March 2012, the Hearst Corporation, which owned the globe, agreed to donate it to MOHAI with an agreement that the museum would work with the city to find a suitable home for it.
At the time, City Councilwoman Sally Clary said the owners of the former P-I building at 101 Elliott Ave. West wanted the globe removed and that it could happen sometime in 2012.
It remains on the building, where it has been since the Post-Intelligencer staff moved into the building in 1986. The staff of seattlepi.com, which started after the print edition ceased in March 2009, moved out of the building in 2012 and is now across from KIRO 7 at Third Avenue and Broad Street.
Seattle City Councilmember Jean Godden, a former P-I columnist and reporter, confirmed that conversations about moving the globe are "getting quite serious," seattlepi.com reported Monday. Godden added that she didn't think it would be on park land.
Godden, Clark and councilman Tim Burgess -- all former reporters – worked to solidify a formal arrangement to preserve the globe beginning in 2009 until it was preserved in 2012. That year the P-I globe also was made a city landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Board.
When Hearst donated the globe, Garfield said the nonprofit museum needed an estimated $400,000 to restore the globe. It's not clear how much has been raised, or how much a move would cost.
The globe was inspired by a P-I promotional contest that sought designs for a new identifying symbol for the paper. More than 350 people entered and winner Jakk Corsaw suggested using a circular mural of the world, which professional designers turned into a three-dimensional globe.
It was hoisted atop the building on Nov. 9, 1948.
The globe was constructed for nearly $26,000 that year by Pacific Car and Foundry and Electrical Products Consolidated. It's 18.5 feet tall and weighs nearly 19 tons after the two hemispheres are joined at the equator. Capital letters in the "It's in the P-I" slogan are 8 feet tall; lowercase letters are 5 feet.
The neon tubes need regular repair during winter months. Because of the design, ice that forms on the top of the globe slides off as the weather improves and takes out some tubing, explaining why the design sometimes looks incomplete.
Decades of normal weather damage has lightened the paint colors and made the parts of the structure especially fragile. Some small areas have rusted through.
Still, city leaders and historians believe it can be saved – and that the delicate globe can survive a move to a new location.
"There's something very cool about the globe being an ongoing reminder of the P-Is impact on the city," Clark told seattlepi.com in 2012. "And on a very basic level, it's a cool piece of urban art."
Information from 2012 seattlepi.com stories are included in this report. Want to talk about the news of the day? Watch free streaming video on the KIRO 7 mobile app and iPad app, and join us here on Facebook.
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