Naming the Space Needle : A Darkening Mystery

Who named the Space Needle?

Who indeed?

I was at a Seattle cafe this morning pondering this problem, a question that has dogged us now for 25 years. Someone asked me a question: "Excuse, does the restroom smell like pot?" Being Fremont, I considered the slight possibility that it was a rhetorical question, but while answering in the negative, I responded with the more urgent question.

Who named the Space Needle?

No one knew. One wag suggested "Edward Space." 10 points for that.

It's not on the internet, at least not under an obvious search term. Other Isengardians reported similar strike-outs. I considered a desperate measure: go to my local Seattle library. Instead, my mission was clear:

Go the Space Needle and ask them: Who named the Space Needle?

It's a beautiful day. The Space Needle stretches to, well...space. I walk in the door of the Space Needle- one desk:

"Say, do you know who named the Space Needle?"

"Hmm, they told us in orientation, I think, but I forgot. Try the Front desk."

On the way to the Front Desk, I ask the woman at the elevator.

At The Space Needle Elevator.

"Say, do you actually know who named the Space Needle?"

"I heard somewhere it was someone leaning over a desk and seeing the plans. Maybe it was John Graham, the architect. "

"But you don't know for sure."

"No."

At The Space Needle Front Desk:

"Say, I know the names of the people who designed it, and the developers, but do you know the name of the actual person who named the Space Needle?"

"Hmm, no. I do know that there's a story it was named when someone looked over at the plans on a desk and said something like 'that's a Space needle' and they took it to the board and that became the name. Have you tried the Sightseeing desk?

The Space Needle Sightseeing desk:

"Say, I've got a silly historical question. Do you know who named the Space Needle?"

They ponder. They ask. They phone. They Google. After a phone call, the lovely, very professional manager arrives.

"Say, we're trying to find out: who was the actual person who named the Space Needle?"

"That's a great question. I don't know."

I asked at least ten employees of the Space Needle this question. They were all very helpful and curious, but no, they did not know who named the Space Needle.

They were, however, enthusiastic about finding out. I have been promised a call or an email as soon as they know.

There is a history of dark uncertainty here - it's is not even completely clear who was the principle designer for the Space Needle, John Graham or Victor Steinbrueck? We did figure out that while Edward Carlson famously scratched a simple design idea for the Space Needle on a napkin - or, in another genuine historical ambiguity, was it a coaster? - the building was originally called the Space Cage, and so the person who named it Needle could have been anyone. Based on the story, repeated twice today at the Space Needle, that this person leaned over the drawings for the first time and blurted out "Space Needle," it almost certainly wasn't the principle architects, who would not have been glancing over complete drawings for the first time.

Perhaps this is the very crux of the dispute over credit for the building itself. Because of the "leaning over the drawings" story, if you named it the Space Needle, you clearly didn't design it, and so if you admitted naming it, you couldn't claim credit for the design!

I am to hear soon who named the Space Needle. I left at least ten people at the Space Needle working on finding out who named the Space Needle. But it has been ten hours now. The minutes tick. The sweat beads on the brow. Are my informers resolute? Prodding into the darkened halls of the former Pentagram corporation, are they even safe?