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On Monday, October 15, Seattle lost its cornerstone and pillar of culture, Paul Allen, who died at age 65 from septic shock from non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Allen most notably known as the co-founder of Microsoft leaves a monolithic legacy behind. After hearing the news, I thought back to 2010. During my high school years, I took my first art class at a community college. There was one assignment that I will never forget from both the learning experience and partly from sheer embarrassment. We were to find a local sculpture take a picture in front of it, discuss it in terms of concepts used, and provide a history. Pretty straightforward.
During a trip to Seattle with my parents I visited the Olympic Sculpture Park and found a large and captivating sculpture. My mom explained that it was a typewriter eraser, something I’d never seen before thanks to technology. The sculpture sat on a busy street and on a slightly grassy hill with an ankle-height fence surrounding the sculpture park.
I proceeded to stand near the sculpture from the sidewalk as my mom took the picture. She kept telling me to cross the fence to get closer in order for her to get everything in the shot. I was very reluctant and for a good reason because the second I crossed the fence a speaker started blasting saying, “Get off the grass now, you are being videotaped!” My mom quickly snapped the picture and I was mortified as I have never been much of a rule breaker.
Later that day I researched the sculpture and it turns out it is owned by Paul Allen and is part of the Paul G. Allen Family Collection. While the sculpture is now located at Seattle Center this was really the first time I researched Paul Allen. At the time I knew what most people know, Allen co-founded Microsoft with childhood friend Bill Gates. Ironic to think that he would purchase an art piece that Gates and himself made irrelevant by way of computers replacing typewriters.
In 2015 Allen, an avid art collector whose personal collection included old masters, impressionists, and modern art from Renoir to Rothko, established the Seattle Art Fair, the first and only major art fair in the Pacific Northwest. The fair brought in artists like David Zwirner, Gagosian, and Pace in its first year. Allen also commissioned pieces by local artists, like the typewriter eraser. Allen said in the 2015 interview. “If I can give people a little bit of that experience and open their eyes to the different possibilities of painting and sculpture and other forms of art, that would be a fantastic outcome.”
In 2000, Allen founded the Experience Music Project, Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, now known as the Museum of Pop Culture. The museum sits at the base of the Space Needle at Seattle Center and was designed by Frank Gehry. This museum blended Allen’s love of art with his love of music. The museum pays tribute with various exhibits dedicated to regalia from Seattle’s greatest artists and bands including Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, and even more recently Chris Cornell of Soundgarden. MoPoP also partners with the Seattle International Film Festival and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Film Festival which takes place annually at Seattle’s Cinerama Theater.
The Cinerama Theater sits in the Belltown neighborhood and when faced with redevelopment in 1997, Allen swooped in and saved the Cinerama from becoming a dinner theater or rock-climbing club. As a child, Allen would go to the Cinerama to see science fiction films like Star Wars. After purchasing the theater Allen initiated a multimillion-dollar restoration and the Cinerama is still in use today to air classic and select new movies.
MoPOP wasn’t Allen’s only museum. He also started the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum at Boeing’s Paine Field in Everett, Washington. The museum houses Allen’s collection of rare military aircraft, tanks, and other military gear from the United States, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the UK.
Allen invested so much in various cultural projects that as of 2017 Allen expanded his portfolio with Vulcan Arts and Entertainment. Its mission states that it is “guided by Paul G. Allen’s vision of investing in the region’s cultural fabric so that new generations can explore and realize their true creative potential.”
After his death, many who were close to him spoke out starting with Bill Gates who wrote in a statement, “I am heartbroken by the passing of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Paul Allen. Paul was a true partner and dear friend. Personal computing would not have existed without him. But Paul wasn’t content with starting one company. He channeled his intellect and compassion into a second act focused on improving people’s lives and strengthening communities in Seattle and around the world. He was fond of saying, ‘If it has the potential to do good, then we should do it.’ That’s the kind of person he was. He deserved much more time, but his contributions to the world of technology and philanthropy will live on for generations to come. I will miss him tremendously.”
During high school, Allen and Gates would spend hours at the University of Washington Computer Science Laboratory researching and programming. They spent so much time there they were banned several times and reduced to sneaking in. In October 2003, after donating $40 million to the university, the building was dedicated to Allen and renamed the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering.
Allen dropped out of Washington State University in Pullman, Washington to help co-found Microsoft in New Mexico, before moving the company to Bellevue, Washington, and finally to its current home in Redmond, Washington. Allen was only with the company for a short time, long enough to make him a multi-billionaire, before resigning as executive vice president of research and new product development in 1983 after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
In 1983 Allen and his sister Jody started his privately held company Vulcan, Inc. which not only manages his estate and philanthropic ventures but also an umbrella company including Vulcan Real Estate and Vulcan Capital. Vulcan Real Estate is responsible for the redevelopment of South Lake Union which currently houses several innovative tech, healthcare, aerospace, and fashion businesses. Since 2002, nearly $5.7 billion has been invested in the neighborhood from urban development to public infrastructure including the South Lake Union Streetcar which the company advocated for in 2007.
The City of Seattle has not always agreed with Allen and his company, as the streetcar venture was fraught with backlash because it was seen as a city-supported real estate investment for Vulcan, Inc. and caused a loss of low-income housing. According to a 2012 article from the Wall Street Journal, Allen’s investment in South Lake Union proved “unexpectedly lucrative” since Amazon bought a 1.8 million square foot office complex, its current headquarters, in one of Allen’s buildings along Mercer Street for $1.16 billion. This is said to be Seattle’s most expensive office deal ever.
In 1996, Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring announced he was moving the team to Anaheim, California. While those plans were halted by a $ 500,000-a-day fine by the National Football League (NFL), Paul Allen was approached by King County councilman Pete von Reichbauer to buy the Seahawks in order to keep the team in Seattle. Allen was one of the few financially able people who could pull off this last-minute hail Mary to save Seattle’s beloved football team. Allen was not keen on NFL ownership despite attending University of Washington football games every year with his librarian father Kenneth. von Reichbauer convinced Allen to buy the team contingent on a publicly approved and funded new stadium. The vote ended up being a close call. von Reichbauer states that he received a call from Allen thanking him for the opportunity the night the votes came rolling in. von Reichbauer replied publicly, “Don’t thank me. You’re giving up not only your money but something you prize more: Your privacy.” Paul Allen has always remained a private man in spite of his fortune and various ventures.
However, the Seattle Seahawks weren’t his only professional sports endeavor. In 1988 at the age of 35 Allen bought the Portland Trail Blazers for $70 million. He was the youngest owner of a Big Four professional sports team.
These projects, investments, and donations don’t even begin to scratch the surface to tell the story and legacy of this complex, but polymath man who forever altered our community. Allen and Gates truly saw the future and created it. The world is a very different place due to personal computers. Technology would not be where it is today if Allen did not risk everything to drop out of college and convince Gates to do the same, in order to pursue Microsoft. The Seattle community and the world, in general, is a better place because of Allen’s contributions that we have all benefited from.
As Gates mentioned in his statement, Allen is more than just Microsoft’s co-founder. Allen donated over $2 billion over the span of a couple of decades. A true renaissance man, whose legacy cannot be easily defined when his accomplishments and accolades are so far reaching. Allen after leaving Microsoft, invested in his interests spanning from conservation, aerospace, and music to arts and sports. Allen was a cornerstone of Seattle, he reinvented the South Lake Union skyline. Seattle would not be the culture-tech hub it is today without Allen’s immense contributions.
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