Market Theatre Gum Wall: Seattle's least likely tourist attraction to be scrubbed clean for first time in two decades

Part interactive art exhibit, part public health hazard, the wall has grown to 8ft high and more than 50ft wide since patrons of an improv comedy group began sticking their used gum to the bricks as they queued for late-night shows

The Market Theater Gum Wall in Seattle, on the west coast

You could call it local flavour, but you probably wouldn’t want to taste it. Seattle’s least likely tourist attraction, the so-called “Market Theatre Gum Wall” – a brick wall smothered in up to a million multi-coloured gobbets of chewed gum – is to be scrubbed clean for the first time in two decades.

Part interactive art exhibit, part public health hazard, the Gum Wall has become a danger to itself, as the sugar in the gum has reportedly begun to erode the bricks beneath.

According to legend, the Gum Wall first squelched into existence around 1993, when patrons of the Market Theatre’s improv comedy group, Unexpected Productions, began sticking their used gum to the bricks as they queued for late-night shows in Post Alley, beneath the city’s Pike Place Market.

The Gum Wall has since grown to 8ft high and more than 50ft wide, sporting an estimated 150 pieces of gum per brick, some of them decades old and inches thick. Strings of gum dangle from sills like snot from a nostril. Some more creative chewers have fashioned patterns and designs.

The Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority issued a news release saying the wall would be steam-blasted clean starting on 10 November. The cleaning process is expected to take several days.

The wall has been partially scrubbed three times before, but this will be its first deep clean in 20 years. “Just like you, all that sugar can really mess up the surface of your bricks, er, teeth,” read a post from the Gum Wall on the Market’s Facebook page. “I have to admit, after 20 years, I’m feeling a little icky, sticky and in desperate need of a good scrubbing to make me sparkle again.”

Clean freaks were shocked in 1999 when Seattle authorities officially declared the Gum Wall a local attraction. In a 2009 TripAdvisor survey, it was named the world’s second-germiest sight, behind Cork’s much-kissed Blarney Stone, and ahead of the pigeon-infested St Mark’s Square in Venice.

The wall has been tagged some 80,000 times on Instagram. Kolleen W, a Yelp reviewer from New Jersey who gave the Gum Wall a five-star rating, wrote on the recommendation site: “Remember to bring some colourful gum, your camera, and some hand sanitiser.”

To encourage fans of the wall to memorialise it one more time, the Market is holding a photo contest, inviting amateur snappers to upload their best shots of the bizarre landmark to its Facebook page. Officials have also said they fully expect the Gum Wall to be recreated again after the cleaning.

The Gum Wall is not the only such attraction on the US West Coast. “Bubblegum Alley” in San Luis Obispo, California is a 15ft-high and 70ft-long alleyway plastered with gum on both sides, which includes gum murals of flowers, peace signs and a man blowing a bubblegum bubble. San Luis Obispo authorities have no plans to clean Bubblegum Alley, the Los Angeles Times reported.