Chancery antiquated in more ways than one

Kirtland Cutter designed for the wealthy and healthy in the so-called Age of Elegance. Elegant for whom? The maids who toiled in dark, dank mansion cellars, and slept in hot, airless third floor dormitories? The men who labored in dangerous Idaho mines enabling elegant men in Spokane to hire Cutter? Or the disabled confined to wheelchairs? The Chancery Building has a sign on the front door directing the handicapped to an entrance in the rear of the building. This discrimination is abhorrent and not to be tolerated. There are plenty of Cutter monuments in the city that wheelchairs cannot access because of historic protections. We don’t need another. So Cowles family— tear that useless relic down and put up your apartment building. It will be a monument to progress, economic growth, and inclusion.

Rita O’Brien Valentine

Spokane