HistoryLink Tours

Firefighter Silhouettes by Tom Askman (1987)

As you walk north on 2nd Avenue S, look to your left and you’ll notice the first of three Firefighter Silhouettes that adorn second-story niches on the Seattle Fire Department Headquarters building. The second is at the corner of S Main and 2nd Avenue S, and, as you turn left onto Main, the third is about halfway down the block on the left. The eight-foot-high bronze-on-zinc cutouts are impressive during the day, but even more so when they are dramatically back-lit at night.

Like the public art at Fire Station 10, the works here were also the result of a city-wide funding initiative. Spokane-based artist Tom Askman (b. 1941) created Firefighter Silhouettes as part of a voter-approved bond issue in 1984 that funded the renovation of 16n fire stations and included a public art component. Askman was part of a team of three artists, including Kenny Schneider and Ellen Ziegler (b. 1949), who selected five stations from the group in which to make work. The group’s stated goal was to acknowledge the bravery of Seattle’s firefighters. Fire chiefs, city administrators, and arts committees worked together to approve the final work. The opinions of the firefighters living in the station factored into the selection process. Firefighter Silhouettes were designed at Askman’s Enigma Art Co. (later Enigma Lake Art Co.) in Spokane, where he created other public works for fire stations across the country. As part of the same 1984 bond issue, Askman produced a second, but very different, set of Firefighter Silhouettes for Seattle’s Fire Station 17 in the University District.

Continue west toward the water on S Main for a block and reach Occidental Park. Turn to your left and walk south for one block through the park back toward S Jackson Street.