After the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl, the Seattle Police Department tweeted its congratulations and added, “Please stay off the pergola.”
HAWKS WIN!!! 💙💙💙💙💚💚💚💚
Please stay off the pergola.
— Seattle Police Department (@SeattlePD) February 9, 2026
If you’ve lived here long enough, you remember the last time the Seahawks won and damaging the pergola in celebration became a “thing.” Pioneer Square’s iron-and-glass structure, basically a fancy bus stop, turns into a magnet for people who want to climb it, pose on it, and inevitably break it.
When the Seahawks won their first Super Bowl championship in 2014, people climbed up on the pergola, damaged it, and then did a crowd fundraiser to repair it. This thing has been bashed around for years. A truck destroyed it. It’s been restored. It’s been damaged again.
This one is for the people who are on the pergola. Why? Please stop.
— Seattle Police Department (@SeattlePD) February 9, 2026
This time, SPD posts a playful warning, and the replies immediately roll in. You’re the police—why are you tweeting about it? Why don’t you go stop them? Why don’t you arrest the people damaging a historic structure?
But we said please.
— Seattle Police Department (@SeattlePD) February 9, 2026
Then come the inevitable headlines: “Historic Pioneer Square pergola damaged by revelers after Seahawks Super Bowl win.” Again.
Why are we still doing this?
I went to Wikipedia to see where the pergola came from, what it originally was, and why it’s still there. The answer is so Seattle it hurts. It was an outhouse cover. A “comfort station,” a cover for outdoor restrooms.
It was built in 1909. It was restored in 1972. It was destroyed by a truck in 2001. It was damaged after the last Seahawks Super Bowl win. And now we’re back to begging people not to climb the historic cover of an outhouse.
I cannot think of anything more Seattle than fiercely protecting the historic cover of a bathroom. If you want to keep it, fine—then actually protect it. But “we said please” isn’t protection, and tweeting isn’t enforcement.
Sure, it’s pretty-ish. But really—this is dumb. It’s a waste of money. Not every old building has to be preserved. Not every historic-looking object deserves endless time, attention, and repair dollars.
