MCCC alumna honored: June 1 is 'Mary Bacarella Day' in Seattle
SEATTLE, WA. — One sure way to get a day named after you is to do something extraordinary. Just ask Mary Bacarella. The former Monroe resident and Monroe County Community College alumna recently retired from an impressive career as executive director at Pike Place Market in Seattle and, to honor her, Mayor Bruce Harrell named June 1 "Mary Bacarella Day" in the city of Seattle.
"It was so humbling and such a surprise," Mary Bacarella said. “I saw other people get them over the years and would think, ‘Wow, they did so great for the city’ and I thought that would be really cool. But you just do your job and then all of a sudden this happens.”
Bacarella grew up in Monroe and still has family here. Her brother, William "Bill" Bacarella Jr. is a retired CPA and served on the MCCC board of trustees for 37 years. He is currently a board member for The Foundation at MCCC. Her other brother, John Bacarella, recently retired from his career as a Monroe dentist.
Mary attended the University of Michigan where she pursued a career in journalism and broadcasting.
Love in Seattle
She worked for WVMO, Monroe radio station 98.3. There she met Michael Walsh of Ida. He was a social security rep for Monroe and he would answer questions submitted by listeners.
"Love took me to Seattle," Bacarella said. "He was working here in Monroe and he got transferred and so I moved. We never got married but we were together for 24 years."
Once relocated, Bacarella had several successful jobs. She held an executive position at the Space Needle, an observation tower, and later helped develop Chihuly Garden and Glass, a Dale Chihuly exhibit in the Seattle Center, where she served as vice president of brand management.
“After Chihuly opened and the Space Needle celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2012, that’s when I went to the Seattle International Film Festival or SIFF,” she said. She accepted the role of managing director.
Pike Place Market
In 2018, Bacarella became executive director of the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority (PDA).
“Pike Place Market is a world-renowned market,” she said. “It started in 1907 as a farmers market and there’s a whole history of it. In the early 70s, when all the urban renewal was going on, some city leaders wanted to tear it down because it was old and overlooking the water and they wanted to redevelop it.”
Bacarella said “a very smart group of dedicated people,” led by architect Victor Steinbrueck, started a campaign to save the market.
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“It went on the ballot and it won in 1971,” she said. “The market is its own little community. It’s one of the top things in Seattle visitors want to see because you’ve never seen anything like it. There’s 220 stores with doors, ranging from honey stores and donut stores to art stores. There’s fish mongers and produce and then there’s about 180 artisans and crafters and 85 farmers in addition to a community.”
In 1974, Seattle chartered the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority (PDA), a nonprofit public corporation, to preserve, rehabilitate and protect buildings.
As executive director, Bacarella oversaw the vendors, artists, crafters and farmers along with 440 residents, of which about 380 are considered low income.
COVID complications
She's worked hard to shape the market’s master plan and admits of her many accomplishments at the market, dealing with COVID was both challenging and rewarding.
“I was two years into the job and we were starting to work on a strategic plan that would lead into a master plan because of the changing face of retail, the changing way people eat and living their lives when COVID hit,” she said. “I was so humbled by working to make sure the market stayed the market and came out on the other side.”
At the market, only a select few businesses, like those selling produce and fish, were allowed to remain open. People would come to walk the open-air market. For many, it served as a respite.
“The market kind of became the face of the desolation of COVID in Seattle for downtown,” she said. “We stayed open because of the different types of businesses we had. The food bank was the only food bank, so they stayed open. The senior center cooked inside and moved the operation to give the people the food outside. People would sit anywhere to get their food.”
During the pandemic, one of the things Bacarella was most proud of was the assistance offered to small businesses at the market.
“We gave $3.8 million in rent credits to our commercial so they could do whatever else they need to do,” Bacarella said. “Then, our Foundation, as all nonprofits were doing in fundraising, gave $800,000 to businesses and they gave small grants to residents and farmers. That’s what I mean by it being a community. Everybody comes together.”
Master plan
As operations at the market returned to a level of normalcy, Bacarella and her staff continued focusing on the future.
“We finished the master plan just as I was giving my notice,” she said. “They’re looking for a new executive director to take it into the future.”
As she reflects on her career, she fondly remembers the various jobs she's had like working for the public relations firm Golin-Harris where she handled the Nintendo account.
Visiting 20 cities in two months, she marketed new products. The van she drove was set up like a den, with TVs and couches, and the media was invited in to play the new games. It was working that job that she got to meet Ken Griffey Jr. and her hero Al Kaline.
"I have always loved baseball and when Nintendo, part-owner of the Seattle Mariners, developed a Ken Griffey Jr. video baseball game, I got to visit the spring training camps two years in a row,” she said.
For the 66-year-old, settling into retirement will take some time getting used.
She owns a home in Monroe and plans to return to her old stomping grounds where she can spend time with family and curl up with a good book every now and then.
"I'm looking forward to reading and spending time with friends. There are things I want to see and be a part of," she said. “For the next three or four months, I’m not going to do anything. I’m going to let everything settle in. I’m going to take a deep breathe, do some things that I love and figure the rest out.”
— Contact reporter Lisa Vidaurri-Bowling at lvidaurribowling@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: City of Seattle honors Monroe native Mary Bacarella
