Nicotine Ghosts: The Vanishing American Ashtray

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As I arrived at Seattle's Columbia Center for work today, I noticed something bizarre built into the wall next to the elevators on my floor: an ashtray.

That dark streak down the middle is me. No, Mom, I wasn't smoking.

 

It kinda boggled my mind a little. Even this sleek glass high-rise, opened only in 1985, knew a time when people roamed its halls freely puffing away, when the smoke of a thousand Camels and Kools stained the tasteful granite and blonde wood of its lobby. We're not talking about some relic of the Mad Men era here. This place has a food court, for crying out loud.

I've also been spending more time than usual on airplanes lately. Sure enough, every single one has a little ashtray built into the bathroom door, usually just below the sign warning that anyone who disables the lavatory smoke detector faces time in Federal lockup.

In time, of course, all of these public ashtrays will become as rare as a brass spittoon in a tavern, or the coal chutes that still stood in the basements of older St. Louis houses during my childhood. So I'm starting a campaign, right here in this blog post, to document these relics of a bygone era.

Across this country, untold numbers of abandoned ashtrays stand on duty in public places where nobody would dream of lighting up a cigarette today. Where once they were the focus of attention all day long, today they wait forlornly for scorched butts they'll never receive. If you see one - in a movie theater, in a hospital, on a bus - take a picture and post it in the thread below. They did a dirty job for a long time, only to fall victim to changing fashions. It only seems right that we should remember.

 



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