For years, visitors to Seattle’s Pike Place Market added their own small contribution to one of the city’s strangest landmarks: a wad of chewed gum pressed onto a brick wall. By 2015, however, the colourful attraction had become more than a quirky tourist tradition. After roughly two decades of accumulation, the gum had formed a thick layer that officials feared could damage the historic brickwork. The solution was as unusual as the attraction itself: workers brought in industrial steam cleaners and stripped away the entire collection.
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