By DOROTHEA NORDSTRAND

With winter here and many dismal days still ahead, something needs to be done for this city of grayness inappropriately nicknamed "Emerald City."

Whoever saw a sand-gray emerald? Our special landmark, the Kingdome, squats, albeit temporarily, near Pioneer Square in ugly grayness and the omnipresent, neutral-colored freeways do nothing to brighten the view.

We should do something truly audacious. We should change our name to "Rainbow City"! After all, living with Seattle's rain must give us all a real desire for kinship with a cheerful rainbow. Then we must DO SOMETHING to make the name appropriate.

We could use rainbow hues on the numerous bridges that cross and recross our many waterways. A line of rainbow arches holding up the Aurora Bridge would make a graceful welcome to watercraft using the Ballard Locks and would heighten the effect of the already brightly-painted Fremont Bridge.

Has anyone besides me noticed that since the folks in Fremont stood up on their hind legs and painted their bridge to suit themselves the whole neighborhood has awakened?

Fremont is now one of the most people-friendly spots around. Residents there will tell you so, while pointing out that they are now Center of the Universe.

Then, there is my own, personal gripe ... penitentiary-look-alike North Seattle Community College. It sits there brooding in all its grayness. When I attend classes, I am always slightly relieved to be released at day's end. (Wearing stripes would make me feel as though I was pushing my luck.) Let's splash some color there.

With the growth of grayness here, one of these particularly gloomy days, the whole of downtown Seattle is going to disappear into one big, dismal patch of "dull" and we will only be able to find it by feeling along the lines of cars gridlocked on I-5 and I-90.

That wouldn't happen to a Rainbow City.

Dorothea Nordstrand is a resident of the Green Lake neighborhood.