Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
4
Seattle
I
magine yourself sitting in a park on
the Seattle waterfront, a double tall
latte and an almond croissant close at
hand. The snowy peaks of the Olympic
Mountains shimmer on the far side of
Puget Sound, and the ferryboats come
and go across Elliott Bay. It's a summer
day, and the sun is shining. (Hey, as
long as we're dreaming, why not dream
big?) It just doesn't get much better
than this, unless of course you swap the
latte for a microbrew and catch a
9:30pm summer sunset. No wonder
people love this town so much.
Okay, so the waterfront is as touristy
as San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf,
but what a view! Seattle is a city
of views, and the must-see vista is, of
course, the panorama from the top of
the Space Needle. With the 21st cen-
tury in full swing, this image of the
“future” looks decidedly mid-20th-cen-
tury, but still, it's hard to resist such an
impressive elevator ride. And you can
even take a monorail straight out of
The Jetsons
to get there (and pass right
through the Frank Gehry-designed
Experience Music Project en route).
EMP, as the Experience Music Pro-
ject has come to be known, is one of
Seattle's latest architectural oddities.
Its swooping, multicolored, metal-
skinned bulk rises at the foot of the
Space Needle, proof that real 21st-
century architecture looks nothing
like the vision of the future people
dreamed of when the Space Needle
was built for the 1962 Seattle World's
Fair. EMP is the brainchild of
Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, who
built this rock 'n' roll cathedral to
house his vast collection of Northwest
rock memorabilia.
Paul Allen's money has also been
hard at work changing the architec-
tural face of the south end of down-
town Seattle, where, in March 2000,
the Kingdome stadium came crashing
down, imploded to make way for the
new, state-of-the-art Seahawks Sta-
dium, which is home to Allen's Seattle
Seahawks NFL football team. Together
with the Seattle Mariners' Safeco Field,
the Seahawks Stadium has created a
massive sports-arena district at the
south end of downtown Seattle.
Paul Allen projects aside, Seattle has
become one of the nation's most
talked-about and popular cities, and
life here has undergone dramatic
changes in recent years. An influx of
urban residents has brought a new
vibrancy to the downtown area, and as
the city has grown wealthier and more
sophisticated, it has built itself not
just a new football stadium and a
retractable-roof baseball stadium
(Safeco Field), but also chic condo-
miniums, a new symphony hall, glitter-
ing new hotels, and countless upscale
restaurants and shops. Still in the works
are a controversial light-rail system and
an extension of Seattle's monorail—
although both transportation projects
have repeatedly stalled and may end up
being sidetracked completely.
It's clear that Seattle has not grown
complacent. Sure, it's become a con-
gested city, with traffic problems rival-
ing those of L.A. And yes, the weather
really is lousy for most of the year. But
Seattleites manage to overcome these
