Читать книгу Walking Seattle - Clark Humphrey - Страница 14

BOUNDARIES: Western Ave., Union St., Freeway Park, Alaskan Way, and Marion St.

DISTANCE: 1½ miles

DIFFICULTY: Moderate (a few mild inclines)

PARKING: Limited metered street parking; pay lots and garages, including a lot at Western and University and a garage at Western and Seneca St.

PUBLIC TRANSIT: Metro routes #10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 21, 22, and 56 stop at 1st Ave. and University St.

Downtown’s spectacular vistas come with a price. Parts of it are almost too steep to walk. (Some side-street sidewalks are equipped with raised concrete ridges, to help prevent pedestrians from falling backward. Really.) Fortunately, there are ways to lessen this burden. City zoning has long encouraged property owners to add elevators, escalators, tunnels, and other amenities to help move people around the hardest hill climbs. All the shortcuts in this walk (including those on private property) are open to the public, at least during business hours. They also offer up-close and inside views of some of the city’s most spectacular artificial spectacles, from Freeway Park’s giant flower-box setting to the Seattle Tower’s understated elegance to the Exchange Building’s deco glamour.

•	Start at Western Ave. and University St. A century ago, Western was the “Commission District,” home to Seattle’s wholesale produce industry. Now its warehouses have become loft offices. A whale mural by James Crespinel stands at the northwest corner of this intersection, on the Seattle Steam Co. plant (an independent central-heating provider). To your right are the Harbor Steps, a grand outdoor stairway straddling an office, condo, hotel, and retail complex. Climb these steps, or take the public elevator just south of University, to 1st Ave.
•	Cross 1st at University’s north side to the original (1991) end of the Seattle Art Museum, intended by architect Robert Venturi to resemble an upmarket version of a “decorated shed,” albeit a shed clad in limestone and granite. Take the wide outdoor plaza steps to 2nd Ave. and cross.
	Pay your respects to the region’s war dead at the Garden of Remembrance, on the 2nd Ave. side of Benaroya Hall. Cross University to the northern entrance of the 1201 Third Avenue Building (formerly Washington Mutual Tower, the older of two towers built for that defunct bank). Take the escalator to, then exit through, the 3rd Ave. lobby.
•	Cross 3rd and enter the Seattle Tower lobby, an art deco dreamscape in bronze and marble. Take the elevators to the fifth floor. There, take a right and leave through the alley skybridge to the plaza outside the Financial Center building. Descend that plaza’s outdoor stairs.
•	Cross kitty-corner at 4th and University, taking a gander at the Olympic Hotel and Cobb Building along the way (Walk 2). Take the south lobby entrance into Rainier Square’s lobby. Once inside, turn right at the signs for the pedestrian concourse. This three-block-long underground passage connects to the Skinner Building, Seattle Hilton, and Washington Athletic Club. Its walls are lined with big posters chronicling the history of downtown Seattle and that of Seattle’s onetime biggest employer, the Boeing Co.
•	This concourse ends at a pair of escalators. Take the up escalator into Two Union Square’s food court. Walk toward a small waiting area with a fireplace. Turn left. At your earliest opportunity, turn right. Take a shorter escalator up, into the building’s upper lobby level. Walk straight and out the building, onto another skybridge.
•	On this skybridge, take a left and admire the stately old Eagles Auditorium, now home to ACT (A Contemporary Theatre). It hosted acid-rock acts in the 1960s; despite popular legend, Jimi Hendrix never played there. Turn right and enter the Washington State Convention Center’s second floor. Rotating public-art exhibits line its corridors.
•	Take an escalator jaunt to the Convention Center’s fourth floor. Walk straight from the escalator’s end, toward a big glass wall. Take the glass doors to your left, out of the Convention Center and into Freeway Park. This labyrinth of landscaped concrete platforms predates the Convention Center by a decade. When Interstate 5 was routed between downtown and First Hill in the early 1960s, some citizens protested. They called for a roof over the freeway, to keep the two neighborhoods connected. They got a small lid years later, in 1976.
•	Walk straight ahead through Freeway Park. At the first path intersection, take a right-and-left dogleg. At the next intersection, take a hard right. Walk downhill to the park’s tail end at the outdoor plaza of the Park Place tower, 6th Ave. and Seneca St.
•	Cross kitty-corner at 6th and Seneca. At this intersection’s northwest corner stands Plymouth Church Seattle, a stunning example of a modern Protestant church, all white and asymmetrical. At the southwest corner, the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza Hotel’s developers promised a public open space in return for getting to build a taller hotel. They built a tiny windswept plaza atop a very obscure flight of stairs (just try to find it). Go southeast on 6th one block to the University Women’s Club, a brick Georgian Revival building.
•	Turn southwest on Spring St., passing the Nakamura Courthouse. Turn southeast on 5th to the Seattle Central Library, a postmodern masterwork. Opened in 2004 and designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, its asymmetric “stacks” allow different square footage for different uses, leading to a spectacular reading room on the tenth floor. Enter at the library’s southeast side. Take the escalator down to the first floor; exit the library at 4th Ave.
•	Cross 4th at Madison St. to Safeco Plaza. This 50-story black box was Seattle’s tallest building when built in 1968 (downtown’s first big privately-funded building in nearly 40 years). It opened as the headquarters of Seattle-First National Bank, the state’s largest bank until it decided to speculate in Oklahoma oil leases in the 1980s. Seafirst was sold to Bank of America for pennies on the dollar. The building’s now headquarters to a homegrown insurance company, itself sold to Liberty Mutual. Pass Henry Moore’s Vertebrae sculpture, enter the main lobby, take the elevators or escalators down, and exit onto 3rd Ave.
•	Cross kitty-corner at 3rd and Madison. Walk through the lobby of the trapezoidal Wells Fargo Center. At its western end, take a covered outdoor escalator down to 2nd and Marion St.
•	Cross kitty-corner at 2nd and Marion, passing the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building (with the entry arch and other pieces of the stone midrise it replaced, the Burke Building, now used as plaza art). At this intersection’s southwest corner, the 1929 Exchange Building is another art deco masterpiece. Enter its dark marble lobby with a gilt ceiling; take its elevators to, and exit through, its 1st Ave. level.
•	Cross 1st at Marion to the Colman Building. This block-long midrise was built in stages between 1889 and 1904, and has been remodeled several times since. Walk one block southwest on Marion back to Western, or take a skybridge at the Colman Building’s north side to the Washington State Ferry Terminal.

BACK STORY: THE WTO

In their eternal obsession with being seen as “a world class city,” Seattle’s civic leaders successfully lobbied to host the World Trade Organization’s 1999 ministerial conference. Despite the presence of many Sixties Generation vets in the City Council and other official bodies, nobody seemed to think mass protests could occur against the WTO; even though it was widely reviled for, among other things, ordering national governments to change their laws to appease corporations.

On what the protesters called “N30” (November 30, 1999), more than 40,000 demonstrators took to the downtown streets, blocking Convention Center access. A smaller team of black-clothed anarchists, meanwhile, spray-painted and threw rocks at chain store windows. Police used pepper spray, tear gas, and rubber bullets to force the demonstrators out of the immediate area. The daylong Battle in Seattle was later fictionalized in a movie of the same name–mostly filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia.

CONNECTING THE WALKS

This walk connects easily to five other walks. It crosses Walk 2 at several points, starts and ends two blocks northeast of Walk 7, and crosses Walk 4 at 1st Ave. At 1st and Marion you’re three blocks northwest of Walk 1. At 6th and Seneca you’re two blocks southeast of Walk 27.

POINTS OF INTEREST

Harbor Steps harborsteps.com, Western Ave. and University St.

Seattle Art Museum seattleartmuseum.org, 1300 1st Ave., 206-654-3100

Seattle Tower 1218 3rd Ave.

Rainier Square rainier-square.com, 4th Ave. and University St.

ACT Theatre acttheatre.org, 700 Union St., 206-292-7676

Freeway Park seattle.gov/parks, 700 Seneca St.

Plymouth Church Seattle plymouthchurchseattle.org, 1217 6th Ave., 206-622-4865

Seattle Central Library spl.org, 1000 4th Ave., 206-386-4636

Safeco Plaza safeco.com, 1001 4th Ave.

Colman Building 811 1st Ave.

Eagles Auditorium

ROUTE SUMMARY

1.		Start at Western Ave. and University St. Climb the outdoor stairs, or take the elevator, to 1st Ave.
2.		Cross 1st at University. Take the steps outside the Seattle Art Museum to 2nd Ave.
3.		Cross kitty-corner at 2nd and University to the 1201 Third Avenue Building. Take the escalator to, then exit through, the 3rd Ave. lobby.
4.		Cross 3rd and enter the Seattle Tower lobby. Take the elevators to the fifth floor. Take a right and leave through the skybridge to the Financial Center. Descend that building’s plaza stairs.
5.		Cross kitty-corner at 4th and University. Take the south entrance into Rainier Square; turn right at the signs for the pedestrian concourse. Take this passageway to its end.
6.		Take the escalator up to Two Union Square’s food court. Walk toward a small fireplace, then take a left and a right to another escalator. Take it up into the building’s upper plaza level. Walk ahead to a pedestrian skybridge.
7.		Take the path to the Convention Center’s second floor.
8.		Take the escalator or elevator to the fourth floor; exit the exterior doors to your east into Freeway Park.
9.		Zigzag through Freeway Park to the outdoor plaza at 6th Ave. and Seneca St. Cross kitty-corner.
10.		Go southeast on 6th one block.
11.		Turn southwest on Spring St. to 5th Ave. and enter the Central Library. Take the escalator down and exit at 4th Ave.
12.		Cross 4th Ave. at Madison St. Enter Safeco Plaza. Take the elevators or escalators down, then exit onto 3rd Ave.
13.		Cross kitty-corner at 3rd and Madison. Walk through the Wells Fargo Center lobby; take an outdoor escalator to 2nd and Marion St.
14.		Cross kitty-corner to the Exchange Building. Take its elevators to, and exit through, its 1st Ave. level.
15.		Cross 1st at Marion. Walk on Marion back to Western, or take a skybridge to the ferry terminal.

Entryway of Exchange Building