World City Guide

Key Attractions

Seattle Center
Built for the ‘Century 21’ exhibition at the 1962 World’s Fair, the 30-hectare (74-acre) Seattle Center is home to the city’s most recognisable landmark – the 185m (605ft) Space Needle. The Seattle Center is also home to the Experience Music Project, the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, Pacific Science Center and the Children’s Museum, designed for the energy and imagination of younger visitors. Numerous civic festivals, such as Bumbershoot, Folk Life and Bite of Seattle, take place here. The Intiman Theatre, 201 Mercer Street (tel: (206) 269 1901; website: www.intiman.org), produces classic dramatic works, while the Marion Oliver Macaw Hall (tel: (206) 684 7200), is a state-of-the art performance venue which houses the Seattle Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Seattle Repertory Theatre.

305 Harrison Street
Tel: (800) 964 7695, toll free in the USA and Canada or (206) 441 7200 or 684 8582 (events information).
Website: www.seattlecenter.com
Transport: Bus 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 24, 33 and 74; or monorail.

Experience Music Project
The 13,006 sq meter (140,000 sq ft), Frank Gehry-designed Experience Music Project (EMP), with its unmistakable purple and red metallic exterior, has been described as ‘the Jacket of the Space Needle dropped on the ground’. It celebrates American popular music – jazz, rock’n’ roll, gospel, blues, funk, punk, country and hip hop. Items from the 70s, including the world’s largest collection of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia, right up to the 90s grunge scene are on display. Other exhibits include technologically advanced interactive and interpretative exhibits, as well as more than 80,000 music artefacts, an extensive recorded sound archive, film, photographs and stage costumes. The Guitar Gallery’s Quest for Volume exhibit explores the origins of amplified instruments, while the Sound Lab contains the latest in musical gear and audio technology.

325 Fifth Avenue North, Seattle Center
Tel: (206) 367 5483 or (877) 367 5483. Fax: (206) 770 2727.
E-mail: experience@emplive.com
Website: www.emplive.com
Transport: Bus 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 24 or 33 or monorail.
Opening hours: Closed Monday. 31 May to 6 Sept: daily 1000-2000, 7 Sep to 30 May: Sun 1000-1800, Tues-Thurs 1000-1800, Fri and Sat 1000-2200.
Admission: US$19.95, EMP and Science Fiction Museum combo US$26.95; prices might vary according to event; concessions available.

Pacific Science Center
Both indoor and outdoor displays are totally hands-on including lasers and holograms. Though there are many changing exhibits, some of the permanent ones include Insect Village with huge robotic insects, Puget Sound Model and Saltwater Tide Pool, a first alert weather centre, and Body Works with lots of exhibits where you can test your reaction time. Kids learn how an electric motor works at the Scientific Playground.

200 Second Avenue North
Tel: (206) 443 2001. Fax: (206) 443 3631.
Website: www.pacsci.org
Opening hours: Daily 1000-1800.
Admission: US$10 (exhibit or IMAX only); Evening Laser Show US$5, Sat-Sun US$7.50.

Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame
This fun place is dedicated to the value of science fiction and pays homage to its creators. Its timeline runs from Mary Shelly (author of Frankenstein) and Jules Verne to Star Wars and things way ‘out there’. Exhibits include Fantastic Voyages – activities devoted to strange worlds; Brave New Worlds, which highlights societies of the future – Matrix, the Jetsons and Blade Runner; and Them!, which is filled with displays of robots and aliens.

The Frank Gehry building
Tel: (206) 724 3428.
Website: www.sfhomeworld.org
Opening hours: Daily 1000-2000.
Admission: US$12.95, Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum combo US$26.95.

Space Needle
The Needle was designed by architect Edward E Carlson as a tribute to the vision of spaceship culture during the Cold War era. The underground foundation was so huge, at 91m (30ft) deep and 366m (120ft) wide, that it required 467 cement trucks and an entire day to fill the hole, in what became the largest continuous concrete ‘pour’ in the West. Once completed, the foundation weighed as much as the Needle itself. The steel construction followed, using massive spiky legs to hold the spaceship observation deck and revolving restaurant on top. It takes 45 seconds in a glass elevator for one to reach the pinnacle.

400 Broad Street
Tel: (206) 443 2111 or 905 2100. Fax: (206) 905 2107.
E-mail: info@spaceneedle.com
Website: www.spaceneedle.com
Opening hours: 0900-2400.
Admission: US$13; concessions available; free for restaurant patrons.

The Children’s Museum
Kids aged one to 10 and adults that act like them love this museum. There are lots of big wooden cars and buses. Your Neighborhood has a play grocery store, a Mexican restaurant and a theatre where kids can dress up, control lights and put on shows. The Mountain Forest is a tiny trek up and around a mountain that focuses on the area’s environment.

305 Harrison Street
Tel: (206) 441 1768.
E-mail: tcm@thechildrensmuseum.org
Website: www.thechildrensmuseum.org
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 1000-1700, Sat and Sun 1000-1800.
Admission: US$7.50.

Frye Art Museum
Easy to spot, this museum has a tiled silo-like structure attached to it. Founded by meatpacking moguls Charles and Emma Frye, this lovely venue focuses on 19th and 20th century French, German and American sculptures and paintings. There is one room solely devoted to portraits of celebrated figures by 19th century German artist Franz von Lenbach, plus a constant array of changing exhibits.

704 Terry (Capitol Hill)
Tel: (206) 622 9250.
E-mail: info@fryeart.org
Website: www.fryeart.org
Opening hours: Sun 1200-1700, Tues-Sat 1000-1700 (Thurs open until 2000)
Transport: Routes 3, 4 and 12 from downtown.
Admission: Free.

Seattle Art Museum
‘Hammering Man’, a massive sculpture of a manual worker, stands at the entrance to the Seattle Art Museum (or SAM), a striking post-modern building designed by Robert Venturi. Upstairs are noteworthy permanent exhibits of art from Africa and Native American Northwest, as well as touring international exhibitions. Future projects include a new Olympic Sculpture Park on the downtown waterfront.

100 University Street
Tel: (206) 654 3100.
Website: www.seattleartmuseum.org
Transport: Bus tunnel stop University Street; bus 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 13, 14 or 16 to University Street.
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 1000-1700 (Thurs until 2100). Closed Mon.
Admission: US$7, free admission first Thurs of each month; concessions available; special exhibitions may cost more.

Pike Place Market
The Pike Place Market is the oldest continually operating Farmers’ Market in the USA. Situated just above the Waterfront, it features abundant fresh seafood and produce, as well as local handcrafted items. The city’s primo people watching venue, often vendors and visitors are often more colourful than the merchandise. There are also marvellous views of ferries and freighters passing on the bay below, street performances and a variety of unique pubs and restaurants. The original Starbucks, which brought the words espresso and latte into the American lexicon, is located here, as well as several small Mexican and other speciality groceries.

First Avenue and Pike Street
Tel: (206) 682 7453. Fax: (206) 625 0646.
Website: www.pikeplacemarket.org
Transport: Waterfront Streetcar; bus 15, 18, 22, 23 along First Avenue to Westlake Mall.
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 1000-1800, Sun 1100-1700. During summer farming season, produce and fish markets often open at 0800.
Admission: Free.

Waterfront
Centred on Waterfront Park, above Pike Place Market (see above), the promenade and piers that line Elliot Bay are in constant action, with maritime industries, shops and restaurants jostled together, ferries and freighters docking and the occasional seaplane flying overhead. An investment of US$300 million aimed at waterfront development includes the Bell Harbor International Trade Center and the recently opened World Trade Center complex. Many new condominiums and piers are also being planned to attract passenger cruise liners and private pleasure boats. Harbour tours, island cruises and fishing excursions are easily available from here. On Pier 59, the Seattle Aquarium has touch pools, sea otters, a Pacific coral reef and other marine life on display, as well as a new exhibit dedicated to the tide-pool life of the Washington coast. Right next door, the Seattle IMAX Dome Theater provides numerous big-screen experiences, the most popular being the ongoing film of the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens, shot from a helicopter. Pier 66 is home to the new Bell Street Pier Cruise Terminal (see Getting There By Water), where world-class cruise liners dock, amid other attractions, such as a state-of-the-art international conference centre, restaurants and a marina. Also at Pier 66 is Odyssey, The Maritime Discovery Center, with hands-on exhibits where visitors can pilot a virtual container ship through Puget Sound or haul in plastic fish on a fake factory trawler. Nearby, the bare wood deck of Pier 62/63 becomes a concert venue every summer, where artists perform amid an expansive setting of skyscrapers, boats and sunsets.

Waterfront Park
Transport: Pedestrian bridge from Downtown Seattle and all major bus routes to the Waterfront; the Waterfront Streetcar runs from Pioneer Square.

Seattle Aquarium
Pier 59, 1483 Alaskan Way
Tel: (206) 386 4300.
Website: www.seattleaquarium.org
Transport: Waterfront streetcar no. 99
Opening hours: Daily 1000–1700 (30 Sep-31 Mar); daily 0930-1700 (1 Apr-27 May) daily 0930-1900 (summer 28 May-30 Sep).
Admission: US$12; US17.50 (combination ticket with IMAX Dome Theater); concessions available.
Seattle IMAX Dome Theater
Pier 59
Tel: (206) 622 1868/9. Fax: (206) 622 5837.
Website: www.seattleimaxdome.com
Opening times: Regular shows daily between 1000 and 2030.
Admission: US$7; US$17.50 (combination ticket with Aquarium); concessions available.

Bell Street Cruise Terminal
Pier 66, 2225 Alaskan Way
Tel: (206) 615 3900 or cruise hotline (206) 728 3337.
E-mail: cruise@portseattle.org
Website: www.portseattle.org

Odyssey, The Maritime Discovery Center
Pier 66, 2225 Alaskan Way
Tel: (206) 374 4000. Fax: (206) 374 4002.
E-mail: education@ody.org
Website: www.ody.org
Opening hours: Tues-Sat 1000-1700, Sun 1200-1700.
Admission: US$7 (concessions available).

Pioneer Square
Pioneer Square is situated south of the main downtown area, a National Historic District that showcases Seattle’s early history with the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park and the unique Underground Tour of the sunken storefronts. This was the home of the original ‘Skid Road’, a term born when timber was slid down Yesler Way to a steam-powered mill on the Waterfront. Seattle’s oldest neighbourhood, Pioneer Square is full of restored redbrick buildings containing numerous shops, with everything from antiques to handmade toys, as well as bookstores and art galleries. At 42 storeys (159m/522ft), Smith Tower, 506 Second Avenue, at Yesler Way, which overlooks the square, was the tallest building in the world outside of NYC when it was completed in 1914. By night, especially on the weekend or after a baseball game at Safeco Field, crowds jam the many restaurants, bars and nightclubs.

Pioneer Square
202 Yesler Way
Tel: (206) 667 0687. Fax: (206) 667 9739.
Website: www.pioneersquare.org
Transport: Bus or Waterfront Streetcar to Pioneer Square.
Admission: Free.

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
117 South Main Street
Tel: (206) 553 7220 ext 0. Fax: (206) 553 0614.
E-mail: klse_ranger_activities@nps.gov
Website: www.nps.gov/klse
Opening hours: Daily 0900-1700.
Admission: Free.

Underground Tour
608 First Avenue
Tel: (206) 682 4646.
Website: www.undergroundtour.com
Opening hours: Daily 0930-1800 (ticket office); Tour times are during the following hours. (Jun,Jul,Aug) daily 1100-1600, (Sep,May) Mon-Fri 1000-1700, Sat-Sun 1100-1800; (Oct,Nov,Mar,Apr) Mon-Sat 1100-1600, Sun 1100-1600.
Admission: US$11.

Chinatown/International District
Chinese immigrants began settling here in the mid-1800s. Today, a broader Asian community includes Japanese and Filipino residents and such cultural offerings as a thriving restaurant district, a Buddhist temple, herbalist shops, antiques stores and Karaoke bars. Hing Hay, the ‘park for pleasurable gatherings’, has a bright pagoda donated by the City of Taipei and Kobe Terrace (named for Seattle’s sister city in Japan) displays a 3,600kg (8,000lb) stone lantern. The popular Uwajimaya Market is the Northwest’s largest Asian store, with services including a grocery, bookshop, sushi bar and cookery events. The small Wing Luke Museum is the USA’s only museum devoted to Asian-American history, with displays on immigration, the arts and traditional medicine. Built in 1909, the Nippon Kan Theatre, 628 South Washington Street, was the cultural heart of Seattle’s Japanese community until the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. The building was ‘rediscovered’ in 1978 and is now a designated historic landmark, hosting myriad events.

Across Fourth Avenue, uphill from Pioneer Square
Chinatown-International District Business Improvement Association
409 Maynard Street, Suite P-l
Tel: (206) 382 1197.
Website: www.cidbia.org
Transport: Buses to International District stop.

Uwajimaya Market
Sixth Avenue South and South King Street
Tel: (206) 624 6248 or (800) 889 1928.
Website: www.uwajimaya.com
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 0900-2200, Sun 0900-2100.
Admission: Free.

Wing Luke Asian Museum
407 Seventh Avenue South
Tel: (206) 623 5124. Fax: (206) 623 4559.
Website: www.wingluke.org
Opening hours: Tues-Fri 1100-1630, Sat and Sun 1200-1600.
Admission: US$4 (concessions available).

Museum of Flight
At Boeing Field, south of Downtown, towards Sea-Tac airport, the Museum of Flight has a collection of more than 130 aircraft, largely vintage – some hanging from the glass ceiling of Boeing’s original factory, the Red Barn. This permanent exhibit is unquestionably a tribute to the airline giant but nonetheless covers the entire history of flight, from Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and the Wright Brothers to the NASA space programme.

9404 East Marginal Way South (at Boeing Field)
Tel: (206) 764 5700 or 5720 for recorded information. Fax: (206) 764 5707.
E-mail: info@museumofflight.org
Website: www.museumofflight.org
Transport: Bus 174 south from Downtown.
Opening hours: Daily 1000-1700.
Admission: US$14 (concessions available).

Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
This museum on the University of Washington campus has a special focus on paleontological history, with dinosaur skeleton displays and fossils and cultural exhibits of the Pacific Northwest, covering more than 30 Native American tribes and including the controversial 9,000-year-old skeleton of Kennewick Man. Online exhibits feature memorabilia from Sir Ernest Shackleton’s doomed exploratory voyage to Antarctica in 1914, including diary entries, rare film footage, and 150 extraordinary images by ship photographer Frank Hurley.

17th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 45th Street, University District
Tel: (206) 543 5590.
Website: www.washington.edu/burkemuseum
Transport: Take Bus 25 to NE 45th Street and 18th Avenue NE.
Opening hours: Daily 1000-1700 (first Thurs each month 1000-2000).
Admission: US$6.50; free admission the first Thursday of each month.

Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art
This new 6,968sq metre (75,000sq ft) international museum of glass art, designed by Arthur Erickson, is notable for its 27m (90ft) tall and 30m (100ft) wide amphitheatre, which tilts at a 17-degree angle and contains a hot glass studio where artistic teams blow and cast glass. The museum is surrounded by reflecting pools and installations. Works include a 703kg (1,883lb) glass angel and a 152m (500ft) ‘bridge of glass’ (designed by the Northwest’s most celebrated glass artist, Dale Chihuly) linking the museum to newly fashionable downtown Tacoma. The inaugural exhibition included work by John Cage, Mark Tobey and Morris Graves, all of whom were contemporaries at one time in the Pacific Northwest.

1801 East Dock Street, Tacoma
Tel: (253) 396 1768 or (866) 4MUSEUM (468 7386) or 284 4750 (Pierce County only). Fax: (253) 396 1769.
E-mail: info@museumofglass.org
Website: www.museumofglass.org
Transport: From downtown Seattle, take Pierce Transit’s Seattle Express (tel: (800) 562 8109).
Opening hours: Tues-Sat 1000-1700, Sun 1200-1700 (1000-2000 third Thursday each month).
Admission: US$10 (concessions available).

Woodland Park Zoo
The 36.8-hectare (92-acre) Woodland Park Zoo, considered among the top 10 zoos in America, is a world leader in freeing animals from cages and letting them roam free in a natural setting. Exhibits include ‘Bug World’, a butterfly exhibit, the ‘Trail of Vines’, ‘Northern Trail,’ a tropical rainforest, the African savannah and an elephant habitat reminiscent of Thailand. The zoo’s new aviary exhibit, ‘Willawong Station’, is a walkthrough facility with 200 flying birds (US$1 plus general admission includes a seed stick for feeding birds.)

5500 Phinney Avenue North
Tel: (206) 684 4800. Fax: (206) 684 4854.
Website: www.zoo.org
Transport: Bus 5 north from Third Avenue and Pine Street (Downtown) to Westgate.
Opening hours: Daily 0930-1700 (15 Mar-30 Apr and 15 Sep-14 Oct); daily 0930-1800 (1 May-14 Sep); daily 0930-1600 (15 Oct-14 Mar).
Admission: US$10 (concessions available).