Page 130 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Pacific Northwest

128  SEA T TLE

1 Smith Tower Underground Tour. This
90-minute walk offers a lively
506 2nd Ave. Map 4 D3.
Tel (206) 622-4004. @ 39, 42, 136, look at Seattle’s colorful past
137. Observation deck: Open 10am– and the original streets beneath
dusk daily. Closed Easter, Thanks- the modern city, including
giving, Dec 25. & to observation the 1890s stores abandoned
deck. 7 except observation deck. in the 1900s when engineers
8 for groups. ∑ smithtower.com raised streets. Beware: the
subterranean portion is
When it opened in 1914, the musty and dusty.
42-story Smith Tower was
heralded as the tallest office 3 Waterfall
building in the world outside
New York City and for nearly Garden Park
a half century it reigned as the 219 2nd Ave S. Map 4 D3.
tallest building west of Chicago. Tel (206) 624-6096. @ 15, 18, 21, 22,
Commissioned by rifle and 56. Open 9am–3pm daily.
typewriter tycoon Lyman Decorative brass elevator doors of the
Cornelius Smith, Seattle’s first 1914 Smith Tower A peaceful, secluded oasis in the
skyscraper is clad in white terra- middle of busy Pioneer Square,
cotta. While its height – 489 ft 2 Pioneer Building this little park is the perfect
(149 m) from the curbside to 600 1st Ave. Map 4 D3. @ 15, 18, place to relax and enjoy a picnic.
the top of the tower finial – is 21, 22. Underground Tour: Tel (206) The sounds of the man-made
no longer its claim to fame, the 682-4646. & 8 call for hours waterfall cascading over huge
city’s landmark does boast the and reserva tions. ∑ pioneer- rocks soften any street noise.
last manually operated elevator building.com There are several tables and
of its kind on the West Coast. chairs set out around the
For a fee, you can ride one Completed in 1892, three years waterfall, some in the shade
of the gleaming brass-cage after the Great Fire flattened and some catching the few
originals to the 35th-floor the core business dis trict, the rays of sun that peer through
Observatory. The carved wood Pioneer Building was voted the the Japanese maples.
and porcelain-inlay ceiling and “finest building west of Chicago” The park was designed by
the ornate blackwood furniture by the American Institute of Masao Kinoshita and built in
adorning this banquet room Architects. It is one of more than 1977 by the Annie E. Casey
were gifts to Smith from the 50 buildings designed by Elmer Foundation to honor the
last empress of China. The deck Fisher (see p152) following the workers of the United Parcel
here offers panoramic views devastating fire of 1889. Still Service (UPS). Jim Casey of
of Mount Rainier, the Olympic imposing without its tower, Seattle was one of the founders
and Cascade mountain ranges, destroyed in a 1949 earthquake, of UPS, which was originally
and Elliott Bay. the brick building houses offices formed as the American
The onyx and marble lobby, and Doc Maynard’s Saloon, Messenger Service in a
which has been restored to its starting point of Bill Speidel’s saloon at this site in 1907.
former glamor, is presided over
by 22 carved chieftains.
The Great Seattle Fire
On June 6, 1889, in a cabinet shop near Pioneer Square, a pot of flaming
glue overturned, igniting wood shavings. The tide, which the city’s
water system depended on, was low at the time, and as numerous
hoses were connected to the hydrants, the water pressure dropped
and the water supply eventually gave out. The fire spread rapidly,
engulfing 60 city blocks before burning itself out. Miraculously, no
one died in the blaze, and
it came to be seen as a
blessing in disguise. Sturdy
brick and stone buildings
were erected where flimsy
wood structures once stood;
streets were widened
and raised; and the sewer
system was overhauled.
From the ashes of disaster
rose a city primed for
prominence as the 20th The aftermath of the Great Seattle Fire of 1889,
The stately Smith Tower, once the tallest century approached. devastating to a city built of wood
building outside New York
For hotels and restaurants see p288 and pp298–300

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