Downtown Seattle Walking Tour
I’ve been thinking that, since I started working from my grotto in the house, I didn’t get to see downtown Seattle very often in the daylight. We whip down there at night for shows, or blow through on our way to the airport or to catch a ferry, but it’s been a long time since I simply wandered the streets. So last weekend, we played gawking tourists for a day, starting at the Pike Place Market. In front of the original Starbuck’s store, we stopped for a bit and listened to a solid a capella ensemble:
Walking on down First Avenue, we came across the venerable Lusty Lady strip club. They always have a pithy, corny, ribald aphorism on their marquee:
Further up First is the Seattle Art Museum, with it’s kinetic Hammering Man sculpture. (A local tavern has a miniature parody of this piece on the sidewalk called the Hammered Man, its black silhouette hoisting a bottomless pint.
No Seattle tour would be complete without at least one stop at an espresso stand or shop. Although Starbucks has contributed a lot towards enforcing a fairly high quality standard wherever they plop down, you can still spend $3 for a crummy pull if you’re not careful. My favorite stand downtown is Monorail Espresso. It’s no longer anywhere near the monorail, but they pull a terrific cuppa. I remember standing at their old location waiting for a drink when I heard that Challenger had blown up. This photo captures the angst of the overqualified barista:
One thing we wanted to see on our trip was the Seattle Public Library’s new remodel, designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. I’ll include photos from inside it later. As a warmup, we marveled at the supercilious industrial chic of this Nordstrom’s window display. All of our paint crews here in Seattle dress this stylishly.
