Seattle, WA, Friday, 9-27

This morning we went to the Pike Place Market, a massive six-block riot of colors, sounds and people, near the waterfront. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Our second stop was the Seattle Aquarium located on Puget Sound near the Market.

 

 

After downtown Seattle was destroyed by fire in 1889, there was a dispute about how to rebuild.  Local businessmen decided to rebuild on the existing tidal plain.  City fathers, however, wanting to prevent future flooding, constructed walls around each city block and filled in the streets with dirt to raise them above the tidal plain.  In order to travel from block to block, pedestrians had to climb ladders to street level, cross the street, and then climb down again.  (Some inebriated pedestrians didn’t make it home alive.)  When they finally built sidewalks into the buildings at raised street-level, the second floor of each building became its main floor.  The lower level became neglected, rat-infested, and eventually was condemned and forgotten until the 1960s when it was “rediscovered” and opened for touring—which we did today.

 

 

 

The Seattle Public Library occupies an entire city block.   

The sharp angles of the building’s exterior create sweeping vistas and monumental spaces within its 10-story interior.  The use of wood, color and lighting, however, and the presence of books, warms the interior… 

 

 

…especially on the 4^th floor.

 

A Henry Moore sculpture across the street from the library.  No sharp angles here.