Saturday/ construction continues apace

It really is quite incredible7-3-2016 10-33-19 PM to look at a diagram of all the recent and on-going construction projects in downtown Seattle (on the right).  At this time, there are 65 buildings under construction, with the total construction cost estimated at about $3.5 billion.   The two pictures below are from my walk-about late Friday afternoon.

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This is a view looking south from Virginia St & Denny Way. On the left is a 40-story wedge-shaped apartment project called Kinects. Next to it, construction has started (tall yellow crane) on ‘Tilt49’ : a 37-story apartment tower and 11-story office building.  Next to it a Hilton Hotel and office complex, then (with the white frames), Midtown21 is a 21-story office building.  On the far right the is the Aspira apartments building (completed in 2014).
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.. meanwhile, further towards downtown, one Amazon biosphere (one of three) now has all its panels installed.

Sunday/ Seattle Gay Pride 2016

The CitySQ16041200 sm of Seattle held its Gay Pride Parade today, and the perfect weather made for record attendance.  The Orlando tragedy of just two weeks ago may very well have contributed to more people attending as well.  The parade is the third largest in the country,  and by some estimates as many as 500,000 people lined 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle.   I made it out there for an hour or two, and below is a compilation of some of the pictures that I took.

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From left to right, and top to bottom : Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, police car, fire brigade truck, policeman, Seattle City bus, free hugs! (aw), T-Mobile employees in the pink, Seattle Mini, Out of the Closet thrift store, the Leather Daddies, Alaska Airlines mini-blimp, Facebook employees, Amazon employees, UW Medicine employees, cool-as-a-rainbow pooch.

 

Monday/ construction update

Here are some pictures from Sunday.  It was sunny and mild, and I went downtown to check up on the construction activities there, and ended up at Pike Place Market as well.

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Here’s the Amazon biospheres .. coming along nicely, not? .. with the triangular glass panels installed on the first one.
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This a peek towards the Seattle downtown waterfront and the construction to upgrade Pike Place Market’s facilities. It is scheduled for completion towards the end of 2017.
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Hey! And Mount Rainier was out, still snow-capped. (There is some 35 square miles of permanent snow cover on the mountain and surroundings. The mountain is an ‘episodically active’ volcano; the last eruption estimated to have been some 1,000 years ago). The Alaskan Way viaduct’s days are numbered. The tunnel that will replace it is now scheduled for completion in February 2017, and after that the viaduct will be demolished.

Sunday/ the Montlake Cut

I walked along the the Montlake Cut this afternoon, on the warmest-recorded-so-far June 5th for Seattle at 93 °F/ 34 °C.  (The temperatures are expected to cool down to the normal average high of of 68°F/ 20°C by the end of the week).

The Montlake Cut is the easternmost section of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which passes through the City of Seattle, ultimately linking the large body of water Lake Washington to Puget Sound.   It is approximately 2,500 feet (760 m) long and 350 feet (110 m) wide. The center channel is 100 feet (30 m) wide and 30 feet (9.1 m) deep.

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The Montlake Cut between Lake Washington and Lake Union was busy today, with all kinds of boats on the water. Here is the Montlake Bridge opening up so that the tall sail boats can pass though.
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Look for the yellow arrow on this map. My location for the picture was just to the north of the Montlake Cut, and looking towards Lake Washington.   Lake Union and Portage Bay west of the arrow are smaller bodies of water, and also part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

 

Tuesday/ Neo-Gothic at U-dub

The weather here was finally warming up a little on Sunday, and I took the Light Rail train out there for a random walk around the campus.  The 40,000-some students must be knuckling down right now in the dorms and in the library, and study for just a little longer : Final Examination (‘finals week’) starts next week.

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This is the Neo-Gothic architecture of the Suzallo Library. It is relatively ‘new’ (as these styled buildings go), and was completed in 1963.
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Guggenheim Hall was built for the study of astronautics and aeronautics. The facility was dedicated in April 1930, the same year the UW awarded its first degrees in aeronautical engineering.

 

Friday/ the maple tree next door : no more

Our departure last night from San Francisco was delayed by 3 hours due to 60 mph winds, but I finally made it in a little after midnight.  The big maple tree in my neighbor’s back yard had been in bad shape (rot in the tree trunk, main branches) for a number of years now, and a note in my mailbox said that they had scheduled it to be taken out today.  So this morning I kept track of the activities (hard to ignore with all the chainsaw noise!), and in the space of 5 short hours or so, the whole tree had been taken down – all the way to the ground. There was a wood chipper on hand as well, to make it easy to take away the wood.   Here is a sequence of pictures.   I was sad to see the tree go, but it will certainly let in a lot more afternoon sunlight into the western rooms of my house.

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Saturday errands

I drove out to the South Lake Union on Saturday to 1. take my old camera to Glazer’s Camera (got a $300 exchange voucher for it, not bad), and 2. to finally hand in the modem that my internet service provider has been charging me $10 a month for.  (More a matter of principle than a matter of saving money.  I’m not paying $10 monthly ‘rent’ for an item that costs $80 outright!).

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Here is the view from 2200 Westlake towards downtown Seattle. The streetcar is waiting for the light. The black triangular building to its right was given a new outside just last year. And the Amazon biospheres and new headquarters are visible, further back.   I believe the new construction on top of the grey building on the left is an office block, not condos or apartments.  

Wednesday/ a bandit did it

I thought the report of a power outage of many thousands of Seattle area homes early this morning was odd – given the perfect sunny weather we had today here.   It turned out it caused by a raccoon breaking into a substation, creating several system circuit outages. The raccoon did not survive.

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Here is a short report in the on-line edition of The Guardian, with a picture of a raccoon aka a ‘masked bandit’.

Friday/ biosphere progress

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I love these outdoor metal shapes. This is outside the new Amazon headquarters across from where the biospheres are. I wouldn’t mind having some of these for my back yard!

Below is a pictures that I took today of Amazon’s biospheres, showing the progress that has been made in their construction.   Here are more pictures and a report from the Seattle Times.

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The outer frames that form the so-called Catalan repeating pattern on the dome surfaces, are in, and some of the panels as well. The white is a molding that goes onto the steel frame, and I believe the panels are actually glass (and not a special kind of plastic or resin).

 

Wednesday/ paying for parking (the old way)

We went to Columbia City on Wednesday night for a beer and a bite, and lucked out with the last parking spot in the lot across from our regular ‘watering hole’.  I love that lot’s parking fee ‘machine’ .. hanging in there, defiant, retro and analog, with no such fancy tech as accepting payment by mobile phone or debit card.   Paper money and coins, stuffed into a slot !

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The instructions may be fading, but they are still legible!  The pay box comes complete with a tool attached to stuff any old folded banknotes into the matching slot for your parking bay .. and if you ran out of numbers down by #60 because you are parked in bay #61, #62 or #63, go back up and use #1, #2 or #3.

Saturday/ tunnel update

The elevated stretch of waterfront highway called the Alaskan Way Viaduct closed on Thursday night, for two weeks.  It is as a precaution for the digging of the new tunnel for State Route 99 that goes under the Viaduct at this point.   (When the tunnel has been completed, the Alaskan Way Viaduct will be demolished).   On a typical weekday some 90,000 drivers used the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and for the next two weeks there will be a lot of extra traffic using the downtown Seattle streets.  For those that can : use the bus, use the light rail, bike, walk.  Driving around in a car in downtown Seattle should only be done if there is no other option.

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This picture called ‘Viadoom’ was tweeted by an artist Gabi Campanarion from his Twitter account @Seattlesketcher.

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Sunday

It was another nice spring day here in Seattle, nikolai-iibut there is some rain on the way for Sunday night and Monday morning. I walked by the St. Nicholas* Russian Orthodox Cathedral on 13th Ave to check on the progress of its entry-way renovation, and saw that it is almost done.

*[From Wikipedia] Nicholas II was the last tzar of Russia, ruling from  Nov 1, 1894 until his forced abdication on Mar 15, 1917. His reign saw the fall of Imperial Russia from being one of the foremost great powers of the world, to economic and military collapse.

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The St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral was built with the donations of the people who found refuge from the Communist regime here in Seattle in 1930.  It is named after the last Russian tzar, Nicholas II.

Saturday/ SR 520 floating bridge opening

IMG_3673 smThe new SR 520 Floating Bridge and Landings project has been underway since early 2012, and parts of it is really for final commissioning and use by the general public.   Bryan, Gary and I went to the official opening of the new State Route 520 Floating Bridge today.  The new bridge has been built alongside the old (which will be dismantled and recycled).  The final work on the ‘approaches’ to the bridge (the on-ramps and off-ramps) will continue, but vehicles (and pedestrians and cyclists) will be able to start to use the new bridge just a little later in April.  The west-bound lanes will open first, with the east-bound lanes to follow two weeks later.

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This picture (from the Washington Dept of Transport website) shows how much bigger the new bridge is, compared to the old. The surface of the new bridge is 20′ above the water surface of Lake Washington, whereas that of the old bridge is only 6′ above the water. (So that water in very stormy weather does not slosh over the road surface). The right-side lanes going to the top of picture, are the westbound ones.
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We just got off the shuttle bus that took us from the University of Washington Stadium station to the SR 520 bridge.
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This is the pedestrian and bicycle lane on the bridge.
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This viewpoint provides a glimpse of the giant pontoons on which the bridge is ‘floating’. There is a total of 77 pontoons : 21 longitudinal, 54 supplemental and 2 cross pontoons.
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Longitudinal pontoons are labeled alphabetically from west to east. There is a total of 77 pontoons : 21 longitudinal, 54 supplemental and 2 cross pontoons.
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I couldn’t resist a picture in front of the big W close to the train station by the bridge. (The W stands for Washington as in Washington University .. and for Willem, of course).

Friday/ more art

Here are a few more pictures from my visit to the Seattle Asian Art Museum on Thursday night.  We have had a nice run of warm spring days here in Seattle, touching 70 °F (21°C) for the first time since October of last year.  70° weather usually arrives only in mid-April.

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This is the Museum’s first acquisition from famous Chinese artist Ai WeiWei, called ‘Colored Vases’. The earthenware vases were dipped in industrial paint, and then turned up and left to dry.
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This is a polo player (I think the horse is beautiful), depicted in earthenware from the 7th-8th century in the Tang period. (Yes, polo was a foreign influence, from Central Asia).
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The view towards the Space Needle from the Volunteer Park reservoir on Thursday night.

 

Monday/ the new South Lake Union

I wanted to go check up on the latest construction in Seattle’s South Lake Union district, and went there with the light rail train and South Lake Union street car on Sunday afternoon.   Soon after I got there, a persistent downpour started, and I had to curtail my picture-taking and call it quits.

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One of the (relatively) new ‘Day One’ Amazon office buildings with a touch of artsy whimsy on the corner.
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The building in the middle of the picture is an apartment block, with more under construction. Many of the new buildings are apartment blocks, so that people can live and work in South Lake Union (is that a good thing, to live so close to one’s work?. Good and bad, I suppose).
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The open spaces are nicely done. Hopefully some greenery will appear to chase away the browns and grays, now that spring is here.
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This is Amazon property, between two office buildings called Day One* North and Day One South, but a plaque says the public is welcome to use it. *Day One, since the technology revolution is in it ‘infancy’.
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Here is an interactive display in one of the windows, with passers-by given the opportunity to take pictures of their mugs, which are then incorporated into the collages. (So of course I looked into the camera. I’m on the far right with black hair and .. part of an old bathysphere outfit?).

Friday/ Bernie Sanders in Seattle

The two remaining Democratic Party candidates for President of the United States are Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.  There was a Bernie Sanders for President rally in Seattle’s baseball stadium tonight. Some 15,000 people attended (a large crowd for a political rally). Sanders was on his home turf.  Washington State (or at least the Western part of it) is one of the bluest* in the nation.  And so Sanders ran through a litany of progressive issues still needing work in the USA : immigration reform, paid maternity and family leave, equal pay for women, raising the minimum wage, criminal justice reform, environmental issues and pollution, free college education and reduced student loan debt, infrastructure funding .. a long list.  The primary elections tomorrow are all about the Democrats, in the States of Washington, Hawaii and Alaska.

*Blue (state) on a political map of the USA means Democratic.  Red states are Republican.

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Bernie Sanders in full flight mode (fight mode?) at the rally tonight in Seattle. ‘Don’t worry, Trump will not become President’ .. he may be right, but I will still worry.

Monday/ biosphere update

I went to the dentist early Monday morning, and had some time to walk around the block nearby to check up on the construction of the Amazon biospheres.   There is still some way to go, but the frames are in place.

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Here is what is on the drawing board (and nearing completion): the three biospheres in a park-like setting, and across the street Amazon’s new headquarters. (The slim building with the yellowish color on the far right).
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The ‘Hello Kitty’ streetcar at its stop in downtown Seattle this morning. It is getting ready to head toward South Lake Union.
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The unusual frameworks of the biospheres are up .. I hope working with the unusual shapes is not driving the construction workers crazy!
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Here is the main entrance to the Amazon headquarters in the block right across from the biospheres.

Sunday/ the vernal equinox

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Despite the drizzly weather, there was a number of people out to take a look at the cherry blossoms in the quad of the University of Washington today.

It is officially spring* here in the northern hemisphere ! .. even though it was a rainy, cloudy day here in Seattle.  (The sun did come out early evening afternoon, just before it set at 7.24 pm).

*Spring starts at the vernal equinox, the day the sun ‘crosses’ the celestial equator (the imaginary line in the sky above the earth’s equator), from south to north.  The sun does not really cross the equator.  The earth spins like a top around a tilting axis, which at this time of year is at a right angle to the sun.  So that is why day and night are nearly exactly the same length (12 hours) all over the world at this time of year, and again at the autumnal equinox.

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Saturday/ the Light Rail UW-extension opens

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The two new stations that were added to the Light Rail system here in Seattle. [Map from the on-line Oregonian Times].
There is a lot of excitement here in Capitol Hill today with two new light rail stations opening : one here in my Capitol Hill neighborhood, and one more at the football stadium of the University of Washington. My friend Bryan and I did a round trip from Capitol Hill Station up to the University of Washington, down to Westlake in downtown Seattle, and back up again to Capitol Hill.   I was going to say the project came in 6 months early and $200 million under budget, but I see that comes with a big asterisk.  The original schedule and budget that voters had approved in way back in 1996, called for a $1.8 billion light rail line from the airport to the U-district, opening in 2006.   Instead, $2.3 billion was spent on a light rail line from the airport to Westlake Station (completed in 2009).  This extension cost an additional $1.8 billion.  I guess it is this part that came in under budget.

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Here is the main entrance at the Capitol Hill station. (Side note: There is actually no capitol building in Seattle. The Washington State capitol is in Olympia.)
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We’re making our way down to the Capitol Hill station platform. The pink and yellow artwork in the rafters is called ‘Jet Kiss’ – an art installation by Mike Ross, made from a pair of retired and cut up U.S. Navy A-4 Skyhawks.  (It is hard to get a good angle to take a picture from.  I will try again some other day!).
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Standing room only in the train. Once in the train, it’s just a 3 ½ minute ride up to the University of Washington station. The tunnel goes just under the Montlake cut, a shipping canal that links Lake Washington and Lake Union.
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The stations feature great tile work, which must have added to the construction cost. But I say : go for it. Make it look nice.
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This is the outside of the station at the University of Washington. The platform here
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This is the platform at the station at the University of Washington. The platform here can handle some 1,500 people – for those occasions when there is a football game at the stadium by the station.
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From the University of Washington Station, we went southbound back to Capitol Hill, and then stayed on the train to see the new section to the existing Westlake station. This is a new train car called ‘UW Station’ arriving at Westlake station, painted in a beautiful silver and purple.
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And here we have made it back full circle to Capitol Hill station, and we’re coming up the escalator to the ‘Walking Fingers’ artwork by local cartoonist Ellen Forney, professor at Cornish College of the Arts here in Seattle.