Category: Seattle

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Monday/ it’s very chilly

Seattle had 6 in. (15.2 cm) of snow as the sun came up this morning, and that was it, for now.
The sun was out in full force this morning for an hour or so.
The snow on my roof melted and was quickly made into icicles.
The high for the day was only 25 °F (-4 °C).

Looking east towards the Space Needle from 14th Avenue & Thomas, just as it was getting dark.
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Sunday/ a White Christmas– a day late

I measured 3.5 in (9 cm) of snow on the rail along the deck in my backyard at about 1 pm today.
We might get another 3 inches the next day or two, I think.

There were snow flurries all morning. Mr Squirrel came down from the tree, and ran in the snow along the top of the fence, even though it was just 25 °F (−4 °C) outside.
Here’s 15th Avenue and Republican.
Nice to have a Jeep to drive in the snow. Uncle Ike’s pot shop is open, as is the Hopvine bar, which is where the two guys on the right were headed. I guess they wanted to get out of the house.
This is 16th Avenue at Republican.
I spotted a snow plow truck last night, spewing salt onto some of the arterial roads to keep them clear as long as possible. I suspect that no longer works with 3+ inches of snow and freezing temperatures.
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Sunday/ Olympic Sculpture Park

The skies were a beautiful blue today, and I went out to Olympic Sculpture Park to take a few pictures.

I parked by the pedestrian bridge on 3rd Ave West. This is a look back at the Queen Anne Beer Hall and the Space Needle from the bridge. I have not been to this Beer Hall; so I am putting it on my post-pandemic to-do list. Quaff a few beers at Queen Anne Beer Hall.
Looking north after crossing the pedestrian bridge.
A closer look at the artwork called Adjacent, Against, Upon (1976) by Michael Heizer. The granite slabs were quarried in the North Cascades. (This is Myrtle Edwards Park, on the way to Olympic Sculpture Park).
The north entrance and ramp to Olympic Sculpture Park, with a long slanted pedestrian bridge that straddles the railway on the left.
The Eagle (1971) by Alexander Calder.
This bench is called Mary’s Invitation: A Place to Regard Beauty by Ginny Ruffner (2014), in honor of Mary Shirley, a benefactor of Olympic Sculpture Park.
Wake (2004) by Richard Serra has five gently S-curved iron structures.
The cafeteria and indoor space called Paccar Pavilion is closed. The steps in front of it is called the Bill & Melinda Gates Amphitheater.
What is nature, and what is art?
Split (2003) by Roxy Paine, a tree made of stainless steel tubes of 20 different diameters.
Making my way back around the south end of the Park, with the south of the staircase going to the slanted bridge across the railway. SAM stands for Seattle Art Museum.
Echo by Jaume Plensa (2011), a Barcelona-based artist. The sculpture’s title refers to a mountain nymph in Greek mythology that had offended the goddess Hera. As punishment the nymph was deprived of speech, except for the ability to echo the last word of another, spoken to her.
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Saturday/ tourists at the Space Needle

My brother, visiting from California, made for the perfect reason to go and check out the Space Needle again.
The Needle had undergone a refurbishment inside and out, during 2017 and 2018, and I had not been up to the observation deck since that time.

There is a nice gallery of photos lining the walkway up to the elevator that goes to the observation deck. If 1962 was the future (during the 1962 World Fair in Seattle), we are definitely now in the future, as well.
The construction of the Space Needle.
A Space Needle in the Space Needle. (It’s made of LEGO bricks). We did our vaccination check outside and are now on our way to the ticket check and the free Space Needle photo with the fake background.
Here’s the picture with the fake background. My hair is a little windswept but that’s OK. That cityscape behind us needs a little updating, though. Multiple new skyscrapers to the city skyline had been added over the last 10 years.
Going up in the elevator. 100% fresh air says the sign; we have our masks on and we are also in the NO TALKING ZONE (!) says the sticker on the frame on the right.
Beautiful blue skies. I’m looking almost north, through a thick glass pane on the observation deck, out over Elliot Bay in Puget Sound. That’s the square roof of Climate Pledge Arena in the foreground. There is a reflection of the spire of the Space Needle in the middle of the picture, with the Christmas light bulb strands.
There is a staircase down to the rotating glass floor of the Needle. Eek. 
One more picture of the observation deck. It was cold outside, but great to get a break from wearing a mask.
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Tuesday/ a recall vote

Yay! Vote canvassers will stop knocking on my door for a while, and stop harassing me when I walk along 15th Avenue.
The recall vote for controversial socialist Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant finally drew to a close today. The vote counting started tonight. (We vote by mail, so people in Seattle’s District 3 have been voting ever since they got their ballots in the mail more than two weeks ago).

The votes in favor of recalling Sawant is leading with a significant margin. The last-day votes (those that came in today) are said to typically be from younger people, that would vote against the recall, so there is still a little hope for Sawant to prevail. I am not a fervent Sawant supporter, but it will be a step back the progressive movement if she is recalled. It’s just that things got out of hand last year with the Black Lives Matter protests, on top of the pandemic, all against a backdrop of a swelling homeless population in the city. The challenges to the City Council and law enforcement are substantial, and the solutions are not obvious.
Update Wed 12/8: Another batch of vote counts was released, and the YES and NO votes are now essentially even (separated by a few hundred votes).
{Tweets by Brandi Kruse @BrandiKruse on Twitter]
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Monday/ a late night grocery run

There was a flyer in the mail today from Amazon, offering $20 off on $50 of groceries —but with a Thanksgiving expiration date.
It’s worth a try, I thought, and ran out to the Amazon Fresh store for stuff I needed anyway. But no, there was a red error message on my smart shopping cart: the coupon had expired.

Nary a soul in sight in the parking garage by the Amazon Fresh store on 23rd and Jackson. There are people in the store, of course. A human checked my ID for the beer I had bought (why? Amazon must know my age; the credit card company certainly does). The smart carts are not allowed out of the store, so I put my two heavy bags in a regular little cart to get it to the car.
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Sunday/ sunny and ‘cold’

It was sunny and ‘cold’ (I guess one could say ‘brisk’) today with a high of only 42°F (5.5°C).

Here’s a few minutes after sunset (4.18 pm), looking towards the Space Needle from the corner of 14th Avenue & Thomas St. Those are the Olympic mountains in the distance (on the Olympic Peninsula). The two peaks towards the right are The Brothers*, with the south peak at 6,842 ft (2,085 m) a little higher (by 192 ft/ 59 m) than the north peak. There are no official trails to these summits, but the south peak is considered a non-technical climb (meaning no equipment such as body harness, rope, crampons, or ice tools are needed). Good to know, but no thank you!
*Not the highest peaks in the Olympic Mountains; Mount Olympus peak is at 7,963′ (2,430 m) elevation.
[Information from Wikipedia]
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Wednesday/ it’s December

Hey, it’s December.
The sands of time for 2021 are running out rapidly.
Seattleites have to hang in there a few more weeks before the black nights that come so quickly, ease up and become shorter again.

I find it hard to resist taking a picture of a neon sign. I love this 3-D one by Broadcast apartments on Madison Avenue, with all its circles.
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Tuesday/ quick trip to U District

It was already dark when I walked down to the Capitol Hill light rail station tonight.
From there I took the train to the U District stop to the Neptune Company record store, just a hundred steps away from the train station exit.

Top to bottom:
Northbound train at Capitol Hill station.
Southbound platform, U District Station.
Southbound train, U District station.
Capitol Hill station plaza.

 

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Sunday/ the tree is up, on the Needle

It rained most of the day, but it cleared up as night fell.
I made a run down to the Space Needle to take a few pictures of the ‘Christmas tree’ on it.
I went up Queen Anne hill for a few pictures, as well.

Here’s the monorail train at 5th Ave and John St, streaking towards Westlake Center. This is one of its last runs for the day. It stops running at 9 pm, I believe.
The ‘Christmas Tree’ with its red aviation beacon is up on the Needle.
A look from from below through the bare trees (grabbing at it with long bony fingers?) at Seattle Center. The golden elevator cage is all the way up, at the top.
The arches at Pacific Science Center, nicely lit up in white.
The trees on Thomas Street alongside Climate Pledge Arena are nicely dressed up in holiday lights. Many inside Seattle Center have been decorated as well.
Climate Pledge Arena, of course. That radio tower in the distance with the colored lights and beacon on, is on Queen Anne hill. ‘Well, I will have to go and take a closer look at it’, I thought, and I did. (Picture is below).
Making my way back to where I had parked my car. This 24-hour McDonalds is right by the Space Needle.
Posters on the fence by the McDonalds. A blue gloved hand is about to grab the mortified monkey. National Primate Research Centers are a network of seven research programs in the United States funded by the National Institutes of Health to conduct biomedical research on primates. One of them is affiliated with the University of Washington here in Seattle.
So should humans torture monkeys in the name of research? No, we should not, but we do. We should also not make weapons to kill each other with. We should also not destroy Earth.
All right. Now I have navigated up Queen Anne hill, to the KING-TV Tower (decorated with its Christmas lights) that I had seen from Seattle Center. The first television broadcast in Pacific Northwest history was transmitted from this location on Nov. 25, 1948 as Channel 5 KRSC-TV (becoming KING-TV 8 months later). The station went on the air with a live high school football game on Thanksgiving Day between West Seattle High and Wenatchee at Memorial Stadium.
This tower was constructed a few years later, in 1952, and stands 570 ft (174m) tall. The site itself is 430 ft (131 m) above sea level.
My final stop was at Kerry Park in Queen Anne, a popular view point for taking in vistas of downtown Seattle and the ferries that come in from across the Sound. The green roof of Climate Pledge Arena is new, of course, and to its right is half of the Ferris wheel at the waterfront with the pink of T-Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners baseball team. I’m using my Canon EOS 7D Mk II digital camera and zoom lens, and it’s doing OK. I would love a medium format DSLR to catch just a little more detail !
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Tuesday/ Snoqualmie Falls

I drove out to Snoqualmie Falls today.
The falls are only some 30 miles east from Seattle as the crow flies, but a 40-minute drive.
Snoqualmie Falls has a 268-foot (82 m) drop, and is by far the most famous waterfall in Washington State. It draws a million visitors a year.

The Snoqualmie River is a 45-mile/72 km-long river in King County and Snohomish County in Washington State. The Snoqualmie River is part of the Snohomish Watershed, on the  west side of the Cascades. The Snoqualmie runs into the Snohomish River, which empties into Puget Sound at Everett. [Map from Wikipedia, made using USGS National Map data]
Snoqualmie Falls seen from the high view point farthest from the lodge. (There is a trail to the bank of the river down below for a different view, but a sign said that the trail is closed). That’s the Salish Lodge & Spa on the left, and parts of the Snoqualmie Falls Hydroelectric Plant are visible on the opposite bank (middle of the picture).
[iPhone 13 Pro picture, standard lens]
 

A closer look at the power plant. It consists of two power houses. Plant 1 is underground (installed capacity 13.7 MW) and was completed in 1899, and the picture shows Plant 2 (40.2 MW) which was completed in 1910, for a total installed capacity of 53.9 MW.
[Canon EOS 7D Mk II, telephoto lens]
Most of the pictures that I took were spoiled by the persistent mist and water droplets from the thundering falls down below. The large lens of my big digital camera kept getting fogged up and downright wet. My iPhone with its tiny lens openings worked better under these conditions. At this time of day (early afternoon) the sun sits in the wrong place for an evenly-lit picture, but hey, you work with what you have. The lens flares even have little rainbows in them.
[iPhone 13 Pro, Wide-angle lens]

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Wednesday/ night mode

I took these pictures on 15th Avenue here on Capitol Hill tonight with my iPhone 13Pro. Perfectly lit and sharp night pictures are really hard to take with my big Canon EOS 7D Mk II  DSLR camera— even when using its automatic program mode.

Here’s how Apple described what happens in ‘night mode’ when it debuted on iPhone11 (it’s a lot!):
‘Night mode comes on automatically when needed — say, in a candlelit restaurant. When you tap the shutter, the camera takes multiple images while optical image stabilization steadies the lens.
Then the camera software goes to work. It aligns images to correct for movement. It discards the sections with too much blur and fuses sharper ones. It adjusts contrast so everything stays in balance. It fine‑tunes colors so they look natural. Then it intelligently de‑noises and enhances details to produce the final image.
It all adds up to night shots that stand apart — with more detail, less noise, and an authentic sense of time and place’.

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Sunday/ darkness comes quickly

There was a break in the weather by 3 this afternoon, and I went down to Pike Place Market just to get out of the house for a while.
It is skull cap, scarf and glove time: 44 °F (7 °C) with a little wind chill.

Here comes the marine vessel (ferry)Tacoma from Bainbridge Island— it must have been the 2.55 pm sailing. The crossing is about 35 mins, and the time stamp on this photo was 4.38 pm*.
*Which is really 3.38 pm Pacific Standard Time. I forgot to turn off the Daylight Saving Time setting in my big Canon DSLR camera (it has no built-in Wi-Fi).
Upstairs from the viewing deck at Pike Place Market. The Mountain is not out (Mount Rainier), but there is a little blue sky. Finishing up the waterfront space that opened up with the demolition of the Alaska Way Viaduct is coming along. That speck at the top left is a Delta Airlines plane on the way to Seattle-Tacoma airport.
Now I walk down First Ave. for a bit. Here’s the Seattle Art Museum. See the 3-D optical illusion/’please slow down’ island in the intersection? I like it, but I wonder how many motorists notice it.
Qualtrics Tower, formerly known as 2+U and 2&U, is looking good, sitting on its massive V-shaped pillars. Its 37 floors were all leased out by September 2019, but I’m sure it has yet to fill back up again with workers and tenants.
There is a variety of ‘Welcome Back to Your Seattle’ signs adorning the lamp posts in downtown. This one is cute.
I like this one, too. A leaf happened to be stuck right on the swoosh line running around the Space Needle and skyscrapers.
The ten-story building (at 400 University St, on the southwest corner of the city block with the new Rainier Square Tower), is now complete as well.
Hey! Macy’s the store is gone, but the building is there*, and so is its iconic 160-ft tall star. If I’m not mistaken, it was switched on early this year.
*A real estate firm bought the building for $580 million earlier this year.
These lights lining Fourth Avenue came on just as I turned around (and just in time to better see those approaching e-scooter riders).
I was aiming to catch the No 10 bus at the old Convention Center building, but it rumbled by me while I was still a block away from the stop. I didn’t want to wait 20 mins for the next one, and ended up walking up to Capitol Hill.
Here’s Broadway. It’s 5 o’clock and the sun has been gone a good 15 minutes. A fat rat scurried away from me up ahead and disappeared into the little bit of greenery on the sidewalk.
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Monday/ a closer look at Climate Pledge Arena

Sunday was a beautiful blue-sky day.
I took the No 10 bus to Westlake Center, and from there, the Monorail to the Space Needle, so that I could walk around  Climate Pledge Arena.

Just departed West Lake Center on the monorail train. Look for the Space Needle in the distance.
Arrived at the Space Needle. Climate Pledge Arena is just a short walk away.
I walked through the Seattle Armory building on the way to the Arena. Originally built in 1939 as the old Armory Building, it housed the 146th Field Artillery and its half-ton tanks. It now houses a food court and a little bit of some entertainment for families (games to play and a few TV screens).
The trees are bare — and the shadows are already long, even though it’s only 3.15 pm or so! The Pacific Science Center in the distance.
Food vendors at Seattle Center are connecting their offerings to the new Seattle Kraken franchise.
All right, here is the first view of the Climate Pledge Arena, this from its southeast corner.
Looking back at the Space Needle. The Arena and the Needle were both conceived and constructed for the 1962 World’s Fair.
Rounding the corner to the side facing 1st Ave N in Uptown, the neighborhood just south of Queen Anne. The roof looks heavy and is heavy: 44 million pounds or 22,000 tons (20 million kg or 20,000 metric tons).
Mt Baker (10,781′/ 3 286 m) is up north in Washington State near the Canadian border. The mosaic artwork is by artists Laura Hadad and Tom Drugan. That would be the Stanley Cup, and ribbons and rainbows morphing into tentacles, lashing at an ill-fated wooden ship on the oceans.
The center support beams, seen from 1st Ave N.
These black window frames (and window panes, I think) from the old Key Arena were salvaged and reused.
From the north side, one can stand on a low wall and peer into the bowl with the ice-rink bottom. The enormous LCD screen (46 ft wide by 25 ft high) is playing clips of local interest, and commercials. Just a few hours later, at 6.00 pm, the Seattle Kraken took on the New York Rangers right there on the ice. The Kraken lost 1-3.
Almost back to the corner where I had started.
Looking back at the Arena, as I enter Seattle Center park to walk back to the Monorail station.
Beautiful Art Deco entrance to the Armory building.
And here is the monorail train that will run back to Westlake Center. It’s just 1.3 miles, and there are two trains, so they arrive and depart every two minutes or so from each end.
Arriving at Westlake Center, and peeking through the skylight before stepping off the train. On the right is the new 58-story Rainier Square Tower, 850-foot (260 m) tall.
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Friday/ walking along Broadway

I took the No 12 bus to the hairdresser today. We only got to 51°F (11°C) today, but the rain had stopped, and I walked back home from there. Here are a few pictures.

Pay to park, and pay by phone only. I guess the city saves money by not installing parking meters, and I guess you cannot park here if you don’t have a smart phone :). At the back are two new apartment buildings going up. One is at 1400 Madison Avenue, a 7-story, 365-unit apartment building with retail.
The ‘Knights of Columbus’ building at 722 Union St. Before it was sold to real estate investors in 2018, it belonged to the Catholic Church’s namesake and largest lay organization, a fraternal order founded in 1882 to support church programs and serve charitable causes. This building from 1913 held notable lunches, dances and other events. The gym and swimming pool in the basement were used by servicemen during World War II. It is getting rehabbed and retrofitted to withstand earthquakes, and the two parking lot parcels adjacent to it will be used for constructing apartment buildings. (Note to new owners: that red entrance canopy needs to go).
Tuesday Nov. 2 is when the election for Seattle City mayor and other positions take place*. Nikkita Oliver (pronouns they/them) runs against Sara Nelson for a position on the Seattle City Council.
Says local public radio station KUOW on their website: Nikkita Oliver is an educator, attorney, and activist who wants deep systemic change to move the city further to the left. Sara Nelson is a small business owner who thinks the current City Council is already too far left and needs to move closer to the center.
*We vote by mail, so many votes are already in; mine is as well.
There are lots of empty storefronts in the city. This Broadway State Bank building opened in 1913 (see photo below). In recent years it housed a Tully’s Coffee and a Starbucks Coffee. This Broadway & Pike Street corner is a little rough, though. Just a few weeks ago while I walked by, a guy that was on drugs or mentally ill— or both— rolled around in the street, resisting attempts by a Good Samaritan to drag him to safety. The police showed up just a minute later.
Here’s a 1937 photo of then-Broadway State Bank, constructed in 1913. I’m sure business from the auto dealers nearby was still booming in 1937. About its construction, the Seattle Times wrote in 1913 “Absolutely fireproof” and “Built of steel and concrete, with cream glazed brick finish”; “the new Broadway State Bank will be one of the finest in this rapidly developing district.” (Information obtained from the Capitol Hill blog).
Just half a block up on Broadway, and what have we here? Well, an 8-story, 118-unit apartment, retail, and institution building (community center) under construction. The Seattle-in-Progress website says ‘Project includes renovation of the Atlas Building and Eldridge Tire Building. Atlas Building façade to be rebuilt. Eldridge Tire Building façade to remain’. Looks to me like ‘reconstruction’ and not ‘renovation’.
A fake/ gag poster for Seattle mayor. (The two candidates in the Nov. 2 general election for Seattle mayor are Bruce Harrell and Lorena Gonzalez). And who or what is McSweats? Urban Dictionary to the rescue: ‘McSweats is the ill-desired after-effects commonly felt after gorging on McDonalds burgers to unnecessary extremes’.
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Thursday/ soaked

It has been a good day for pluviophiles: it rained all day around Puget Sound. We had recorded 1.58 in. by early evening here in the city, says NWS Seattle @NWSSeattle on Twitter. 

Update Fri 10/29: The final numbers are in. For Sea-Tac, it was a daily record-setting reading of 1.99 in. on Thursday. It was the wettest October day since the all-time wettest day in Seattle history (5.02 in. on Oct. 20th, 2003).

Here’s the view from the WashDOT camera over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, today. The pair of suspension bridges connect the city of Tacoma with the Kitsap Peninsula, and carry State Route 16 over a strait in Puget Sound.