Downtown Seattle Attractions

Freeway Park

Seattle is a city that favors subterranean activity. A submerged bus tunnel lavishly adorned with contemporary art houses, the main bus terminal and in Midtown an underground walkway runs from Freeway Park at Union Square. Freeway Park is an oasis of greenery and waterfalls which obliterates the sound of traffic several feet below.

Washington State Convention Center

Adjoins to the Freeway Park is the Washington State Convention Center, an attractive mélange of giant, green class cubes with a tourist office on its ground floor.

Pioneer Square

Pioneer Square was left pretty much alone until the late 1960s when after a determined fight by a local group, it was saved from demolition and registered as a National History Site. Although it is the heart of Downtown, the homeless still linger, coexisting peacefully with the condo owners and increasing number of tourists.

Doc Maynard

Across the street below Doc Maynard’s restored saloon, the popular 90 minute Underground Seattle tour takes place ending in a tiny museum. The Elliot Bay Book Company whose café has regular poetry readings, stands on the site of Doc Maynard’s hospital. Many of the city’s best art galleries are in the adjoining streets, as is the misleadingly named Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park – a free museum with many exhibits and photographs.

Smith Tower

Smith Tower is a 42-story tower which when completed in 1842 was the tallest building in the world outside New York.

Pike Place Market

Pike Place Market begun as America’s first farmers’ market in 1907 and now justifiably famous throughout the world for its variety and the freshness, quality and value of its produce. “The best food market in the United States” was the opinion of one famous chef. But food is only part of it. In the multilevel labyrinth of corners, corridors and cubby-holes are vintage posters, talking birds, funky clothes, and Australian opals, and almost everything else you have not been looking for.

Seattle Art Museum

Seattle Art Museum was designed by the internationally renowned Robert Venturi and when it opened a few years ago freed up the museum’s former home in Volunteer Park to concentrate on its incomparable collection of Asian art.

Space Needle

Space Needle is an observation deck that opens daily until midnight. Magnificent views from its observation deck are of majestic Mount Rainer, the Olympic range to the west and the Cascades to the east and water all around.

Seattle Center

Seattle Center is home of the city’s symphony, ballet, opera and repertory theater companies as well as the surprising Pacific Science Center and an amusement park.

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