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Seattle Basics

Curved around the shore of Elliott Bay, with Lake Washington behind and the snowy peak of Mount Rainier hovering faintly in the distance, Seattle is beautifully set, its insistently modern skyline of shiny glass skyscrapers gleaming out across the bay, emblem of two decades of vigorous urban renewal. In many ways, it feels like a new city, still groping for a balance between its smart high-rises and a downbeat streetlife that reflects its tough port past. Its old central working-class areas, narrowly saved from the jaws of the bulldozer by popular outcry, have been restored as colorful historic districts, and have become a focus of urban sophistication with a strong artsy and intellectual undertow.

Considering its pre-eminent standing in the economic and cultural life of the Pacific Northwest, Seattle's beginnings were inauspiciously muddy. Flooded out of its first location on Alki Beach, the small logging community that was established here in the 1850s built its houses on stilts over the soggy ground of what's now the Pioneer Square historic district. The early settlement was first called "Duwamps", but changed its name to "Seattle" in honor of a friendly native, Chief Sealth. Both moniker and settlement survived the skirmishes and ambushes of the Puget Sound War of 1855-56, a conflict that resulted in local natives being consigned to reservations.

Afterwards, as the surrounding forest was gradually felled and the wood sawn and shipped abroad, Seattle grew slowly as a timber town and port, but it was a place with a problem: there weren't enough women. The enterprising Asa Mercer, the president (and only instructor) of the fledgling state university, took himself off east to bring back potential brides. Mercer made two trips, returning with 57 women, some of whom seem to have had a real shock: "[We were met by men] who looked like grizzlies in store clothes, their hair slicked down like sea otters", complained one.

It was, however, the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 that put Seattle firmly on the national map and boosted its shipbuilding trade. The city was soon a large industrial center, one that to this day holds a significant place in US labor history. Trade unions grew strong and the Industrial Workers of the World or "Wobblies" made Seattle a main base, coordinating the country's first general strike in 1919, during the period of high unemployment which followed the end of World War I.

World War II brought a new impetus to growth, and the decades since have seen Seattle thrive as the economic center of the booming Pacific Northwest. Today Seattle is among the most prosperous cities in the US, comparatively immune to the downturn in the economy everywhere else. Still, there's a sharp contrast between the obvious wealth and power of Seattle's many high-tech companies - such as Boeing, the world's biggest manufacturer of airplanes, and Microsoft, the world leader in computer software - and the very high levels of homelessness. This, combined with Seattle's surprisingly large and visible community of teenage runaways, serves as an all-too-tangible reminder that not everyone shares in the city's good fortune. However, these signs of poverty are confined to small pockets of the city: you may be advised to avoid some of the areas along the southwest shore of Lake Washington below US-90, but elsewhere you can enjoy the "Emerald City" surrounded by the trinkets of its prosperity and its coastal beauty.

Seattle Listings

Arrival and information

Seattle/Tacoma's Sea-Tac Airport is fourteen miles south of downtown; after customs, your luggage is taken away again to be put on a conveyor belt and you take the underground train to the main terminal, where there's a small visitor's information kiosk (daily summer 9.30am-7pm, winter 8.30am-1pm) in front of the baggage carousel. Outside, the Gray Line Airport Express bus ($7; pay the driver) leaves every twenty minutes (5am-midnight) - sometimes more fre- quently - for the half-hour journey downtown, dropping off at major hotels, though further along, the local Metro bus makes regular runs along much the same route for $1.10 and takes only ten minutes more. Bus #194 connects with the bus tunnel terminal at Third Ave and University, while the slower #174 runs down to Second Ave. Major car rental firms have airport branches, and operate shuttles to their pick-up points: once you're behind the wheel, Hwy-99, the Pacific Highway, leads into town. You can also pick up a car downtown - see "Listings" for details.

Arriving by car, you'll probably come in on I-5, the main north-south highway between the Canadian border and California; for downtown, take the Stewart St or Union St exit. The Amtrak station at Third Ave and Jackson St (464-1930), south of downtown near the International District, and the Greyhound station, at Eighth Ave and Stewart St (624-3456), east of downtown, are both a bus-ride from downtown accommodation. Green Tortoise, with between two and four runs per week to and from Portland and San Francisco, drops off and picks up at Ninth Ave and Stewart St (324-7433).

Local Puget Sound ferries arrive at the pier at the foot of Marion St, downtown; long-distance sevices from British Columbia dock north of downtown at Alaskan Way and Clay St.

Information
The Seattle-King County Visitor's Bureau, inside the Washington State Convention Center at Seventh Ave and Pike (Mon-Fri 8.30am-5pm; 461-5840), has racks of brochures on Seattle and Washington state, as well as handy free maps and local bus timetables. The free official travellers' guide, Destination Washington, provides a comprehensive list of the state's accommodations.

City Transit

Getting around Seattle's downtown area is best done on foot or by taking advantage of the free bus services (some of which run underground along Third Ave). Cross out of the free zone - to the University District for example - and you pay the driver as you get off; come back in and you pay as you enter. Single fares are between 85cents and $1.60, depending on the zone and time of day; tickets are valid for an hour. Day passes are a good deal at $1.70, but they're only valid on holidays and at the weekend; buy them from the driver. Ticketbooks (for 10 or 20 rides at 15 percent discount) are sold throughout the city and at the Metro Customer Assistance Offices, 821 Second Ave and Marion (Mon-Fri 8am-5pm) and the Transit Tunnel, Westlake Station, Fifth Ave and Pine (Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm). Both also have information and timetables (553-3000 for 24-hr Rider information).

Largely of novelty value, a mile-long monorail (80cents each way) runs overhead on thin concrete stilts from the Westlake Shopping Center Mall at Fifth Ave and Pine St to the Seattle Center, while vintage streetcars (part of the Metro - fares 85cents to $1.60) travel up and down the waterfront, from Pier 70 to Pioneer Square - and beyond.

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