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Image:Downtown Seattle.JPG Downtown Seattle is composed of a tightly-packed financial district along with residential areas and a panoramic waterfront. Seattle is the largest city in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located in the U.S. state of Washington between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, nearly 108 miles (174 km) south of the United States–Canadian border in King County, of which it is the county seat. Seattle was first settled November 14, 1851, by Arthur A. Denny and his crew, which would subsequently become known as the Denny party. Its first name was New York, then Duwamps, then finally it was renamed Seattle after Chief Noah Sealth who was chief of the two tribes living in the area ("Seattle" is an anglicized rendition of his last name). As of 2006, the city had an estimated population of 580,000[1] and a metropolitan population of approximately 4 million.[3] Seattle is the hub for the Greater Puget Sound region. Its official nickname is the Emerald City, the result of a contest by a civic-minded association in the early 1980s to designate a pleasant nickname for the city;[4] the name alludes to the lush evergreen trees in the surrounding area. It is also referred to informally as the Gateway to Alaska, Queen City, and Jet City, due to the local influence of Boeing. Seattle residents are known as Seattleites.
HistoryFoundingWhat is now Seattle has been inhabited since the end of the last glacial period (c. 8,000 B.C.—10,000 years ago). Archaeological excavations at West Point in Discovery Park, Magnolia confirm that the Seattle area has been inhabited by humans for at least 4,000 years and probably much longer.[7] tohl-AHL-too ("herring house") and later hah-AH-poos ("where there are horse clams") at the then-mouth of the Duwamish River in what is now the Industrial District had been inhabited since the 6th century BC.[8] The Dkhw'Duw'Absh and Xachua'Bsh people (now called the Duwamish Tribe) occupied at least 17 villages in the mid-1850s,[9] living in some 93 permanent longhouses (khwaac'ál'al) along Elliott Bay, Salmon Bay, Portage Bay, Lake Washington, Lake Sammamish, and the lower Duwamish, Black, and Cedar Rivers.[10] Most of the Denny Party, the most prominent of the area's early Caucasian settlers (and historians), arrived at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. They called the spot "New York" at first to reflect their aspirations to create a great trading port, later appending Alki, a Chinook Jargon word meaning, roughly, by and by or someday, literally or ironically. They relocated their settlement to Elliott Bay in April 1852. The first plats for the Town of Seattle were filed on May 23 1853. Nominal legal land settlement was established in 1855. The city was incorporated in 1865 and again in 1869, after having existed as an unincorporated town from 1867 to 1869.[11] Seattle was named after Chief Sealth, (si'áb Si'ahl, Noah Sealth), "high-status man" (appointed chief by the territorial governor) of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes.[12] David Swinson ("Doc") Maynard, one of the city founders, was the primary advocate for naming the city after Chief Seattle. The name "Duwamish" is an Anglicization of Dkhw'Duw'Absh, "the People of the Inside", and a variation of that name is preserved in the name of the Duwamish River. Previously, the city had been known as Duwamps (or Duwumps), an earlier name settlers used for the river.[13] Major eventsImage:Space Needle002.jpg Visitors to Kerry Park on Queen Anne Hill can see the Space Needle, the Downtown Seattle skyline, and Mount Rainier (to the right).
On February 28, 2001, a state of emergency was declared after the Nisqually Earthquake, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake, rocked the region. Damage was moderate, but served as a reminder that the coastal Pacific Northwest — and the area around the Seattle Fault, in particular — is under a constant threat of earthquakes.[20] Seattle suffered its worst mass-killing since the 1983 Wah Mee massacre when a 28-year-old man named Kyle Aaron Huff committed the Capitol Hill massacre on March 25, 2006, followed later that year by an attempted spree killing by Naveed Afzal Haq that left one dead at the Jewish Federation building in July. Both were unusual, given that Seattle is relatively safe for a city its size. Its murder rate peaked in 1994 with 69 homicides. In 2004, Seattle's murder rate hit a 40-year low with 24 homicides. Seattle's crime rate has seen an increase in 2006, as have the crime rates in Tacoma and Lakewood, Washington. In December 2006, the Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm brought very heavy rain and disrupted power to much of the city. Economic historySeattle has a history of boom and bust cycles historically common in cities of its size. Seattle has been sent into precipitous decline by the aftermaths of its worst periods as a company town, but has typically used those periods to successfully rebuild infrastructure.[21] Image:Seattle Public Library1.jpg The Seattle Central Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas, is the result of a public vote on the "Libraries for All" bond measure approved by Seattle voters on November 3 1998. The first such boom, covering the early years of the city, was fueled by the lumber industry. (It was during this period that the road now known as Yesler Way was nicknamed "Skid Road"[22] after the timber skidding down the street to Henry Yesler's sawmill. The term later entered the wider American vocabulary as Skid Row.) This boom was followed by the construction of an Olmsted-designed park system. The second and largest boom was the direct result of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896, which ended the national depression that had begun with the Panic of 1893. On July 14 1897, the S.S. Portland docked with its famed "ton of gold", and Seattle became the main transport and supply point for those heading north. The boom lasted well into the early part of the 20th century and funded the start-up of many new companies and products. In 1907, 19-year-old James E. Casey founded the American Messenger Company in Seattle with $100 borrowed from a friend which later became UPS. Like UPS, other companies such as Nordstrom and Eddie Bauer, exist to this day.[23] Image:Seattledowntown.jpg Downtown Seattle facing the Monorail station. Next came the shipbuilding boom in the early part of the 20th century, followed by the unused city development plan of Virgil Bogue. Seattle was the major point of departure during World War II for troops heading to the north Pacific, and Boeing manufactured many of the fighters and bombers. After the war, the local economy dipped but rose again with the expansion of Boeing, fueled by the growth of the commercial aviation industry.[24] When this particular cycle went into a major downturn in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many left the area to look for work elsewhere, and two local real estate agents put up a billboard reading "Will the last person leaving Seattle — Turn out the lights."[25][26] Seattle remained the corporate headquarters of Boeing until 2001, when the company announced a desire to separate its headquarters from its major production facilities. Following a bidding war among a number of major cities, Boeing moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago. The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's Renton narrow-body plant (where the 707, 720, 727, and 757 were assembled, and the 737 is assembled today), and Everett wide-body plant (assembly plant for the 747, 767, 777 and the upcoming 787 Dreamliner); and BECU, formerly the Boeing Employees Credit Union. Beginning in the mid 1990s, Seattle was one of the centers for the dot-com bubble centered around the development of software technology. Microsoft; companies involved with Internet development, telecommunications companies such as Amazon.com, RealNetworks, McCaw Communications (later acquired by AT&T Corp. and renamed AT&T Wireless and then again acquired by Cingular Wireless, Cingular, then returning to AT&T Wireless), and VoiceStream (later acquired by Deutsche Telekom and renamed T-Mobile USA), and biomedical corporations such as Philips, Boston Scientific, ZymoGenetics and Amgen found homes in Seattle and its suburbs. Even locally-headquartered Starbucks held investments in numerous Internet and software interests. This success brought an influx of new citizens[verification needed] and saw Seattle's real estate become some of the most expensive in the country,[verification needed] along with that of San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles. Many of these companies remain relatively strong, but the frenzied boom years ended in early 2001.[citation needed] GeographyTopographySeattle is located between Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. West beyond the Sound are the Olympic Mountains; east beyond Lake Washington and the Eastside suburbs are Lake Sammamish, the Newcastle Hills, and the Cascade Range. The rivers, forests, lakes, and fields were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. Opportunities for sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking are nearby and accessible almost all the year. The city itself, somewhat like San Francisco, is hilly [2], though not uniformly so. Like Rome, the city is said to lie on seven hills. The hilliest areas are near an isthmus in the city center,away from the chief harbour, an inlet of Puget Sound called Elliott Bay. The geography of Downtown has been reshaped by regrading projects, a seawall, and the construction of an artificial island, Harbor Island, at the mouth of the city's industrial Duwamish Waterway. The man-made Lake Washington Ship Canal incorporating four natural bodies of water: Lake Union, Salmon Bay, Portage Bay, and Union Bay. The canal connects Puget Sound to Lake Washington. An active geological fault, the Seattle Fault, runs under the city. Although neither the Seattle Fault nor the Cascadia Subduction Zone have caused an earthquake since the city’s founding, the city has been hit by four major earthquakes: December 14 1872 (magnitude 7.3); April 13, 1949 (7.1); April 29, 1965 (6.5); and the Nisqually Earthquake of February 28, 2001 (6.8). The Cascadia subduction zone poses the even greater threat of an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or greater, capable of seriously damaging the city and collapsing many buildings, particularly Downtown and in the Industrial District, which is built on fill. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 369.2 km² (142.5 mi²),GR1 217.2 km² (83.9 mi²) of which is land and 152.0 km² (58.7 mi²) water. The total area is 41.16% water. See also: Seattle neighborhoods, List of Seattle parks, Bodies of water of Seattle, Seven hills of Seattle Seattle has grown through a series of annexations of smaller neighboring communities:
In 2006, a proposal was floated to annex currently unincorporated communities on what is presently Seattle's southern boundary[8]. Despite its reputation, Seattle is not without its detractors. In 2006 author Dave Gilmartin referred to Seattle as "overrated, overcast and overcaffeinated" in his book "The Absolutely Worst Places to Live in America." [9] ClimateImage:Seattle 07752.JPG Downtown Seattle is bounded by Elliott Bay and the Alaskan Way Viaduct (lower left) and I-5 (from upper left to lower right) Despite being the northernmost city of over half a million in the United States, Seattle has a mild climate that is usually classified as Marine west coast (Cfb)[27] However, due to its relatively dry and mild summers, it is sometimes arguably classified as a Mediterranean climate (Csb).[28] Temperature extremes are moderated by adjacent Puget Sound and Lake Washington as well as the more distant Pacific Ocean. The region is partially protected from Pacific storms by the Olympic Mountains and from arctic air by the Cascade Range. Despite being on the margin of the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, the city of Seattle has a reputation for frequent rain.[29] In reality, the so-called "rainy city" receives an unremarkable 34.3 inches of precipitation a year, which is much less precipitation than New York City, Atlanta, and Houston and most cities of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Seattle's inaccurate worldwide reputation for rain derives from the fact that it is cloudy (not rainy) an average of 226 days per year (vs. 132 in New York City). Most of the precipitation falls as drizzle or light rain, with downpours happening only occasionally. Snow is rare, and only falls in significant amounts every few years. Snowfall of less significance occurs about twice a year. The spring, late fall, and winter are filled with days when it does not rain but looks as if it may because of cloudy, overcast skies. As for temperature, winters are cool and wet with average lows around 35-40°F (2-4 °C) on winter nights. Colder weather can occur at times, but seldom lasts more than a few days. Summers are dry and warm, with average daytime highs around 75-80°F (24-27°C). Hotter weather can also occur, but usually only during a few days of the summer. Seattle's hottest official recorded temperature was 100 °F (37.8 °C) on July 20 1994; the coldest recorded temperature was 0°F(-17.7°C) on January 31, 1950.[30] To the west 80 miles (130 km), the Hoh Rain Forest, in Olympic National Park on the western flank of the Olympic Mountains, receives an annual average rainfall of 142 inches (3600 mm), and the state capital, Olympia, south of the rain shadow, receives an annual average rainfall of 52 inches (1320 mm). Snowfall is infrequent, especially at lower altitudes and near the coast, and is usually light and fleeting, lasting only a few days. On January 13, 1880, Seattle's record for snowfall was set at 49 inches (508 mm).[31] Sunnier and drier "California weather" typically dominates from mid-July to mid-September. An average of 0.7 inches (17.8 mm) of rain falls in July and an average of 1.0 inches (25.4 mm) falls in August.Image:Seattlesunny.jpg Seattle on a sunny afternoon. The Puget Sound Convergence Zone is an important feature of Seattle's weather. In the convergence zone, air arriving in the area from the north meets air flowing in from the south. Both streams of air originate over the Pacific Ocean; airflow is split by the Olympic Mountains to Seattle's west, then reunited by the Cascade Mountains to the east. When the air currents meet, they are forced upward, resulting in convection.[32] Thunderstorms caused by this activity can occur north and south of town, but Seattle itself rarely receives worse weather than occasional thunder and ice pellet showers. Thunderstorms in the Cascades sometimes produce frequent lightning, which makes for a brilliant light show for those in town. An exception to Seattle's dampness often occurs in El Niño years, when the marine weather systems track as far south as California and little precipitation falls in the Puget Sound area. Since the region's water comes from mountain snowpacks during the drier summer months, El Niño winters not only produce substandard skiing but can result in water rationing and a shortage of hydro-electric power the following summer.
CityscapeA big Seattle skyline panorama view:
Image:MG 4949wp.jpg Downtown Seattle at night
LandmarksImage:Pike place market small 2.png Howard Dean and Vanna White have both caught the "flying fish" at the Pike Place Market, one of Seattle's most popular tourist destinations. The Space Needle is Seattle's most recognizable landmark, having been featured in the logo of the television show Frasier and the backgrounds of the television series Grey's Anatomy, not to mention several films. "The Needle", dates from the 1962 Century 21 Exposition. Contrary to popular belief, the Space Needle is neither the tallest structure in Seattle nor is it in Downtown. This misconception results from the Space Needle often being photographed from Queen Anne Hill, where it is closer to the viewer than are the downtown skyscrapers. The fairgrounds surrounding the Needle have been converted into Seattle Center, which remains the site of many local civic and cultural events, such as Bumbershoot, Folklife, and the Bite of Seattle. The Seattle Center Monorail runs from Seattle Center to Westlake Center, a downtown shopping mall: a distance of about a little over a mile. Other notable Seattle landmarks include the Smith Tower, Pike Place Market, the Fremont Troll, the Experience Music Project (which is at Seattle Center), the new Seattle Central Library, the Washington Mutual Tower, Broadway, a street made famous by the Sir Mix-A-Lot song Posse On Broadway, and the Columbia Center, which is the fourth tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi River and the twelfth tallest in the nation. (On June 16 2004, the 9/11 Commission reported that the original plan for the September 11, 2001 attacks included the Columbia Center as one of ten targeted buildings.)[36] Starbucks Coffee has been at Pike Place Market since the coffee company was founded there in 1971. The first store is still operating a block south of its original location.[37] Street layoutSeattle's streets are laid out in a cardinal-direction grid pattern, except in the central business district: early city leaders Arthur Denny and Carson Boren insisted on orienting their plats relative to the shoreline rather than to true North, so streets meet at unusual angles where Denny's plat meets "Doc" Maynard's to the south and Boren's to the north. This inconsistency creates frequent confusion for visitors and newcomers when they attempt to navigate the streets at the edges of the business district. Largely as a result of Seattle's topography, only one street and one freeway run uninterrupted through the city from north to south.
CultureSeattle has been known as a significant center for regional performing arts for many years. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras[38] and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at McCaw Hall (which opened 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States.[39] The Seattle Youth Symphony is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States, and among the most distinguished. The historic 5th Avenue Theatre, built in 1926, has continued to stage Broadway quality musical shows featuring both local talent and international stars. The theatre's "Chinese Timber Architecture" is based on The Forbidden City's Imperial and Summer Palaces. In addition, Seattle has about twenty other live theatre venues, a slim majority of them being associated with fringe theatre. It has a strong local scene for poetry slams and other performance poetry, and several venues that routinely present public lectures or readings. The largest of these is Seattle's 900-seat, Romanesque Revival Town Hall on First Hill. Seattle is often thought of as the home of grunge rock musicians like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Green River, and Mudhoney, all of whom reached vast audiences in the early 1990s. The city is also home to such varied musicians as avant-garde jazz musicians Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot, smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G, heavy metal band Nevermore, industrial rockers KMFDM, and such poppier rock bands as Goodness and the Presidents of the United States of America. Such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Duff McKagan, Nikki Sixx, and Quincy Jones spent their formative years in Seattle. Ann and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart, often attributed to Seattle, were actually from neighboring Bellevue, as were progressive metal band Queensrÿche. Since the grunge era, the Seattle area has hosted a diverse and influential alternative music scene. The Seattle-based record label Sub Pop—the first to sign Nirvana—has signed such non-grunge bands as Murder City Devils, Sunny Day Real Estate, Skinny Puppy, The Postal Service, and The Shins. Other Seattle-area bands of note in this period include Death Cab for Cutie (Bellingham), Foo Fighters, Modest Mouse (Issaquah), Alicia Dara, and Sleater-Kinney (Olympia). Earlier Seattle-based popular music acts include the collegiate folk group The Brothers Four; The Wailers, a 1960s garage band; the Allies and the Heaters (later "the Heats"), 1980s teen-pop bands; from that same era, the more sophisticated pop of the short-lived Visible Targets and the still-performing Young Fresh Fellows and Posies; and the pop-punk of The Fastbacks and the outright punk of the Fartz (later Ten Minute Warning), The Gits, and Seven Year Bitch. Seattlites have also collaborated with innovative, experimental musicians from around the world, while the city has hosted their performances. French composer Jean-Jacques Perrey, who pioneered electronica in the 1960s, has worked with Seattle native Dana Countryman, best known for his work with the 1980s Seattle pop/humour group the Amazing Pink Things. Perrey performed the tracks resulting from his work with Countryman at his first American show, in Seattle in 2006. Spoken word and poetry are also staples of the Seattle arts scene, paralleling the explosion of the independent music scene during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Seattle's performance poetry scene blossomed with the importation of the poetry slam from Chicago (its origin) by transplant Paul Granert. This and the proliferation of weekly readings, open mics, and poetry-friendly club venues like the Weathered Wall, the OK Hotel, and the Ditto Tavern (all now defunct), allowed spoken-word/performance poetry to take off in a big way. The Seattle Poetry Slam is the city's longest running weekly show, now held at Tost in the Fremont Neighborhood. Seattle annually sends a team of slammers to the National Poetry Slam and boasts as the home of some of the best performance poets in the world: Buddy Wakefield:two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champ; Anis Mojgani: two-time National Poetry Slam Champ; Christa Bell: 2005 National Poetry Slam Finalist. Seattle has had such a wonderful reputation for poetry that is hosted the 2001 national poetry Slam Tournament. The Seattle Poetry Festival (launched first as the Poetry Circus in 1997) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry such as Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Ted Jones, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ismael Reed, Sekou Sundiata, and many others. Regionally famed poets like Bart Baxter, Tess Gallagher, and Rebecca Brown have also been featured at the Poetry Festival, as well as numerous other events such as the world-famous Bumbershoot Arts Festival. TourismAmong Seattle's best-known annual cultural events and fairs are the 24-day Seattle International Film Festival, Northwest Folklife over the Memorial Day weekend, numerous Seafair events throughout July and August (ranging from a Bon Odori celebration to hydroplane races), and the Bite of Seattle. Bumbershoot, over the Labor Day weekend, Capitol Hill Block Party [10], and Endfest (held every year by 107.7 The End [11]) provide Seattlites with much-anticipated alternative and independent music concerts. All are typically attended by over 100,000 people annually, as are Hempfest and two separate Independence Day celebrations. Several dozen Seattle neighborhoods have one or more annual street fairs, and many have an annual parade or foot race. The largest of the street fairs feature hundreds of craft and food booths and multiple stages with live entertainment, and draw more than 100,000 people over the course of a weekend; the smallest are strictly neighborhood affairs with a few dozen craft and food booths, barely distinguishable from more prominent neighborhoods' weekly farmers' markets.Image:Greenlaketrail.jpg Green Lake Park, popular among runners, contains a 2.8 mile trail circling the lake. Other significant events include numerous Native American powwows, a Greek Festival hosted by St. Demetrios | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
