dark cocktail houses to boisterous meet-markets to smarty-arty hangouts to ex-dive bars gone legit. Many of these are open for daytime dining. This stretch of 1st Ave. also offers fashionable shopping, including stationery, clothes, and home furnishings.
And there’s plenty of classic architecture among the newer condos—the Vogue Hotel (now the Vain hair salon), the 1889 Odd Fellows hall (now a pub), the 1889 Hull Building (now a fashion boutique), the Austin A. Bell Building (whose facade now stands in front of a condo structure), the Sailors Union of the Pacific (now a bar and restaurant), the Electrical Workers’ hall (now a church), and the King County Labor Temple (still union offices!).
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Turn east along Denny Way’s north side, and continue for five blocks, to Broad St. You pass Tini Bigs (a bar named for its “big [mar]tinis”), Champion Party Supply (a year-round Halloween party headquarters), and the new First United Methodist Church (a modern replacement for the building that’s now Daniels Recital Hall, Walk 2).
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If you’d like to stop, continue along Denny back to 5th Ave. If you’re continuing, turn northeast at Denny and Broad for less than a block, to Seattle Center’s first pedestrian entrance.
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Meander north through this pathway, toward the Space Needle. Along the way you pass through Olympic Iliad, Alexander Liberman’s sculpture made from orange metal tubes. You also pass a meditation garden donated by the Sri Chinmoy Foundation.
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Turn east at the Needle’s north side, parallel to its main entrance. Even if you don’t visit the 605-foot tower’s restaurant or observation deck, you can admire the graceful curves of its tripod and UFO-esque “tophouse.” Turn north in front of the west side of the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen commissioned architect Paul Gehry’s bold structure (designed without straight corners) as a tribute to rock music (and, some claim, to Allen’s ego).
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From EMP’s western entrance walk west, into the east entrance of Center House. The 1939 armory was one of several pre-fair buildings that were incorporated into the Century 21 grounds. Take the stairs up to its main floor and food court, known during the fair as the Food Circus. Exit at Center House’s west side.
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Head north past the International Fountain, a 1985 replacement for the fair’s high-streaming centerpiece spectacle. Turn east at the Kobe Bell (a gift from Seattle’s Japanese sister city) toward the elaborately lit courtyard of McCaw Hall. Home to Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, it’s the third incarnation of the 1928 Civic Auditorium. Follow this courtyard out of the Center to Mercer St.
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Go west on Mercer. On the street’s north side is Teatro ZinZanni, a circus-style dinner theater inside a high-tech “show tent.” Reenter Seattle Center just west of 2nd Ave. N.
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This entrance leads you, heading south, toward the Bagley Wright Theatre (home of the Seattle Repertory Theatre). Pass this building’s curvy, glassy front side. Then turn west to the Center’s Warren Ave. N./Republican St. entrance. There’s an open wooden doorway planted here, a memorial to renowned playwright August Wilson.
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Turn south and down a small flight of outdoor stairs, through a passage between the two Northwest Court buildings. These exhibit spaces are now home to the Vera Project, a teen-centric arts center. Turn east and then south beside KeyArena, created in 1995 with components from the fair-era Coliseum. It was built because the SuperSonics basketball team said they’d leave town without a new arena. Thirteen years later they left anyway. Continue south to Thomas St.
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Head east along the back of Fisher Pavilion. Built into a hillside, its entire roof is an outdoor plaza.
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Turn south in front of Seattle Children’s Theatre (also known as the Charlotte Martin Theatre), a handsome 1993 addition to a 1956 Shrine temple. You soon reach the main entrance to Pacific Science Center. Minoru Yamasaki (Walk 2) designed this sextet of clean white boxes with his trademark vertical trim features, surrounding reflecting pools, and streamlined, Gothic-inspired arches. Its recently-added IMAX Dome screens first-run 3D movies.
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Turn east, past the south side of the Mural Ampitheater, a performance space with Paul Horiuchi’s 60-foot-long Seattle Mural as its backdrop. Continue east to the Space Needle’s south side. Turn southeast through a circular plaza surrounding a fountain. Leave the Center at the triangular intersection of Broad St., John St., and 4th Ave. N.
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Cross Broad St. toward Fisher Plaza. Walk a southeasterly dogleg between its two buildings. At the northwest corner of 5th and Denny, you can see the Needle framed by KOMO-TV’s satellite dishes on Fisher Plaza’s roof. Before you cross Denny back to Tilikum Place, look east for the pink neon sign announcing the Elephant Super Car Wash.
BACK STORY: THE REGRADE
Belltown’s walkability results from Seattle’s own Extreme Makeover: City Edition. Early city leaders decided that 100-foot-tall Denny Hill, just northwest of downtown, stood in the way of urban growth. Horse-drawn wagons could not carry merchandise over it. From 1902 to 1911, some 27 blocks were sluiced down flat. By the time it was done, the Ford Model T had made horse-drawn delivery obsolete. The rest of the hill, from Fifth to Westlake avenues, was steam-shoveled away from 1929 to 1930.
Space Needle at sunrise
CONNECTING THE WALKS
This walk connects easily to four other walks. At 4th and Virginia you’re two blocks northwest of Walk 2. At 1st and Virginia you’re at the start of Walk 4. This walk’s 1st Ave. stretch is three blocks east of Walk 7. At Warren and Republican you’re one block east of Walk 8.
