Walking Seattle. Clark Humphrey
100 years, Pike Place has been home to the oldest continuously operating farmers’ market in the United States. It’s a fascinating concoction of produce, flowers, crafts, antiques, magic, and more. And it’s a human-scale labyrinth of small buildings in assorted shapes and sizes, hugging a bluff looming over the waterfront. The Market abuts First Avenue, once a rowdy hangout for the waterfront’s working men. Both districts have been spruced up but not fully bleached out. Hint: To get the most out of this walk, avoid the Market’s peak tourist days (especially summer Saturdays).
| • | Start at 1st Ave., heading southeast from Virginia St. At this intersection’s southeast corner, the 11-story Terminal Sales Building was built in 1923 as showrooms for manufacturers and wholesalers. Now it has high-ceilinged loft offices. Its ground-floor storefronts include the Peter Miller architectural bookstore. At its southwest corner, the century-old Virginia Inn bar and bistro denotes the start of the Pike Place Market Historic District. |
| Continue along 1st for three blocks, past colorful places to shop (including Metsker Maps and Dragon’s Toy Box) and eat (Le Pichet, Bayou on First, and The Crumpet Shop). Just before Pike, take in the brassy animated sign for the Déjà Vu strip club, a remnant of 1st Ave.’s grittier former character. (Déjàvu is a French term that means, “Eh, nothin’ ya haven’t seen before.”) Up Pike between 1st and 2nd is a big neon guitar above a Hard Rock Cafe. But the sign you’re looking for is to your right on Pike. It’s the historic public market center sign with its proudly analog neon clock. Take a right into the market. Then immediately take another right into the Corner Market Building’s lower arcade level, past the Can Can cabaret. | |
| • | Go northwest through the Corner Market and the adjacent Sanitary Public Market building, past ethnic food stands, a meat market, a dairy store, and more. At this corridor’s northern end take a left to enter Post Alley, an outdoor promenade offering more snacking and shopping. |
| • | Head northwest on Post Alley for three blocks. You find restaurants and bars of many types and price points (including the Irish-style Kell’s and the Italian-style Pink Door), a tearoom, and a boutique hotel. You end up back at Virginia. |
| • | Go southwest on Virginia to the northeast side of Pike Place. Stroll along the Market’s main drag back to Pike St. Along your way are hundreds of tourists, depending on the season; plus Indian, Mexican, and Filippino groceries, sausage and humbow stands, the historic Three Girls bakery and sandwich counter, and what’s billed as the world’s first Starbucks Coffee store. (The real first Starbucks was in a now-razed building a block away.) |
| • | When you get back to the L-shaped intersection of Pike Place and Pike St., hang a right. You’re now facing the Market’s Main Arcade, under the clock. Two of the Market’s most-photographed attractions are here—Rachel the full-size piggy bank (proceeds from her coin slot benefit services for downtown seniors and low-income residents), and the Pike Place Fish Co. with its high-energy staffers tossing fish. Before you enter this section, look up to view five paintings by Aki Sogabe commemorating the Japanese-American farmers who sold produce here before they were sent to relocation camps during World War II. |
| • | Walk northwest along the Main Arcade. Besides more tourists, you spot the Market’s original raison d’etre, the “low stall” and “high stall” produce stands. (The former are farmer-run; the latter are year-round retail ventures.) You also see two popular-price restaurant bars with spectacular waterfront views (the Athenian and Lowell’s), a closet-sized souvenir store, and another fish market (Pure Food Fish). The Main Arcade directly leads into the North Arcade, a long line of tables with artists and craftspeople. |
| • | Turn around at the North Arcade’s end. Backtrack past the craft sellers until you get back to the Main Arcade’s northwesterly end. You see a ramp to the Down Under shops. Descend into a plank-floored indoor corridor of shops selling magic supplies, posters, postcards, beads, health food, candy, comic books, vintage clothing, and more. |
| • | The southern end of the Down Under Arcade leads to exterior doors, which lead to the Pike Street Hillclimb, an elevator and series of outdoor stairs leading six stories from the Market’s main level down to the waterfront. Take the stairs or elevator back to the south end of the Main Arcade. When you near Rachel the Pig, take a right-left dogleg into the Economy Market, a short series of stands and storefronts paralleling the end of Pike St. Its attractions include a magazine stand, a mini-donut stand, and an Italian deli and wine shop. |
| • | Along the Economy Market’s south wall, find a signed passageway leading to the Economy Market Atrium. Go through the atrium, a two-story indoor agora with shops selling western wear, wind-up toys, and herbal supplements. This room’s southern end has a doorway marked to more shops and restaurants. Take it into the indoor corridor of the South Arcade, a new building anchored by the Pike Pub and Brewery. It leads to 1st Ave. and Union St. |
| • | Return to 1st. To your left, across the Showbox at the Market is a vintage big-band ballroom and one of Seattle’s premiere music venues. Take a right across Union and walk southeast eight blocks along 1st. Where sailors and dockworkers once downed beers and watched pornos now stand galleries, bistros, a new Four Seasons Hotel, and an expanded Seattle Art Museum. (The latter occupies the lower levels of the Russell Investments Center, formerly WaMu Center, the second tower built by the now-deceased Washington Mutual Bank.) |
| At 1st and Spring, McCormick & Schmick’s is a steak-and-seafood restaurant with a late-night bar menu. One block down at Madison, the Alexis Hotel houses both a real bookstore (Arundel Books) and a cafe and bar that looks like one (the Bookstore Bar & Cafe). Across Madison, the Old Federal Office Building is a brick-and-aluminum art deco treasure, a fine complement to the Colman Building one block away at Marion Street (Walk 3). At Cherry St., the 1903 Lowman Building has a French Renaissance–inspired gabled roof line. That building abuts Pioneer Square, which takes you one more block to Yesler Way. |
1st Avenue from Seattle Art Museum
CONNECTING THE WALKS
This walk connects easily to five other walks. It crosses Walk 3 at 1st and University. Its start crosses Walk 5. Its end crosses Walks 1 and 7. At 1st and Pine you’re two blocks southwest of Walk 2.
POINTS OF INTEREST
Virginia Inn virginiainnseattle.com, 1937 1st Ave., 206-728-1937
Metsker Maps metskers.com, 1511 1st Ave., 206-623-8747
Pike Place Market pikeplacemarket.org, 1st Ave. and Pike St., 206-682-7453
Can Can thecancan.com, 94 Pike St., 206-652-0832
Showbox at the Market showboxonline.com, 1426 1st Ave., 206-628-3151
Four Seasons Hotel and Condos fourseasons.com/seattle, 99 Union St., 206-749-7000
Arundel