skyscraper (14 stories). Across 2nd is the Broderick Building (623 2nd Ave.), one of the original stone structures built after the 1889 fire. To its left, a parking garage incorporates the ground-floor facade of the 1893 Butler Hotel. Continue on 2nd past three smaller old buildings to the Smith Tower.
When typewriter tycoon L. C. Smith built it in 1914, the Smith Tower was the tallest building west of the Mississippi. It remained Seattle’s tallest until 1962. Its white base is topped by a smaller tower section, and then by a pyramid-shaped cap. The pyramid’s base (the building’s 35th floor) is the Chinese Room, a lavish space available for rentals (or simply for enjoying inside and outside views). The building also features marble-and-brass interiors and Seattle’s last old-time steam elevators, with professional operators.
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Turn west on Yesler, the original “Skid Road,” where logs were skidded downhill toward Henry Yesler’s sawmill, and continue for two blocks. (Note: Yesler, and the streets south of it, are on a north-south grid. Downtown streets north of Yesler run parallel to the waterfront, on a northwest-southeast grid.) Immediately west of the Smith Tower is the infamous “sinking ship” parking garage, built in 1963 on the venerable 1889 Seattle Hotel’s site. A few years later, developers proposed razing most of the neighborhood for more parking. Instead, preservationists got Pioneer Square declared a historic district.
On Yesler’s south side are the 1892 Interurban Building and the 1890 Merchants Cafe (still open as a restaurant after 120 years). On its north side, the stoic 1892 Pioneer Building is home to the Underground Tour, founded in the 1980s by entrepreneur-historian Bill Speidel. The guided tour traverses the original ground floors of the square buildings, turned into basements when the street levels were raised.
The Pioneer Building overlooks Pioneer Square itself, a.k.a. Pioneer Place Park. This cobblestoned triangle was established in 1893 on the former site of Yesler’s mill. An Alaskan totem pole was added in 1899; it burned, and a new pole was commissioned, in 1938. The ornate iron pergola facing Yesler was built in 1909 (and rebuilt twice since); it was originally a trolley-stop shelter and an entrance to now-closed underground restrooms.
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Turn south on 1st Ave. S. In the late 19th and early 20th century lumberjacks and farm boys cavorted in saloons and brothels in this “Great Restricted District.” In the 1970s, this street took on a double life—galleries and boutiques by day, raucous bars by night. Both scenes slumped in the late 2000s but survive, as do the vintage brick buildings. Toward this segment’s end is Sluggers Bar & Grill, which claims to be the first TV-festooned sports bar in the United States.
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Turn southeast on the diagonal Railroad Way S. to Occidental Ave. S. You’re facing the west side of Qwest Field, one of two luxurious stadia that replaced the utilitarian Kingdome. Qwest hosts the NFL’s Seahawks, Major League Soccer’s Sounders FC, concerts, and boat and home shows.
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Turn north on Occidental, abutting Qwest Field’s parking lot. To your left is the Florentine (526 1st Ave. S.), a condo and retail structure built from a really long 1909 warehouse. Occidental doglegs at S. King St. in front of F. X. McRory’s, which was a luxurious sports bar even during the humbler Kingdome era.
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Turn east on S. King. To your right looms Qwest Field’s north entrance, featuring artist Bob Haozous’s Earth Dialogue, four disk-shaped silhouettes representing humanity’s connection to the natural world. Ahead of you lies King Street Station, built in 1906. Its 242-foot clock tower was inspired by Venice’s Campanile di San Marco. It now services Amtrak and commuter rail. Its once-grand waiting room is being restored.
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Turn north from King onto 2nd Ave. S. To your right, a new King County office building strives to fit in with its historic surroundings. To your left, the Court in the Square is a glass-ceilinged atrium between two brick buildings.
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Turn west onto S. Jackson St. To your right, the historic Cadillac Hotel now houses the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, a free museum about the 1897 Yukon gold fever that helped put Seattle on the map. To your left, Zeitgeist Kunst & Kaffee is a handsome, retro-industrial space. Beyond it stands the 1903 Washington Shoe Building, a factory that later became art studios and now hosts offices.
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Walk north through Occidental Mall. This pedestrian-only corridor abuts several fine art galleries, and serves as a more intimate counterpart to Occidental Park, the next block north. The latter features two large totem poles and the Fallen Firefighter Memorial statues.
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Turn east on S. Main St. At the southeast corner of 2nd and Main, the 1929 Seattle Fire Department headquarters stands as a stony symbol of stoic dedication. At the northwest corner of 2nd and Main, the Waterfall Garden Park is a small enclosed outdoor space in front of an artificial waterfall. It was built in 1977 by the family that founded the formerly Seattle-based United Parcel Service. Farther along, a gyro stand occupies a vintage gas station at the intersection with the diagonal 2nd Ave. Extension. The northeast corner of 3rd and Main offers more major commercial art galleries.
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Turn north on 3rd Ave. S. Halfway up the block, the privately run Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum claims to be the largest police museum in the western United States. At the southwest corner of 3rd and Washington, the 1890 Washington Court Building was originally commissioned by Dorothea “Lou” Graham, early Seattle’s most famous brothel operator. It’s now part of the Union Gospel Mission. At the northeast corner, the Tashiro/Kaplan Building combines two vintage structures into artist studios and galleries.
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Turn west on S. Washington St. for five blocks. At the northeast corner of Washington and the 2nd Ave. Extension, the three-story 1890 Chin Gee Hee Building is the last vestige of Seattle’s original Chinatown, before that community gradually moved farther east (Walk 11). At this intersection’s northwest corner, the Nugent/Considine Block houses the Double Header Tavern, Seattle’s oldest gay bar. In that building’s basement, the Heaven Nightclub occupies vaudeville mogul John Considine’s People’s Theater. One block beyond, the historic buildings give way to the 1950s brutalism of the Alaskan Way Viaduct (Walk 7). Beyond this, at the foot of Alaskan Way, stands the Washington Street Boat Landing, a Beaux Arts metal pergola built in 1920.
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Turn northwest on Alaskan one block; then turn east on Yesler. The 1914 Pioneer Square Hotel and Saloon has been renovated as a boutique hotel. Back at 1st and Yesler, the red sandstone facade of the Mutual Life Building now sports a toy store.
BACK STORY: SEATTLE’S STREET SYSTEM
Seattle’s street naming system is really easy once you know the basic rules (which have their exceptions). Streets generally run east-west; in greater downtown (including Belltown and west Capitol Hill), they run northeast-southwest. Avenues generally run north-south; in greater downtown, they run northwest-southeast. Ways, drives, places, boulevards, etc. can run in any direction.
Downtown’s not the only place where the city’s geography inspired digressions from an orderly street grid. Just about every part of town has them. These walks routinely cross the city’s directional prefix and suffix zones (NW, N., NE, etc.). Don’t worry about it.
Central downtown’s streets were given alliterative pairs of names for easier remembering—Jefferson and James, Columbia and Cherry, Marion and Madison, Spring and Seneca, University and Union, and Pike and Pine. These are expressed in an old-time local phrase, “Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest.”
