Seattle Art Museum
The SAM collection has grown from 1,926 pieces in 1933 to nearly 25,000 as of 2008. Its original museum provided an area of 25,000 square feet (2,300 m2); the present facilities provide 312,000 square feet (29,000 m2) plus a 9-acre (3.6 ha) park. Paid ...
Ye Olde Curiosity Shop
The shop was founded in 1899 by J. E. "Daddy" Standley (born February 24, 1854, in Steubenville, Ohio). He had already traded somewhat in curios and Indian goods as a grocer in Denver, Colorado. When he moved to Seattle in 1899 because his wife's healt...
Museum of Flight
The Museum of Flight can trace its roots back to the Pacific Northwest Aviation Historical Foundation, which was founded in 1965 to recover and restore a 1929 Boeing 80A-1, which had been discovered in Anchorage, Alaska. The restoration took place over...
Seattle Asian Art Museum
The Seattle Asian Art Museum is housed in a historic Art Deco building designed in 1933 by Carl F. Gould of the architectural firm Bebb and Gould. From 1933 to 1991, the building served as the home of the Seattle Art Museum and its main collection. Aft...
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
The roots of the Burke Museum can be traced to a natural history club formed by high school students in the 19th century. The group was formed in December 1879 by students Edmond S. Meany, J. O. Young, P. Brooks Randolph, and Charles Denny. Denny's fat...
CenturyLink Field
The stadium was built between 2000 and 2002 on the site of the Kingdome after voters approved funding for the construction in a statewide election held in June 1997. This vote created the Washington State Public Stadium Authority to oversee public owne...
KeyArena
The arena's current tenants are the Seattle Redhawks (Seattle University men's basketball team) and the Seattle Storm of the WNBA. The Seattle University Redhawks men's basketball team are currently the arena's longest-serving tenant, having played in ...
Safeco Field
During the 1990s, the suitability of the Mariners' original stadium—the Kingdome—as a MLB facility came under doubt, and the team's ownership group threatened to relocate the team. In September 1995, King County voters defeated a ballot measure to secu...
Aurora Bridge
The bridge is 2,945 ft (898 m) long, 70 ft (21 m) wide, and 167 ft (51 m) above the water, and is owned and operated by the Washington State Department of Transportation. The bridge was opened to traffic on February 22, 1932. It was listed on the Natio...
Seattle Public Library
All but one of Seattle's early purpose-built libraries were Carnegie libraries. Although the central Carnegie library has now twice been replaced, all the early 20th century purpose-built branches survive, although some have been subject to significant...
Space Needle
It has an observation deck at 520 ft (160 m) and the rotating SkyCity restaurant at 500 ft (150 m). The downtown Seattle skyline, as well as the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, Elliott Bay and surrounding islands can be viewe...
Statue of Lenin
The statue was constructed by Bulgarian sculptor Emil Venkov (1937–2017) under a 1981 commission from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. While following the bounds of his commission, Venkov intended to portray Lenin as a bringer of revolution, in c...
Gum Wall
The wall is by the box office for the Market Theater, and the tradition began around 1993 when patrons of Unexpected Productions' Seattle Theatresports stuck gum to the wall and placed coins in the gum blobs. Theater workers scraped the gum away twice,...
Fremont Troll
The Troll was sculpted by four local artists: Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter, and Ross Whitehead. The idea of a troll living under a bridge is derived from the Scandinavian (Norwegian) folklore.
1201 Third Avenue
Kohn Pedersen Fox was hired to design the tower while visiting Seattle to be interviewed as a possible candidate for the job of designing the Seattle Art Museum. It was the first major office building built under Seattle’s 1985 downtown zoning plan, la...
Columbia Center
The Columbia Center, developed by Martin Selig and designed by Chester L. Lindsey Architects, began construction in 1982 and was completed in 1985. The building is primarily leased for class-A office spaces by various companies, with the lower floors i...
University of Washington
Established in downtown Seattle a decade after the city's founding, the university was created to aid in the economic development and urbanization of Seattle. Its two other campuses are located in Tacoma and Bothell. Overall, UW encompasses 500 buildin...
Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market is a public market overlooking the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle, Washington, United States. The Market opened August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the United States. It is a p...
Seattle Center Monorail
The monorail, which cost $3.5 million to build, opened on March 24, 1962 for the Century 21 Exposition, a World's Fair held at the current site of Seattle Center. Eight million people rode the monorail during the half year the fair was open; today, ann...
Beacon Hill Branch Library
Beacon Hill Branch was housed in a number of locations, including a location at 2519 15th Avenue South converted to a library in 1962. It was described as "the poster child for Seattle's worn-out library system", a "crumbling 1920s-era variety store wi...
