Seattle Center

On the most recent trip to Seattle I checked out several facilities in the 74 acre city park known as the Seattle Center.

The Seattle Center was built for the 1962 World's Fair and is mostly known for the Space Needle. The Seattle Center is roughly bounded by; 5th Avenue, Mercer Street, 1st Avenue, Denny Way and Broad Street. There are several notable attractions in Seattle Center aside from the Space Needle, on my recent trip I also went to the Museum of Popular Culture and Chihuly Glass & Gardens.

The Museum of Popular Culture is located on 5th Avenue and Harrison Street. The Museum was established in 2000 with the incredibly awkward name of "Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame" before it was changed to the current name in 2016. The Museum of Popular Culture features displays for; Horror Movies, Sci-Fi, Star Trek, music (heavy emphasis on Nirvana), music and video games.

Chihuly Glass and Garden is located directly west of the Space Needle. The facility opened in 2012 and features studio glass sculptures made by Dale Chihuly.

As for the Space Needle the structure is undergoing heavy renovations which is scheduled to be complete in June. The Space Needle is a 605 foot observation tower which was built to withstand earthquakes up to 9.2 magnitude.

Interestingly the Space Needle used to have an almost open observation deck. Suicide attempts in the 1970s led to a higher glass fencing structure being installed. The current renovation includes glass fencing which can be apparently leaned against. Due to the renovations there was only about 270 degree view available from the observation deck. The Olympic Range could be seen westward over the waters of Puget Sound, Mount Baker could be seen to the north over Union Lake and even an obscured view of Mount Rainier could be seen southward over downtown.

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