There are occasionlly days during the winter when there are no clouds in the sky. When those days happen, you get out of the office, one way or the other. These shots were taken during just such a day.
The first is of a tree I've been trying to get the perfect shot of for almost a year. This tree is on a small rise, in the water front park along the bay. The mountain range in the background is the Olympic range.
The wedge building. What with the convoluted and complex shape of Seattle, streets are almost never layed out in any kind of grid. The result is some fairly weirdly shaped lots. This classic building sit just across from Macy's, which had an amazing Christmas display of model trains in its window. In the background, you can see the monorail tracks (See: City Center for a picture of the monorail station at the Needle).
A bit farther away, showing the Westin hotel in the background.
The Seattle Aquarium building, from under the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
Seattle is fairly artificial. A great deal re-shaping and modifying of the scenery has occurred over the years. One of the biggest projects was the construction of the sea wall. The sea wall is fairly old, and like the Alaskan Way Viaduct, suffered some damage during the Nisqually earthquake. The Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated highway built during the 1950s, is six lanes, and is jam-packed every single day during the two, three hour long rush hours. The suggested solution? Boring a tunnel underneath the city to hold a four lane replacment. Oh, and charge an outrageous toll for each use, as well as to make such a limited number of entries and exits as to make the thing a very, very expensive joke.
I'm waiting for the tunnel boring to produce a fault that causes either street subsidence, or worse, damage to one of the high rise buildings. There have already been miscalculations that resulted in such kinds of damage when they put in the light link rail tunnel.
Here a few pictures of old pilings along the sea wall that are detached, and in some cases, falling down.
Here are two shots across the Bay and Sound, of the islands, and behind them, the Olympic mountains.
Finally, a few shots from the top of the new pedestrian bridge that finally opened four months late, but for all of that, one I use nearly every day. The first is to the south, and you can see the tree I shot in the foreground.
The second is from farther up the bridge.
This last is from the head of the bridge, closest to the bay, looking north towards the grain loading dock, and featuring the two northern most F5 buildings on the right.
John Stevens
john at betelgeuse dot us