Start this walk on the corner of First Avenue and Pike Street. This is the main entrance to Pike Place Market, founded in 1907. When it opened, it was on the northern edge of the young city. It had no permanent buildings, just produce wagons; buildings came later, in fits and starts, resulting in the maze of mysterious passageways found in the Market today.

By the late 1930s more than 600 farmers were selling at the Market, but the internment of the Japanese during World War II cut that number in half. During the war the Market declined, becoming shabby and largely unused. In the 1960s it was threatened with redevelopment: An association of downtown businesses proposed replacing the old Market buildings with a parking garage, apartments, and office towers. Fortunately, even in its neglected state, the Market had loyal friends. A group of citizens led by architect Victor Steinbrueck spearheaded a successful ballot initiative in 1971 to save the Market, resulting in the area’s designation as a historic district.

Today the Market is an urban preservation success story, attracting locals as well as tourists from all over the world and serving as a model for public markets in other cities. No one would even think of uttering the word “redevelopment” in conjunction with Pike Place Market today.

Roam through structures 1 through 13, described below, as you please. If you like, you can pick up a list of Market merchants and eateries at the tourist information booth on the corner of First and Pike. (This tiny green kiosk is also an outlet for Ticket/ Ticket, which sells half-price day-of-show theater tickets.)

1. Main Arcade and Down Under Shops. This is a combination of two buildings, the Leland Hotel (1900) and the Fairley Building (1907–14). Above the Main Arcade is the famous Public Market Center sign and the neon clock; (picture) beneath the clock is Rachel, the enormous bronze piggy bank installed in 1986. Every year Rachel collects about $8,000 in donations for the Market Foundation, which helps support the Market’s food bank, health clinic, and other social services.

Near Rachel are the fishmongers of Pike Place Fish, famous for tossing fish back and forth across the counter as a crowd gathers to watch. Also in the Main Arcade are restaurants, flower and produce stalls, and gift shops. Down the stairs are three more levels of stores, collectively called Down Under, selling everything from magic tricks to ethnic clothing. One level is largely devoted to antique shops.

2. North Arcade (1911). Along this long, covered arcade are stalls selling fresh produce (much of it local),(picture) flowers, and the works of local artists and craftspeople.(picture)

3. Victor Steinbrueck Park (1978). Named for the local architect who led the effort to save Pike Place Market from redevelopment in the 1960s and early ’70s, this park sits atop a bluff overlooking Elliott Bay. On a sunny day, it’s a fine place to enjoy the croissant or farm-fresh fruit you couldn’t resist buying at the Market.

4. Soames-Dunn Building (1918). Formed when the Soames Building and the Dunn Building were joined together in 1976, this structure is home to a multitude of shops and restaurants—everything from an art gallery (upstairs) to a small grocery selling foods of India. A charming courtyard in back connects with Post Alley via a stairway. The building also houses the original Starbucks Coffee outlet: The now-ubiquitous nationwide chain opened its first store in Pike Place Market on this very site in 1971.

5. Stewart House (1902–11). Here you can spend $600 on eyeglasses or have your hair cut for just 10 bucks. As in several other Market buildings, low-income apartments are located upstairs, part of the Market’s commitment to social services.

6. Seattle Garden Center Building (1908). Set on a small triangular block, this building is home to two stores selling a vast array of gardening supplies and kitchenware, respectively.

7. Inn at the Market (1985). You can walk through this elegant hotel’s fountain courtyard, which contains a fine restaurant and some of the more upscale shops in the Market.

8. Triangle Market. This curiously shaped structure is actually two buildings: the Triangle Building (1908) and the Silver Oakum Building (1910). Above the ground-floor shops are apartments and a restaurant with an outdoor terrace overlooking Elliott Bay.

9. Post Alley Market (1983).
As its name suggests, this building faces Post Alley, a quaint cobblestone street that winds its way through the Market. Post Alley Market contains an array of eateries and shops as well as an expansive coffee bar on Pine Street that, along with the tables and chairs set out in Post Alley, is a prime spot for people-watching.

10. Sanitary Market (1910). Called “sanitary” because it was the first Market building to prohibit horses inside, this structure is home to the Market’s oldest business, the Three Girls Bakery, opened in 1912. The maze of passageways here always yields unexpected rewards. Bargain hunters may want to head right for the little-known rummage-sale corner, which features a different seller each day.

11. Corner Market (1912). This was the first building in the Market to be rehabilitated after the Market was declared a historic district. Enjoy the eateries and produce stalls on the ground floor, climb the stairs to the restaurants and bars on two levels above, or check out the jazz club tucked in the basement.

12. Economy Market (1900). Originally a horse stable, the Economy Market Building was later transformed into Market space where discount day-old
produce was sold. Today it holds specialty food shops and restaurants, a newsstand featuring periodicals from all over the world, and retailers selling such things as wind-up toys and herbal medicines.

13. LaSalle Hotel (1908). The services offered here by Nellie Curtis, who purchased the building in 1942, were very popular with the Navy boys stationed across Puget Sound at Bremerton. Nellie and her girls were known to have as many as 1,000 sailors lined up at their door. You can find a couple of upscale restaurants in parts of Nellie’s old haunts today; the rest of the building is now apartments.

Leave the Market via the Main Arcade stairway near Rachel, to the right of Pike Place Fish, below the “Welcome Down Under” sign. Descend the many short flights of stairs to Western Avenue. Just before Western, on the left, you pass the playground of the Pike Market Child Care Center, another of the Market’s social programs.

14. Cross Western Avenue and descend the stairway to the parking area below. The wide stairway, bordered by shops and restaurants, is the Pike Place Hillclimb. (picture) This area was once home to Seattle’s only royalty: Princess Angeline, the daughter of Chief Seattle. She lived in a tiny shack below the present-day site of the Market until her death in 1896. (See “Her Majesty Kickisomlo-Cud” on page 13.)

Walk straight ahead through the parking area, under the elevated freeway; cross Alaskan Way to the waterfront. Waterfront attractions stretch before you to the left and right. A few blocks to the right is Pier 66, a relatively new development you may want to explore on your own. It offers several seafood restaurants ranging from casual to upscale, a fish-shaped wading pool popular with kids, and a short-stay marina as well as a viewing plaza located on the roof of the Bell Harbor Conference Center. The glass elevator just before the pier, on Alaskan Way at Lenora Street, connects the waterfront with the business district above.

To the left, between Pike and Marion Streets, is a stretch of waterfront that survives almost entirely on tourism. It has an abundance of restaurants and souvenir shops, ticket booths for boat cruises and parasailing adventures, and historical markers. The area used to be considerably more working-class, however: In his 1951 book Skid Road, Murray Morgan describes Seattle’s waterfront as “a good, honest, working waterfront.” Unfortunately, today it looks more like an amusement park, but it does have some features of interest.

15. The first attraction you encounter on the waterfront is the Seattle Aquarium. In addition to the usual collection of multicolored sea creatures from tropical climes, this aquarium places special emphasis on local aquatic fauna. They have a lively community of sea otters, river otters, and harbor seals, as well as an underwater dome where you can stand surrounded by 400,000 gallons of water and watch salmon and other fish. If you time your visit right, you can watch divers feed the fish. For a hands-on experience, visit the Discovery Lab, where you can touch starfish, anemones, and other tidepool residents.

The aquarium’s site is significant in Duwamish mythology. In this spot was a legendary subterranean waterway called Sh-chapu, a mythical link between Lake Union and Puget Sound that allowed whales to travel back and forth.

16. Turn left and stroll along Alaskan Way to Pier 52. Just past the aquarium, at Pier 57, are Waterfront Park, which offers wonderful panoramas from several viewing platforms, and Bay Pavilion, a pier building that now contains shops and an antique carousel. At Pier 55/56, private companies offer sightseeing cruises of Elliott Bay, the Ballard Locks, and elsewhere.

Alaskan Way has two completely different faces. The waterfront side is multicolored and tourist-oriented, while the opposite side sits underneath the elevated freeway looking stark and menacing. This freeway, called the Alaskan Way Viaduct, (picture) has a long parking lot underneath it that, together with the freeway itself, creates an unfortunate division between downtown and the waterfront.

Yet although the Viaduct is an ugly scar through the heart of the city, it somehow still manages to be intriguing. Driving north along this elevated freeway provides one of the most unusual views of the city, but even the Viaduct’s underbelly has a certain charm. A few restaurants and an abundance of antique shops peer out from unadorned old brick buildings. The businesses here operate out of what was clearly intended to be the buildings’ posterior. These are not the polished faces commerce usually presents to the world.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct’s design is very similar to that of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, which collapsed during the 1989 earthquake in the Bay Area. Seattle is also due for another earthquake, experts say. (Just a little something to think about if you choose to loiter here.)

17. Farther along Alaskan Way, at Pier 54, is Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. This shop is curious all right: It’s a free museum-cum-store that lures customers in with amazing grotesque oddities and then sells them cheap mementos. “Highlights” of the collection include several shrunken heads, two mummified bodies, fleas in dresses, a three-tusk walrus skull, and more. Joe Standley opened the store in 1899, and it’s still run by his descendants.

Pier 54 is also a terminal for the summertime Elliott Bay water taxi, which zips between the downtown waterfront and Seacrest Park in West Seattle.

Next to Ye Olde Curiosity Shop is Ivar’s Acres of Clams, a local institution. Look for the statue of its namesake feeding the seagulls, just beyond the take-out window, near where children can usually be found throwing french fries to the birds. (picture) Ivar Haglund was a natural showman who became famous in Seattle for his seafood restaurants, his publicity stunts, and his bad puns. He was a media phenomenon too, sponsoring community events, appearing on TV, and always urging the public to “Keep Clam.”

In 1938 Haglund displayed his knack for getting free publicity with his very first entrepreneurial attempt, a tiny aquarium operating out of a 1,000-square-foot space on the northern end of Pier 54. On a local weekly radio show, he sang familiar folk songs with humorously rewritten lyrics, many of them—not so coincidentally—about creatures in his aquarium. He took a seal to visit Santa at Christmas, and he drove around town in a truck with a drum attached, loudly proclaiming the attractions of the aquarium.

Haglund opened this restaurant in the 1940s and gradually expanded his empire to include more than a dozen Seattle-area eateries. Because of his wide-ranging radio ads, he became a household name from British Columbia to Oregon. When he died in 1985, his estate was worth $12 million, most of which he willed to the University of Washington.

Beyond Ivar’s are a waterfront fire station and the Washington State Ferry Terminal, which offers numerous sailings to and from Bainbridge Island and Bremerton every day. Even if you don’t need to go anywhere, a ferry ride is a pleasant, inexpensive way to see Puget Sound. (Chapter 18 provides a walking tour of downtown Winslow, the town at which the Bainbridge Island ferry docks.)

Retrace your steps, strolling back along Alaskan Way for several blocks to University Street. You can also choose to ride a waterfront streetcar to University; catch it at the station opposite Ivar’s, nicknamed “Clam Central Station” in his honor. (Since you would be taking the streetcar only to its next stop, though, you may wish to save this for a time when you can take a longer ride.) Featuring Tasmanian mahogany and white ash woodwork, the waterfront streetcars are 1927 Australian coaches that were brought from Melbourne to began service here in 1982. They run between Myrtle Edwards Park to the north and the International District to the south, and provide a pleasant tour of Seattle’s waterfront. The streetcars run every 20 minutes throughout the day (and well into the evening in summer), seven days a week.

18. Turn right onto University Street; follow it across Western Avenue and up the grand stairway to First Avenue. The stairway promenade is called the Harbor Steps. Its stair-stepped fountains and attractive plantings have made it a popular spot with office workers eating lunch and tourists taking a break from sightseeing. In the summer you may even happen upon one of downtown Seattle’s free noontime concerts here. The steps were created by a local development firm in conjunction with its adjacent project involving apartment towers, retail shops, a restaurant, and an inn. This sizable development has helped revitalize what was once a marginal area.

19. At the top of the Harbor Steps, on the northeast corner of First and University, is the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), housed in a Postmodern building designed by Pulitzer Prize–winning architect Robert Venturi and erected in 1991. The animated, 48-foot-tall Hammering Man outside, by artist Jonathan Borofsky, is a controversial addition that has been criticized as ugly and unoriginal (it has several dozen identical siblings scattered across the United States and Europe) but is nonetheless becoming a Seattle icon.

SAM has one of the world’s top collections of Northwest Coast Native American art as well as an extensive African art collection. The museum has an authentic bamboo-and-cedar teahouse in the Japanese Gallery, where a Japanese master performs tea ceremonies several times a month, and is home to works by Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, and other artists of the Northwest School, who practiced an understated painting style influenced by mysticism and Asian art. SAM is open daily except Mondays. There is an admission fee except on the first Thursday of each month, when it’s free.

Turn left onto First Avenue and follow it to Pike Street, where you started this walk.