Seattle Washington: Encyclopedia II - Seattle Washington - Culture

Seattle Washington - Culture

Seattle Washington - Landmarks

The Space Needle is Seattle's most recognizable landmark, having been featured in the logo of the television show Frasier and the backgrounds of the television series Grey's Anatomy, not to mention countless films. The Needle dates from the 1962 Century 21 Exposition. Contrary to popular belief, the Space Needle is neither the tallest structure in Seattle, nor is it in downtown. This misconception results from the Space Needle often being photographed from Queen Anne Hill, where it is closer to the viewer than are the skyscrapers of downtown. The surrounding fairgrounds have been converted into Seattle Center, which remains the site for many local civic and cultural events, such as Bumbershoot and the Bite of Seattle.

A monorail runs from Seattle Center to Westlake Center, a downtown shopping mall -- a distance of about a mile. The monorail is currently out of service following an accident on November 26, 2005.

Other notable Seattle landmarks include the Smith Tower, Pike Place Market, the Fremont Troll, the Experience Music Project (which is at Seattle Center), the new Seattle Central Library, the Washington Mutual Tower, and the Columbia Center, which is the fourth tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi River and the twelfth tallest in the nation. (On June 16, 2004, the 9/11 Commission reported that the original plan for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks included the Columbia Center as one of ten targeted buildings.) [12]

The original Starbucks Coffee is in Seattle's Pike Place Market.

Seattle Washington - Annual cultural events and fairs

Among Seattle's best-known annual cultural events and fairs are the 24-day Seattle International Film Festival, Northwest Folklife over the Memorial Day weekend, numerous Seafair events throughout the summer months (ranging from a Bon Odori celebration to hydroplane races), the Bite of Seattle, and Bumbershoot over the Labor Day weekend. All are typically attended by over 100,000 people annually, as are Hempfest and two separate Independence Day celebrations.

Several dozen Seattle neighborhoods have one or more annual street fairs, and many have an annual parade or foot race. The largest of the street fairs feature hundreds of craft and food booths and multiple stages with live entertainment, and draw more than 100,000 people over the course of a weekend; the smallest are strictly neighborhood affairs with a few dozen craft and food booths, barely distinguishable from more prominent neighborhoods' weekly farmers' markets.

Other significant events include numerous Native American powwows, a Greek Festival hosted by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals associated with Festal at Seattle Center.

As in most large cities, there are numerous other annual events of more limited interest, ranging from book fairs; the premier anime convention in the Pacific Northwest, Sakura-Con; and specialized film festivals to a two-day, 8,000-rider Seattle-to-Portland bicycle ride.

Seattle Washington - Performing arts

Seattle is a significant center for the performing arts. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras [13] and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at McCaw Hall (which opened 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States. [14], [15] The Seattle Youth Symphony is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States, and among the most distinguished.

In addition, Seattle has about twenty live theater venues, a slim majority of them being associated with fringe theater. It has a strong local scene for poetry slams and other performance poetry, and several venues that routinely present public lectures or readings. The largest of these is Seattle's 900-seat, Romanesque Revival Town Hall on First Hill.

Seattle is often thought of as the home of grunge rock musicians like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Temple of the Dog, and Mudhoney, all of whom reached vast audiences in the early 1990s. The city is also home to such varied musicians as avant-garde jazz musicians Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot, smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G, heavy metal band Nevermore, and such poppier rock bands as Goodness and the Presidents of the United States of America. Such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Duff McKagan, Nikki Sixx, and Quincy Jones spent their formative years in Seattle. Ann and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart, often attributed to Seattle, were actually from the neighboring suburb of Bellevue, as were progressive metal band Queensrÿche.

Since the grunge era, the Seattle area has hosted a diverse and influential alternative music scene. The Seattle-based record label Sub Pop—the first to sign Nirvana—has signed such non-grunge bands as Murder City Devils, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Postal Service, and The Shins. Other Seattle-area bands of note in this period include Death Cab for Cutie (Bellingham), Foo Fighters, Modest Mouse (Issaquah), and Sleater-Kinney (Olympia).

Earlier Seattle-based popular music acts include the collegiate folk group The Brothers Four; The Wailers, a 1960s garage band; the Allies and the Heaters (later "the Heats"), 1980s teen-pop bands; from that same era, the more sophisticated pop of the short-lived Visible Targets and the still-performing Young Fresh Fellows and Posies; and the pop-punk of The Fastbacks and the outright punk of the Fartz (later Ten Minute Warning), The Gits, and Seven Year Bitch.

Spoken word and poetry are also staples of the Seattle arts scene, paralleling the explosion of the indie scene during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Seattle's performance poetry scene blossomed with the importation of the poetry slam from Chicago (its origin) by transplant Paul Granert. This and the proliferation of weekly readings/open mics and poetry-friendly club venues like the Weathered Wall, the OK Hotel, and the Ditto Tavern (all now defunct), allowed spoken-word/performance poetry to take off in a big way. The Seattle Poetry Festival (launched first as the Poetry Circus in 1997) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry such as Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Ted Jones, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ismael Reed, Seku Sundiata, and many others. Regionally famed poets like Bart Baxter, Tess Gallagher, and Rebecca Brown have also been featured at the Poetry Festival, as well as numerous other events such as the world-famous Bumbershoot Arts Festival.

Seattle Washington - Museums and art collections

The Henry Art Gallery opened in 1927, making it the first museum in Washington. The main Seattle Art Museum opened in 1933. Art collections are also housed at the Frye Art Museum and the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

Regional history collections are at the Museum of History and Industry and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Industry-specific collections are housed at the Center for Wooden Boats, Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, and Museum of Flight. Regional ethnic collections include Nordic Heritage Museum and the Wing Luke Asian Museum.

In addition, Seattle has a thriving artist-run gallery scene, including 10 year veteran Soil Art Gallery, and the newer Crawl Space Gallery.

See also: Museums and galleries of Seattle

Seattle Washington - Other cultural institutions

The Woodland Park Zoo, opened as a private zoo in 1889, is one of the oldest on the West Coast, and has been a leader in innovations in naturalistic zoo exhibits. The Seattle Aquarium has been open on the downtown waterfront since 1977. The Seattle Underground Tour, visiting many of the places that existed mostly before the great fire, is also popular.

Seattle Washington - Media

Seattle's leading newspapers are the daily Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer; they share their advertising and business departments under a Joint Operating Agreement, which (as of 2004) the Times is seeking to terminate or renegotiate.

The most prominent weeklies are the Seattle Weekly and the Stranger. Both of these consider themselves "alternative" papers; the Stranger has a reputation for a younger and hipper readership, the Weekly has a reputation as more politically conservative. There are also several ethnic newspapers and numerous neighborhood newspapers.

Seattle is also well served by television and radio. Seattle's major network television affiliates are KOMO 4 (ABC), KING-TV 5 (NBC), KIRO 7 (CBS), KCTS 9 (PBS), KSTW 11 (UPN), KCPQ 13 (FOX), KONG 16/6 (Ind.), KTWB 22/10 (WB), and KWPX 33/3 (i); five of them can be seen across Canada via digital cable or satellite. Seattle cable viewers also receive CBUT 2 CBC from Vancouver, British Columbia, often as cable channel 99.

Leading radio stations include KUBE 93.3, KNDD 107.7, KIRO-AM 710, KOMO-AM 1000, and NPR affiliates KUOW-FM 94.9 and KPLU-FM 88.5 (Tacoma). Other notable stations include KEXP-FM 90.3 (affiliated with EMP) and KNHC-FM 89.5, owned by the public school system and operated by students of Nathan Hale High School. Many Seattle radio stations are also available through internet radio, with KUOW, KNHC, and KEXP being notable web radio innovators.

On the Internet Seattle is covered by the blogs Seattlest, Seattle Metroblogging and Slog, among others.

Seattle Washington - Sports

The first major professional modern day sports franchise started in Seattle was the Seattle SuperSonics (known to most as the "Seattle Sonics") NBA team (1967). They were joined by the Seattle Pilots baseball team in 1969. Both team names reflected the local importance of the aerospace industry. The Pilots played in Seattle for only one year at Sick's Stadium, previously home to several minor league teams (most notably the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League), before relocating to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Their sole season was immortalized in Jim Bouton's book Ball Four.

Legal wrangling over the move of the Pilots pressured Major League Baseball to award Seattle a new franchise, the Mariners, in 1977. The Mariners would play in the newly built Kingdome, an indoor sports facility they shared with the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL, who started play the previous year. For a time, all three of the city's major sports teams used the Kingdome, despite ongoing maintenance issues with the venue. After some controversy (voters defeated two funding initiatives), the Kingdome was demolished in 2000 and replaced with Seahawks Stadium (later renamed Qwest Field), built on the same site. By this time, the other sports had long since relocated: the Sonics now use KeyArena exclusively, and the Mariners' new home is the modern, retractable-roofed Safeco Field, built with state money after the city voted down a bond issue to build it.

The city's first professional sports championship was brought to the city by way of the PCHA Seattle Metropolitans in 1917. The professional hockey team, which represented Seattle from 1915 to 1924, was in fact the first U.S. team to win the coveted Stanley Cup, beating the Montréal Canadiens. They returned to the Stanley Cup finals twice more. Their first return, again versus Montreal, was in 1919; that series was cancelled due to an outbreak of influenza with the two teams tied at 2–2–1. The Metropolitans last went to the Stanley Cup finals in 1920, when they lost to the Ottawa Senators.

The Seattle SuperSonics last won a modern-day championship, the NBA crown, in 1979, with Lenny Wilkens as coach. It is the only major sports championship Seattle has won.

In addition to professional sports, the University of Washington, Seattle University, and Seattle Pacific University field teams in a variety of sports, including football and basketball. Their teams are known as the Huskies, Redhawks, and Falcons, respectively. The Husky football team has a following that ranks with those of the major professional teams in the city. In 1991, the Huskies shared an NCAA Division I collegiate football championship with the Hurricanes of the University of Miami.

In 1990, Seattle hosted the 1990 Goodwill Games.

In 1998, the Seattle City Council failed to pass a resolution supporting a Seattle bid for the 2012 Olympics.

In 2004, the Seattle Storm won a WNBA championship.

In 2005, the Seattle Sounders won the USL First Division championship.

In 2006, the Seattle Seahawks became NFC champions after their second straight playoff win, and advanced to Super Bowl XL.

The cities of Everett and Tacoma, to the north and the south of Seattle, respectively, have sports teams of their own. Most notable are the Tacoma Rainiers, a Triple-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners in the Pacific Coast League, and the Everett AquaSox, an A team playing short-season baseball in the Northwest League.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Culture", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki