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Drawing on this experience, the team worked with specialty consultants to adapt a “quick deck” system that was originally developed for working on oil platforms in the North Sea. movable structures that provide safe, efficient access in high-bay work environments.
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Indeed, when we descend and the elevator doors open, an automated voice chimes, “Thanks for coming, and enjoy your time in Seattle.” It sounds to me as though we, like people in an airport, aren’t quite here yet.On recent large industrial projects for Boeing and others, Hoffman had developed innovative “engineered platforms” for construction execution, i.e. It-like all those smaller Needles in the gift shop-refers ultimately to itself. This structure, I start to think, has become so iconic that it’s ceased to have much to do with Seattle. The longer I’m up here, the more abstract the city becomes. Soon, I too feel a little motion sick-not only destabilized from the spinning floor, but dislocated. The private club on the top two floors even offers those views from inside the stalls in the women’s bathroom. On the other end of downtown, the Columbia Tower’s Sky View Observatory offers panoramic cityscapes from 73 stories up. A couple nearby struggles: “I’m getting a headache. It’s easier to take in the views as we stand on a translucent floor and inch through a rotation. It contains, per the Space Needle’s website, “the world’s first and only rotating glass floor.” (Can this possibly be true?) The light is less compelling down here, and the carpets look like they were taken from a church lobby, so photographers are fewer. After a couple laps, dodging selfie-extended arms, we head to the lower level, known as the Loupe.
#Seattle space needle full
Seeing the city without it is a nice change, as is taking in Seattle’s full 360-degree spread, the jigsaw of water and land. I’ve never particularly liked the Needle. The view, I’m loath to admit, is stunning. Next stop, a packed elevator.Īt the top, more people are taking photos than looking out the windows. Several position us floating unnaturally in front of the Needle, as if we were 600 feet in the air. A photographer snaps pictures, which get imposed on an array of backgrounds. Eventually the queue deposits us in front of a screen. Signage offers trivial lore: I learn the restaurant on top weighed 125 tons and builders had to align 74,000 bolt holes.
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They adorn mugs, pocket watches, and tiny bags of coffee beans, the “Rainy Day Blend.” They’re made of Legos, blown glass, plush stuffing, rocks, bent wires, foam. We wait on a walkway above the gift shop, filled with multitudes of smaller Space Needles. My girlfriend and I pass through airport levels of security to get in line behind a man wearing a Biketoberfest hoodie with a skull and crossbones. But why-when the city’s life is so clearly elsewhere-should I shell out $35 to glide to a touristed perch?Īt the top, more people are taking photos than looking out the windows. Yes, I’ve seen it in the distance, passed buskers at its feet. I’ve lived 33 years in various parts of Washington state and never been in the Space Needle. New Yorkers ignore the Statue of Liberty, Parisians the Eiffel Tower. Image: Shutterstock by Ritu Manoj JethaniĪ certain cliche goes like this: If you’re truly from a city, a proper local, you will not have toured the oddity that distinguishes its skyline.