space needle
S is for Space Needle
The Space Needle is Seattle’s most iconic building and I’ve been enthralled by it ever since I remember first seeing it on a day trip to Seattle from Snohomish as a little kid. It was built for the 1962 World’s Fair and contains an observation deck and two restaurants. The top restaurant rotates once per hour so that diners get to enjoy the entire 360 degree view during their meal.
Posted for Cee’s B&W Challenge with the topic of the letters S or T.
Urban Outing Part 3: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
For those landing on this page specifically to compare the Seattle Space Needle to the Sky View Observatory, scroll down to just below the photos.
Read Urban Outing parts one and two here.
The trip from the Mt. Baker Ridge Viewpoint to the Columbia Center for the next stop on my best friend’s urban birthday tour couldn’t have gone more smoothly. We drove right to the parking garage entrance with nary a problem.
This was a huge relief because I’d been dreading driving downtown. It helped immensely that we didn’t have to deal with hairy weekday traffic. Anxiety attack successfully avoided!
The Sky View Observatory was the Really Big Thing I planned for our Seattle outing. The most touristy, most urban thing. Neither of us had been there before, and I was excited to visit such an attraction for the first time in my own city.
The observatory is something anyone can enjoy, whether you’re a lifelong Seattle area resident or just here for one day before an Alaska cruise.
Bird’s Eye View
The new Space Needle webcam is now operational and it’s awesome!
The old webcam was pretty neat and it was a good way to check on what the weather was doing. But the camera only pointed in southerly directions, and since it was a live view you had to wait around 15 minutes to see a change of position.
The new camera is on a time delay, but the advantage is you get a complete 360 degree view. You can watch it slowly rotate, or drag your finger on the screen (on a mobile device) to speed things up or go back. No more long waits. You can also spin a wheel at the bottom of the image to go back in time to see what was going on earlier.
The Space Needle cam is a fantastic tool for planning park outings. You can see what the weather is doing in your direction, and make a good guess as to whether it will be staying the same, getting better, or getting worse.
It’s also valuable for photography enthusiasts. Check to see what the sky is doing when deciding if you want to venture out for sunrise or sunset. Or look to see if the mountain is out before driving across the city to a viewpoint.
Here’s the link:
Park Preview 