Pioneer Square, der Underground & Seattles Goldrausch-Geschichte
Pioneer Square — das historische Romanesque-Revival-Viertel am südlichen Ende der Innenstadt von Seattle, das ursprüngliche Handelszentrum der Stadt nach dem Großen Seattle-Brand von 1889 — ist das historisch bedeutsamste Viertel Seattles und enthält die größte Konzentration viktorianischer Handelsarchitektur im Pazifischen Nordwesten.
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Pioneer Square — Seattle's Oldest Neighbourhood (1852)
Pioneer Square (the triangular park at 1st Avenue and Yesler Way, the geographic and historical origin of Seattle, established 1852 when Henry Yesler built the first steam-powered lumber mill) is the most architecturally intact Victorian neighbourhood in the Pacific Northwest — the 1890s Romanesque Revival brick buildings (built after the 1889 Great Fire destroyed the original wooden city) lining 1st Avenue, Occidental Avenue, and Yesler Way form a coherent streetscape; the Pioneer Square historic district (28 blocks, National Register) contains the underground city, the Klondike Gold Rush Museum, and the highest concentration of art galleries in Seattle.
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Seattle Underground — The City Beneath the City
Bill Speidel's Underground Tour (614 1st Avenue, Pioneer Square, $28 adults, daily 9am–7pm, 1.5 hours) explores the original Seattle street level that was raised 3.7m after the 1889 fire — the tour walks through the 1890s storefront interiors (now underground, with glass bricks in the modern sidewalk above admitting light) of the original Skid Road (Yesler Way, where logs were skid down to Yesler's Mill, creating the term 'Skid Row'); the underground preserves original storefronts, hardware bins, and the ornate Victorian public toilets (which were below the new street level and famously filled with seawater during high tide).
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Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park — The Start of Alaska's Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (319 2nd Avenue Extension S, Pioneer Square, free, daily 9am–5pm) is the urban portion of a national park divided between Seattle and Skagway, Alaska — the museum documents Seattle's role in the 1897–1899 Klondike Gold Rush: the city became the outfitting centre for 100,000 prospectors heading to the Yukon; the 'Seattle Spirit' (the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's promotion of Seattle as the departure point for the Klondike, sparking the city's first major economic boom) is the beginning of Seattle's self-promotional tradition that culminated in the World's Fair (1962) and the tech boom.
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Art Galleries of Pioneer Square — First Thursday Gallery Walk
Pioneer Square's art gallery concentration (30+ galleries, the highest density in Washington State) participates in the First Thursday Gallery Walk (the first Thursday of each month, 6pm–8pm, galleries open late with new exhibitions, free wine, the most attended art event in Seattle) — the Stonington Gallery (125 S Washington, the finest Northwest Coast Native American art gallery in Seattle), the G. Gibson Gallery (contemporary photography), and the Krab Jab Studio (fantasy and speculative art) represent the spectrum; the galleries primarily serve the collector market but all are free and open to the public.
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Occidental Square — The Totem Poles and Cobblestone
Occidental Square (the pedestrianized block of Occidental Avenue S between Main and Jackson) is Pioneer Square's outdoor social centre — the 4 totem poles in the square (carved by Northwest Coast Tlingit artists including Duane Pasco) are the most visible Native art in downtown Seattle; the cobblestone paving (original 1890s basalt cobbles preserved through the 1889 rebuilding) is the only surviving example in Seattle; the square is home to the daily lunch crowd from the surrounding offices and is activated by the First Thursday Gallery Walk; the homeless shelter services adjacent to the square create an ongoing tension with gentrification.
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Smith Tower — Seattle's First Skyscraper (1914)
Smith Tower (506 2nd Avenue, Pioneer Square, 1914, Gaggin & Gaggin architects, 37 floors, 149m, the tallest building west of the Mississippi until 1931) is the centrepiece of Pioneer Square's skyline — the observation deck (35th floor, open daily 10am–10pm, $24 adults, the 'Chinese Room' with original hand-carved interior including the Wishing Chair presented to L.C. Smith by the Empress of China) is the most character-rich elevated viewpoint in Seattle; the building's story (Lyman Cornelius Smith, the typewriter manufacturer, built it as a monument to his own success) and the 1914 Otis elevators (still operating) are the attraction.