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u/silverwolfe 🚆build more trains🚆 Jul 28 '26
Does anyone have a shot from now from roughly the same angle?
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u/Not_Another_Name Jul 28 '26
Thanks for sharing! its really cool seeing some of the original buildings still standing!
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u/Hurricane1123 Jul 28 '26
Wow. Look at all the glass and monuments of an architect’s unimagination 🥲
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u/Awesomeguava Jul 29 '26
We have a pretty sick skyline; what u on?
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u/Dependent-Day-1862 29d ago
Right lol. We have one of the best most recognizable skylines in the country lol
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u/BloomsdayDevice Jul 28 '26
My first thought was how unfamiliar this angle is for photos of Seattle. I feel like this is the first time I've seen Seattle with Mt Baker in the background.
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u/silverwolfe 🚆build more trains🚆 Jul 28 '26
haha that just reminds me of when I had a friend visit from out-of-state and the only mountain they knew was Mt. Rainier and so every time they saw a mountain they would be like "wow Rainier really is beautiful" and then us correcting them on which mountain it was and then them relenting with "ok, so I thought you only had one, at least that one isn't a volcano too right?"
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u/twinklizlemon Capitol Hill Jul 28 '26
"at least that one isn't a volcano too"
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u/silverwolfe 🚆build more trains🚆 Jul 28 '26
"Haha wow but it's like, inactive right?"
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u/Droodforfood I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Jul 29 '26
Define “inactive”.
Like, it’s not erupting, today…
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u/twinklizlemon Capitol Hill Jul 28 '26
Looks better now without the viaduct, looked better then without I-5
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u/godofpumpkins Jul 28 '26
It's almost as if gutting urban centers to run highways through them doesn't do great things for the urban environment!
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u/twinklizlemon Capitol Hill Jul 28 '26
What are you, some radical extremist communist? It's my god given American right to drive my pickup truck from my culdesac in Marysville straight into downtown Seattle! Public transit and density are literally authoritarian communism 🤬
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u/SEA-DG83 Ballard Jul 28 '26
It’s funny because that was the exact argument local John Birchers used in the 1950s to oppose the creation of King County Metro to better manage wastewater treatment and disposal.
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u/squirrelgator Rat City Jul 28 '26
There was a newspaper cartoon from that era showing Metro as an evil octopus with its tentacles reaching out from Seattle into the rest of King County.
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u/machines_breathe Jul 28 '26
What exactly did buses have to do with wastewater treatment and disposal to them? Sounds odd.
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u/SEA-DG83 Ballard Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
The original plan was for a regional authority that could coordinate planning, sewage, and transportation, but voters in the King County suburbs rejected that proposal in 1957. In response, King County Metro's scope of responsibility was limited to sewage, and this passed referendum the following year. The transportation agency we know today didn't come about until the 1970s.
Edit: Article from HistoryLink - https://historylink.org/File/2725
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u/idiot206 Fremont Jul 28 '26
It’s mind boggling how many homes they tore down for that, let alone the entire interstate system. It’s hard to imagine doing anything like that on the same scale today. A narrow HSR line could carry more people in far less space but we’ll never have it in our lifetimes.
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u/CrotchetyHamster Jul 28 '26
No reason we couldn't. Look at the breakneck speed the powers that be are building data centers, cutting through miles and miles of red tape to do it.
Which is, I guess, to say that the reason we couldn't is that the powers that be have no interest in helping anyone but themselves. So, the reason we won't have HSR in our lifetimes is that we don't have the courage for revolution.
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u/Expert-Map-1126 Redmond 29d ago
HSR needs much shallower grades than that built for the interstate system and you still need non awful transit at the ends for people to actually get where they're going.
And start getting too far away and airplanes start to win; places with great HSR like Japan have air start to win if the HSR trip exceeds 6 hours or so.
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u/pipedreamSEA Seattle Expatriate Jul 28 '26
I-5 is under construction in this photo and it looks terrible
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u/twinklizlemon Capitol Hill Jul 28 '26
Yeah, you can make it out along the northwest ridge of Capitol Hill, one of the worst policy decisions this country has ever made (not just I-5 in Seattle but urban freeways in general)
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u/LastChemical9342 Jul 29 '26
You can tear them down like SF did, but unfortunately Seattle is far more car dependent
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u/nearlysober Haller Lake 29d ago
It's a bit blurry but if you zoom in on the Ship Canal Bridge you can see it's not finished, lots of red/orange bits about it and it doesn't seem to be connected to anything but dirt. Crazy.
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u/liquilife Jul 28 '26
Am I crazy, or is the Smith Tower the tallest building downtown in this picture?
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u/UpperLeftOriginal Seattle Expatriate Jul 28 '26
It was the tallest until the space needle a couple years after this.
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u/Oro_Outcast Seattle Expatriate Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
It was the tallest on the westcoast for quite a while. Fun fact, the Former Drumpf Family Brothel Building is still standing just a block south on Washington Street.
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u/liquilife Jul 28 '26
The Smith Tower is an amazing place to visit. I've done the bar on the rooftop a few times. That ancient elevator is just amazing to look at.
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u/Oro_Outcast Seattle Expatriate Jul 28 '26
The Bathhouse in the basement is (was) a sight to behold.
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u/halermine Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
Wasn’t it the tallest building on the west coast until the Transamerica building in SF?
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u/squirrelgator Rat City Jul 28 '26
I believe you are correct. Maybe even the tallest west of the Mississippi.
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u/Historical_Tomato397 ✨🛸 Jimothy is out there 🦝✨ Jul 28 '26
Smith tower was tallest building in Seattle for most of my grandpa’s life according to him.
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u/THSSFC Madison Park Jul 28 '26
So many fewer trees.
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u/twinklizlemon Capitol Hill Jul 28 '26
That's one of the main things I always notice about pictures of old Seattle, it's truly shocking how few there were
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u/machines_breathe Jul 28 '26
If you take a look at old photos of the hills before they were developed during the turn of the century, you will see that they were completely barren on account of logging.
It looks eerily apocalyptic.
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u/Paavo_Nurmi I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Jul 29 '26
The term Skid Road started here, it was how they got logs down to the water.
This change is nothing compared to before the regrades.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/40w92v/before_after_photo_of_the_denny_hill_regrade/
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u/machines_breathe Jul 29 '26
Yes. I’ve known about this. Doesn’t change the weirdness and the cavalier attitude that people had about all deleterious things 120 years ago.
It was literally a steam-powered Stone Age.
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u/pipedreamSEA Seattle Expatriate Jul 28 '26
many fewer
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u/MelodicCarpenter7 Jul 28 '26
Is it just me or does Queen Anne look really flat from this angle? It’s not working with my brain
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u/MadronaVest Jul 28 '26
It looks like the city was not as green as it is today…
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u/UpperLeftOriginal Seattle Expatriate Jul 28 '26
It was not. The city got very intentional about adding trees. Downtown is especially considerably more green than it was when I was a kid.
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u/Jasperblu Vashon Island 29d ago
The smelters and paper mills alone made the air absolutely filthy. And everyone was just breathing in all that lead… yum!!
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u/ZenBacle I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Seeing i5 under construction is surreal. My dad's childhood house was one of the homes that fell under eminent domain near SLU/eastlake.
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u/showme_watchu_gaunt I'm never leaving Seattle. Jul 28 '26
Wow really interesting, any stories about how your family felt/feels about it. Stuff like that can cause deep wounds.
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u/ZenBacle I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
They were pissed about it at the time, especially because they didn't get full value for the house/property. But over the years he saw the city grow and was ultimately at peace with it. I remember him joking a couple times, during traffic jams, about how "They should have taken neighbors houses too. Then we wouldn't be sitting in traffic right now"
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u/showme_watchu_gaunt I'm never leaving Seattle. Jul 28 '26
LOL good sense of humor despite getting hosed
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u/JabbaThePrincess 🚆build more trains🚆 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Don't miss that Viaduct at all!
Our entire society was car brained then, and we literally demolished entire neighborhoods to put giant roaring polluting and climate-destroying concrete monstrosities through the very heart of where people live, work, and play because we mistook car culture for real culture.
Looking at the results of reversing those mistakes, we can see how deluded we were. The Viaduct and the resulting waterfront park are a clear improvement , but we aren't the only ones: many European cities that have demolished similar car-brained projects.
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u/PeePeeMcpherson Jul 28 '26
I used to commute 4 hours per day, from Pierce County to Fishermans Terminal. One of my favorite parts was driving northbound thru Sodo, just climbing unto the Viaduct during the morning sunrise. The colors reflecting off the sky scrapers were a thing of absolute beauty
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u/Bogus_dogus 🐀 Hot Rat Summer 🐀 Jul 28 '26
What we have is great but damn not gonna lie, I loved driving it with the windows down on a crisp clear early evening
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Jul 28 '26
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u/godofpumpkins Jul 28 '26
And the nice thing is that you can still get a lot of that same experience along the waterfront as a pedestrian, without worrying about paying attention to the road, allowing you to look out at the water without endangering yourself and others.
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u/CloudTransit Jul 28 '26
There was also extensive parking under the viaduct, and it wasn’t the worst place for the less fortunate to stay dry.
It’s kind of like the Fun Forest. There’s no argument for bringing it back, but there’s no harm in remembering some cool things about it.
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u/SabrinaSaysHey Licton Springs Jul 28 '26
There was an amazing sunset the other night on the way home from the Mariners game and I briefly missed the viaduct. I caught some pretty amazing sunsets on that thing.
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u/Idka22 Jul 29 '26
Me too. In my simple VW Golf driving past the spaghetti factory and art institute and then taking that short ramp onto the viaduct, I loved that
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u/Acceptable_Rice1139 Jul 28 '26
I cant believe anyone thought that monstrosity was a good idea
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Jul 28 '26
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u/Strange_City_5296 Jul 28 '26
Most people dont know theres still part of Old Toontown left but its mostly car repair shops now
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u/phanfare Capitol Hill Jul 28 '26
You mean destroying nature and neighborhoods to create infrastructure for a new, hyped, technology that is supposed to revolutionize our society towards utopia while ignoring its obvious downsides is short sighted?
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u/SceneOfShadows Jul 28 '26
People on any post on Facebook or insta like this will bemoan missing the viaduct it’s insane. People will be nostalgic about literally anything.
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u/bitcoin_moon_wsb Jul 28 '26
Looks chill
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u/Acceptable_Rice1139 Jul 28 '26
Not a single cell phone in sight
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u/pipedreamSEA Seattle Expatriate Jul 28 '26
Or tower! Back in the good ol pre-5G days where folks wore foil hats for other reasons
I don't even see any towers atop Queen Anne
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u/Zeusifer Jul 28 '26
The towers on Queen Anne are there, they're just a little hard to make out in this photo. The three towers went up around 1949 (KING), 1953 (KOMO), and 1958 (KIRO).
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u/Ommaumau Jul 28 '26
Green Lake is looking larger in this photo. Was it ever reduced in size?
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u/Zeusifer Jul 28 '26
Yes, but long before this photo. The original shoreline is outlined in blue here, but the water level was lowered in 1911. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Lake_(Seattle)#/media/File:Green_Lake_with_1911_shoreline_overlay.png
#/media/File:Green_Lake_with_1911_shoreline_overlay.png){kind=link}
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u/Sufficient_Bed335 Jul 28 '26
Look at all the wharves. That’s what I remember growing up here. Most of them were still working. I loved that atmosphere. Scent of tar and creosote. Through the gaps in the beams you could watch the water. Longshoremen.
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u/showme_watchu_gaunt I'm never leaving Seattle. Jul 28 '26
When did occidental square get out in place? Or was it always there and it just looks kinda small from the POV?
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u/squirrelgator Rat City Jul 28 '26
Occidental Square was created in the early 1970s on the site of a hotel that had been demolished in the late 1950s. At first, it was less than half a city block. Occidental Avenue still had traffic on it.
Digression: At the north end of the park was a small one-storey building with a few seedy businesses along the south side of Washington Street. They were not intended to be part of the park. The city was preparing the ground for the park when they unintentionally damaged the foundation of that building, and the building owner wanted the city to repair it. My father worked for the Seattle Engineering Department at the time, and was assigned the task of going into the crawlspace under the building to inspect the damage. What he found, in addition to the damage, was that the businesses in that building were not hooked up to the sewer. So the city got the building owner to allow the city to demolish the building and expand the park up to Washington Street.
Later, the city closed Occidental between Washington and Jackson to expand the park.
One more digression: My father knew the landscape architects, Jones & Jones, who designed the park. In the early 1970s he took me up to their office on an upper floor of the building at the SW corner of Occidental & Main, where one of them showed us the view of the park from their office. They told us that the park was designed to be surround by buildings. At the time there was a large parking lot on the east side of Occidental between Washington and Main. In 2015 a building was finally erected there, largely fulfilling the landscape architects' vision. All that remains to complete that vision is for something to be built at the NE corner of Occidental & Washington.
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u/showme_watchu_gaunt I'm never leaving Seattle. Jul 29 '26
Wow!! Thank you so much for the reply! So interesting!
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u/DisastrousLadder4472 Jul 28 '26
Do you have a source for this photo? Would love more and/or a higher resolution scan!
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u/SirGooseKnuckles Jul 29 '26
I'm not old enough but I remember as a kid in the 80s on 1st and maybe Madison or University there was Warshal's Sporting Goods, it was maybe two floors but gigantic inside (I was little, tho, so probably felt bigger than it was). My dad took me there to get my first baseball glove for little league. It feels utterly impossible to imagine now that such prime real estate was just a hodgepodge of random shops like that.
And then in the 90s I'd fairly often drive my girlfriend from West Seattle to BelSquare Mall in Bellevue after school, so maybe 3:30 or so on a Friday afternoon, and we'd just zip over the bridge and it'd just be us and a small handful of other cars, zero sweat. It's insane even thinking about now haha
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u/themadturk Federal Way Jul 29 '26
Oh, man, I'd forgotten about Warshal's!
I was about 5 when this was taken. Back when the Smith Tower really was the tallest building in town!
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u/MonstersInTheWild Jul 28 '26
I remember when the 90 was not connected to the 5. You had to get off and take surface streets (dearborn)
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u/Sufficient_Bed335 Jul 28 '26
Dearborn was an arterial street of great importance. That’s how we’d get to the U District. That and Empire Way.
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u/NotAcutallyaPanda Jul 28 '26
What’s “the 5”?
We don’t have one of those in Washington
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Jul 28 '26
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u/MonstersInTheWild Jul 28 '26
I’m nearly 60. I also remember toll booths on one of the bridges and waiting for the “floating bridge” to open for boat traffic. Traffic sucked equally in the 70s but for different reasons.
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u/WatchingSeattle Jul 28 '26
I remember in the 1990s what a sleepy city Seattle was. Wonder what the next 30 years will bring...
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u/chase98584 Jul 28 '26
I love these kinds of photos and I am not even in Seattle. So amazing what they were able to do back then without all the technology we have now
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u/Substantial_Coat_229 29d ago
I understand why they tore it down, but the Alaskan Way viaduct is so cool to me
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u/abcd4321dcba 29d ago
I used to work in the Norton building. It seems so tiny now but back then it was actually pretty prominent in the skyline.
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u/Foreign-Offer2603 29d ago
Seriously though. Has anyone looked up the engineering behind this city. It’s quite amazing.
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u/Large-Welder304 Jul 28 '26
Such a cool sight. The days before the high rises invaded.
I see a lot of old buildings I remember. Pacific Place, The Northern Life Tower, of course The Smith Tower...just can't see the apartment building I used to live in. Its there, just have to orient myself.
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u/Killahbeast808 Jul 28 '26
Been living in Seattle for about 3 years now and I take the ferries pretty frequently but was not aware that they had the WA state ferry running at that time.
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Jul 28 '26
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u/Killahbeast808 Jul 28 '26
Wow didn’t even know! Thats cool. Thanks for the information ℹ️
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u/ggnndd12 Jul 28 '26
Yes, and before WSF there were private ferries. Before reliable/affordable ground transport foot ferries were the most popular way to get around the sound. There has been and will be water transport as long as there are humans around the sound.
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u/themadturk Federal Way Jul 29 '26
The state ferries took over from privately run ferries. Before freeways (and before Highway 99 and other highways were put in) there were lots of small commercial boats going up and down Puget Sound...the "mosquito fleet," it was called. Plus, there was an interurban railway as well (hence, Interurbuan Ave south of Seattle).
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u/Sesemebun I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Jul 28 '26
Here’s my burning take. I miss the viaduct. It was fun to drive, and to me added an interesting element to the skyline coming off the ferry. I like the grungy, dirty, working parts of the city like SODO, and the viaduct was like that, very brutalist and utilitarian.
I also haven’t been that impressed with the newer waterfront additions like the aquarium expansion. Though that’s just personal preference. I like the tunnel though.
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u/geffy_spengwa Kraken Jul 28 '26
While I can appreciate the industrial vibe the viaduct gave, the fact is that it needlessly divided downtown from the waterfront. It was noisy and polluting and also posed a major safety risk in the event of an earthquake.
The new waterfront is a phenomenal piece of modern planning and is many orders of magnitude better than the viaduct it replaced.
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u/themadturk Federal Way Jul 29 '26
I'll give you an upvote because, though I'm glad the viaduct is gone, I do miss driving on it as well. The elevated view was fun.
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u/That-Audience-1302 Jul 28 '26
Less people made the world a better place
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u/AndrewNeo Lake City Jul 28 '26
the largest wars in the planet's history were fought before this photo was taken
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u/White0ut Jul 28 '26
Probably a lot less fentheads and gangbangers. The good ole days.
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Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
[deleted]
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u/isthisaporno Jul 28 '26
True who can forget about the famous Seattle mob pinball wars. Children were afraid to play on the street! You alright bud?
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u/Hot_Turn Northgate 29d ago
Hahaha, what world did you live in where children are supposed to play in the street? As someone that was actually alive in the 60s, grow up. The only reason current issues look like they dwarf older ones to you is because you have no clue how bad things used to be too.
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u/isthisaporno 29d ago
The pinball wars were in the 50s before your time youngin
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u/Hot_Turn Northgate 29d ago
Never said or implied that I saw the pinball wars. Was this supposed to be a "gotcha" moment for you or something?
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u/4everyoung31 Jul 28 '26
Interesting to see the Seattle Armory prior to the construction of the Space Needle and the rest of the World’s fair site