Welcome to SEATTLE

Seattle is the largest city in the Pacific Northwest area of the United States, in Washington state. The city is also called the Emerald City for its abundant evergreen trees. With a population of over 579,000, Seattle has the highest percentage of graduates in the United States.

The city boasts of a Mediterranean climate. However, it is also typified as an oceanic climate owing to its cool summers. Summers range from warm to cool and are pleasant. Most of the precipitation is received as light drizzles with occasional downpours. Snow is a rare occurrence.

Seattle was founded in 1851 by Arthur A Denny. Initially known as Duwamps, it was finally named Seattle. It went through various boom and bust cycles but always rebuilt itself successfully. Five of the many Fortune 500 companies have their headquarters in Seattle.

Tourism

Among Seattle's prominent annual fairs and festivals are the 24-day Seattle International Film Festival, Northwest Folklife over the Memorial Day weekend, numerous Seafair events throughout July and August (ranging from a Bon Odori celebration to the Chevrolet Cup hydroplane races), the Bite of Seattle, one of the largest Gay Pride festivals in the United States, and, perhaps most notable of all, the art and music festival Bumbershoot, which programs music as well as other art and entertainment over the Labor Day weekend. All are typically attended by 100,000 people annually, as are Hempfest and two separate Independence Day celebrations. In the past, the Gay Pride parade and festival have been centered on Capitol Hill, but since 2006, festivities have been held city-wide, and the parade has followed a route in Downtown from the retail core to Seattle Center.

Other significant events include numerous Native American pow-wows, a Greek Festival hosted by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals (many associated with Festál at Seattle Center).

There are other annual events, ranging from the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair & Book Arts Show; an anime convention, Sakura-Con; Penny Arcade Expo, a gaming convention; specialized film festivals, such as the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival; and a two-day, 9,000-rider Seattle to Portland bicycle ride.

The Henry Art Gallery opened in 1927, the first public art museum in Washington. The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) opened in 1933; SAM opened a museum downtown in 1991 (expanded and reopened 2007); since 1991, the 1933 building has been SAM's Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM). SAM also operates the Olympic Sculpture Park (opened 2007) on the waterfront north of the downtown piers. The Frye Art Museum is a free museum on First Hill.

Regional history collections are at the Loghouse Museum in Alki, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, the Museum of History and Industry and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Industry collections are at the Center for Wooden Boats and the adjacent Northwest Seaport, the Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, and the Museum of Flight. Regional ethnic collections include the Nordic Heritage Museum, the Wing Luke Asian Museum and the Northwest African American Museum. Seattle has artist-run galleries, including 10-year veteran Soil Art Gallery, and the newer Crawl Space Gallery.

Woodland Park Zoo opened as a private menagerie in 1889, but was sold to the city in 1899. The Seattle Aquarium has been open on the downtown waterfront since 1977 (undergoing a renovation 2006). The Seattle Underground Tour, an exhibit of places that existed before the Great Fire, is also popular. There are also many community centers for recreation, including Rainier Beach, Van Asselt, Rainier, and Jefferson south of the Ship Canal and Green Lake, Laurelhurst, Loyal Heights north of the Canal, and Meadowbrook.

Since the mid 1990s, Seattle has experienced significant growth in the cruise industry, especially as a departure point for Alaska cruises. In 2008, a record total of 886,039 cruise passengers passed through the city, surpassing the number for Vancouver, BC, the other major departure point for Alaska cruises.

Olympic Sculpture Park

The Olympic Sculpture Park is a public park in Seattle, Washington that opened on January 20, 2007.

The park consists of a 9-acre (36,000 m2) outdoor sculpture museum and beach. The park was designed by Weiss/Manfredi Architects, along with Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture and other consultants. It is situated at the northern end of the Seattle seawall and the southern end of Myrtle Edwards Park. The former industrial site was occupied by the oil and gas corporation Unocal until the 1970s and subsequently became a contaminated brownfield before the Seattle Art Museum proposed to transform the area into one of the only green spaces in Downtown Seattle. The park is operated by the Seattle Art Museum, which also operates an expanded main branch at First Avenue and University Street and the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill.

As a free-admission public outdoor sculpture park with both permanent and visiting installations, it is a unique institution in the United States.

The idea of creating a park for large, contemporary sculpture in Seattle grew from a discussion in 1996 between Seattle Art Museum director (and wife of William Gates Sr.) Mimi Gardner Gates and Martha Wyckoff while stranded on a fly fishing trip in Mongolia due to a helicopter crash. Wykoff, being a trustee of the Trust for Public Land, soon after began an effort to identify possible locations for the park.

A $30 million gift from Mary and Jon Shirley (former COO of Microsoft and Chairman of the Seattle Art Museum Board of Directors) established them as foundational donors.

As part of constructing the sculpture park, 5.7 million dollars were spent transforming 1,000 feet (300 m) of the seawall and underwater shoreline inside Myrtle Edwards park. A three level underwater slope was built with 50,000 tonnes of riprap. The first level of the slope is large rocks to break up waves. The second is a flat "bench" level to recreate an intertidal zone. The lower level is covered with smaller rocks designed to attract sealife and large kelp. It is hoped that this recreated strand will help revitalise juvenile salmon from the Duwamish River and serve as a test for future efforts.

Maintenance of the sculptures has been an ongoing issue. The environment near a large salt water body has been corrosive to pieces like Bunyon's Chess, made primarily of exposed wood and metal. Tall painted pieces such as Eagle need to be watched for damage from birds and their waste. Maintenance of these large structures is expensive, requiring scaffolding or boom lifts. The paint on Eagle is also damaged by grass clippings near the base of its installation, requiring the gardeners to use scissors instead of a lawn mower near the sculpture.

Seattle International Film Festival

The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), held annually in Seattle, Washington, is the largest film festival in North America, and among the top film festivals in the world. Audiences have grown steadily; the 2006 festival had 160,000 attendees. SIFF runs for more than three weeks (24 days) in May-June, and features a diverse assortment of predominantly independent and foreign films and, in recent years, a strong contingent of documentaries.

SIFF 2006 included 300+ films and was the first SIFF to include a venue in neighboring Bellevue, Washington since an ill-fated early attempt. However, in 2008, the festival was back to being entirely in Seattle, and had a slight decrease in the number of feature films.