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| Smith Tower - Seattle, Washington |
I used to waste an in ordinate amount of time playing the
computer game “Sim City” where you can create cities and manage them. The game
allowed you to put various architectural achievements in your city if you
reached the right status and when I did that, my first choice was always
Seattle, Washington’s wonderful “Smith Tower”. I’ve had the privilege to visit
Seattle on numerous occasions and on one of those trips I made my way over to
the Smith Tower. The building is 42 stories and 522 feet tall. When it was
built by Lyman Cornelius Smith – A wealthy business man from New York…….there
was much fanfare and the story of its completion ran in Newspapers all over the
world as it was now the tallest building west of the Mississippi. It remained
the tallest building west of the Mississippi for 50 years. It was built between
1910 and 1914 and it was completed on July 4th, 1914. The structural steel for
the building was fabricated by the American Bridge Company in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania and shipped to Seattle in 164 rail cars. The outer skin of the
building is made of Washington Granite on the first two floors and bright,
beautiful white Terra Cotta on the rest of the building. It is absolutely
amazing that the Terra Cotta skin of the building has only been professionally
cleaned once in 102 years as it is a brilliant white spire reaching into the
Seattle sky. The buildings hallways, corridors and bathrooms are finished in
Alaskan Marble. The original Otis Elevators are still in operation and they are
incredible. Uniformed operators still run these ornate brass – functional works
of art. The professional conductor requires a ticket for the elevator and he is
very professional in the discharge of his duties. The interior trim throughout
is steel and it was hand finished to resemble mahogany.
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| Smith Tower - Seattle, Washington |
The Gothic tower is
based on a similar structure in Venice, Italy and there is a large crystal ball
on top that lights up at night. From the observation deck you have incredible
views of the Cascade Mountains, Elliott Bay, the Ferry Docks, Safe-co Field
“The Clink”, The black monolithic Columbia Sea-first Center, Downtown, Port of
Seattle, and the Olympic Mountains across the Puget Sound. The building has 540
offices and 60 of them are located in the Gothic tower. The buildings 2,314
windows are encased in bronze frames and all of them can be opened and closed.
It took 1,500,000 feet of lumber made from Washington Fir to build the Smith
Tower. This magnificently constructed building has survived 3 earthquakes that
were 6.0 magnitude or greater. When the building was completed it provided the
finest accommodations and technology of the time as each room was equipped with
two telephone jacks, two telegraph outlets and a vacuum cleaner. A visit to the
Smith Tower is a real treat. You pay $7.50 for your elevator ride up to the
Observation deck and tiny museum where there is furniture that is over 300
years old that was painstakingly hand crafted in China. There are also precious
ceramic plates set in the carved teak wood ceiling that are all from China.
There is a sort of cat walk all the way around the base of the pyramid of the
tower where you can get a 360 degree view of the surrounding city and
landscape. The building cost $1,000,000 to build – absolutely un-believable by
today’s standards………nope, they just don’t build em like they used to. For more
information, costs of observation deck and visiting hours please visit
www.smithtower.com
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| Smith Tower - Seattle, Washington |
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| Smith Tower with exterior observation deck visible. Great views of Seattle from the 35th Floor! |
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| Bainbridge Island Ferry heading out into Elliot Bay as seen from Smith Tower - Seattle, WA |
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