Culture
Seattle has been known as a significant center for regional performing arts for many years. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras[38] and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at McCaw Hall (which opened 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States.[39] The Seattle Youth Symphony is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States, and among the most distinguished.
The historic 5th Avenue Theatre, built in 1926, has continued to stage Broadway quality musical shows featuring both local talent and international stars. The theatre's "Chinese Timber Architecture" is based on The Forbidden City's Imperial and Summer Palaces. In addition, Seattle has about twenty other live theatre venues, a slim majority of them being associated with fringe theatre. It has a strong local scene for poetry slams and other performance poetry, and several venues that routinely present public lectures or readings. The largest of these is Seattle's 900-seat, Romanesque Revival Town Hall on First Hill.
Seattle is often thought of as the home of grunge rock due to it generating artists like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Green River, and Mudhoney, all of whom reached vast audiences in the early 1990s. The city is also home to such varied musicians as avant-garde jazz musicians Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot, smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G, heavy metal band Nevermore, industrial rockers KMFDM, and such poppier rock bands as Goodness and the Presidents of the United States of America. Such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Duff McKagan, Nikki Sixx, and Quincy Jones spent their formative years in Seattle. Ann and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart, often attributed to Seattle, were actually from neighboring Bellevue, as were progressive metal band Queensr˙che.
Since the grunge era, the Seattle area has hosted a diverse and influential alternative music scene. The Seattle-based record label Sub Pop—the first to sign Nirvana—has signed such non-grunge bands as Murder City Devils, Sunny Day Real Estate, Skinny Puppy, The Postal Service, and The Shins. Other Seattle-area bands of note in this period include Death Cab for Cutie (Bellingham), Foo Fighters, Modest Mouse (Issaquah), Alicia Dara, and Sleater-Kinney (Olympia).
Earlier Seattle-based popular music acts include the collegiate folk group The Brothers Four; The Wailers, a 1960s garage band; the Allies and the Heaters (later "the Heats"), 1980s teen-pop bands; from that same era, the more sophisticated pop of the short-lived Visible Targets and the still-performing Young Fresh Fellows and Posies; and the pop-punk of The Fastbacks and the outright punk of the Fartz (later Ten Minute Warning), The Gits, and Seven Year Bitch.
Seattleites have also collaborated with innovative, experimental musicians from around the world, while the city has hosted their performances. French composer Jean-Jacques Perrey, who pioneered electronica in the 1960s, has worked with Seattle native Dana Countryman, best known for his work with the 1980s Seattle pop/humour group the Amazing Pink Things. Perrey performed the tracks resulting from his work with Countryman at his first American show, in Seattle in 2006.
Spoken word and poetry are also staples of the Seattle arts scene, paralleling the explosion of the independent music scene during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Seattle's performance poetry scene blossomed with the importation of the poetry slam from Chicago (its origin) by transplant Paul Granert. This and the proliferation of weekly readings, open mics, and poetry-friendly club venues like the Weathered Wall, the OK Hotel, and the Ditto Tavern (all now defunct), allowed spoken-word/performance poetry to take off in a big way. The Seattle Poetry Slam is the city's longest running weekly show, now held at Tost in the Fremont Neighborhood. Seattle annually sends a team of slammers to the National Poetry Slam and boasts as the home of some of the best performance poets in the world: Buddy Wakefield:two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champ; Anis Mojgani: two-time National Poetry Slam Champ; Christa Bell: 2005 National Poetry Slam Finalist. Seattle has had such a wonderful reputation for poetry that is hosted the 2001 national poetry Slam Tournament. The Seattle Poetry Festival (launched first as the Poetry Circus in 1997) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry such as Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Ted Jones, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ismael Reed, Sekou Sundiata, and many others. Regionally famed poets like Bart Baxter, Tess Gallagher, and Rebecca Brown have also been featured at the Poetry Festival, as well as numerous other events such as the world-famous Bumbershoot Arts Festival.
Tourism
Among Seattle's best-known annual cultural events and fairs 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 hydroplane races), and the Bite of Seattle. Bumbershoot, over the Labor Day weekend, Capitol Hill Block Party [9], and Endfest (held every year by 107.7 The End [10]) provide Seattleites with much-anticipated alternative and independent music concerts. All are typically attended by over 100,000 people annually, as are Hempfest and two separate Independence Day celebrations.
Several dozen Seattle neighborhoods have one or more annual street fairs, and many have an annual parade or foot race. The largest of the street fairs feature hundreds of craft and food booths and multiple stages with live entertainment, and draw more than 100,000 people over the course of a weekend; the smallest are strictly neighborhood affairs with a few dozen craft and food booths, barely distinguishable from more prominent neighborhoods' weekly farmers' markets.
Green Lake Park, popular among runners, contains a 2.8 mile trail circling the lake.
Other significant events include numerous Native American powwows, a Greek Festival hosted by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals associated with Festal at Seattle Center.
As in most large cities, there are numerous other annual events of more limited interest, ranging from book fairs; the premier anime convention in the Pacific Northwest, Sakura-Con; and specialized film festivals, such as the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, to a two-day, 9,000-rider Seattle-to-Portland bicycle ride and a Gay Pride parade and festival. In the past, the Gay Pride parade and festival have been centred on Capitol Hill. Since 2006, festivities have been held city-wide, and the parade has followed a route in Downtown to the Seattle Center amusement park.[40]
Prominent Seattle buildings circa 1893
The Henry Art Gallery opened in 1927, making it the first museum in Washington. The main Seattle Art Museum opened in 1933. Art collections are also housed at the Frye Art Museum and the Seattle Asian Art Museum.
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-specific collections are housed at the Center for Wooden Boats, the Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, and the Museum of Flight. Regional ethnic collections include the Nordic Heritage Museum and the Wing Luke Asian Museum.
In addition, Seattle has a thriving artist-run gallery scene, including 10 year veteran Soil Art Gallery, and the newer Crawl Space Gallery.
Pacific Place Mall is a shopping center located in downtown Seattle.
The Woodland Park Zoo, opened as a private zoo in 1889, is the oldest on the West Coast, and has been a leader in innovations in naturalistic zoo exhibits. 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. The Pacific Place Mall, located on Sixth Avenue and Pine Street, features a movie theater, and food court. 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, and Loyal Heights north of the Canal.
Sports
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National Football League (NFL) - NFC |
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USL First Division (men's) |
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Seattle's professional sports history began at the start of the 20th century with the PCHA's Seattle Metropolitans, which in 1917 became the first American hockey team to win the Stanley Cup. Today Seattle has teams in nearly every major professional sport. The four major professional teams are the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics, the NFL's Seattle Seahawks, the MLB's Seattle Mariners, and the WNBA's Seattle Storm. Seattle also boasts a strong history in collegiate sports, the NCAA Division I school University of Washington and the NCAA Division II schools Seattle Pacific University and Seattle University.
Outdoor activities
Seattle's cool mild climate helps a huge proportion of its population engage in outdoor recreation, including walking, bicycling, hiking, and swimming, among others. The downtown REI is that chain's flagship store, and carries gear for all those activities. In town many people walk around Green Lake, through the forests and along the bluffs and beaches of 535-acre Discovery Park (the largest park in the city) in Magnolia, along the shores of Myrtle Edwards Park on the Downtown waterfront, or along Alki Beach in West Seattle. Also popular are hikes and skiing in the nearby Cascade or Olympic Mountains and kayaking and sailing in the waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia. The San Juan Islands, with their sunny climate and labyrinthine waterways, are especially popular among sailing enthusiasts and passengers aboard the Washington State Ferries on their way to Victoria.
Media
Seattle's leading newspapers are the daily Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer; they share their advertising, circulation, and business departments under a Joint Operating Agreement, which (as of 2004) the Times is seeking to terminate or renegotiate.[41]
The most prominent weeklies are the Seattle Weekly, The Stranger, and the Puget Sound Business Journal. Seattle Weekly and The Stranger consider themselves "alternative" papers; the famously irreverent The Stranger has a reputation for carrying a younger and hipper readership, while the more staid Weekly has a longstanding reputation for in-depth coverage of arts and local politics. There are also several ethnic newspapers including Northwest Asian Weekly, and numerous neighborhood newspapers including the North Seattle Journal.
Seattle is also well served by television and radio. Seattle's major network television affiliates are KOMO 4 (ABC), KING-TV 5 (NBC), KIRO 7 (CBS), KCTS 9 (PBS), KSTW 11 (The CW), KCPQ 13 (FOX), KONG 16/6 (Ind.), KMYQ 22/10 (MNTV), and KWPX 33/3 (i); five of them can be seen across Canada via digital cable or satellite. Seattle cable viewers also receive CBUT 2 CBC from Vancouver, British Columbia, often as cable channel 99.
Leading radio stations include NPR affiliates KUOW-FM 94.9 and KPLU-FM 88.5 (Tacoma). Other notable stations include KEXP-FM 90.3 (affiliated with EMP), 91.3FM (affiliated with Bellevue Community College), and KNHC-FM 89.5, which broadcasts an electronic music format and is owned by the public school system and operated by students of Nathan Hale High School. Many Seattle radio stations are also available through internet radio, with KUOW, KNHC, and KEXP being notable web radio innovators. Popular commercial radio stations in Seattle include KUBE 93.3, KBKS (KISS) 106.1, KMPS 94.1, KNDD 107.7, KVI-AM 570, KIRO-AM 710 and KOMO-AM 1000. Seattle is also home to KING-FM, one of the last commercial classical music stations in the United States.
On the Internet, Seattle is covered by Seattle Indymedia, a co-op started in 1999 which has since spread to many cities around the world, by Seattle24x7.com, a local online business community since 1999, as well as numerous blogs including Seattlest, Seattle Metroblogging and Slog, among others.