Space Needle — observation tower
Image by Sebastian_127 from Pixabay

Space Needle

  • 1 min read
  • 47.620° N 122.349° W

Interesting facts

  • Edward Carlson's idea for the tower came after a visit to the Stuttgart TV Tower in Germany, and his first balloon-like sketch was drawn on a napkin.
  • Names floated for the structure before Space Needle won out included Star Tickler, Top Hat and Big Skookum.
  • The foundation is 30 feet deep and 120 feet across, and pouring it took 467 concrete trucks working through a single full day.
  • The underground foundation weighs about as much as the entire tower standing above it, and 72 bolts, each 30 feet long, hold the two together.
  • The saucer's revolving restaurant was balanced so finely that a single small electric motor of under one kilowatt could turn it.
  • During the 1962 fair nearly 20,000 people a day rode to the top, about 2.56 million visitors in six months.
  • For the fair, speakers under the saucer played a recorded carillon imitating 538 bells, then the largest such instrument in the world, audible up to ten miles away.
  • Radio stations broadcast from a studio on the observation level until 1974, and that year a disc jockey lived beside it for six months.
  • The great Alaska earthquake of March 1964 was strong enough to stop the revolving restaurant at the top in faraway Seattle.
  • In 1989 a local comedy show's mock report that the Space Needle had collapsed sent alarmed viewers phoning emergency services, and the station had to apologise.

Why it is worth it

The Space Needle was built for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and finished in under a year: work began in April 1961 and the last elevator car was installed the day before the fair opened in April 1962. Its shape came from a compromise. The fair's chairman Edward Carlson sketched a giant tethered balloon, the architect John Graham proposed a flying saucer for the top, and Victor Steinbrueck contributed the hourglass waist and the three-legged stance. The result, 605 feet (184 m) tall, was for years the tallest structure west of the Mississippi.

The tower was built to withstand winds of 200 mph and very strong earthquakes, and it rode out the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. The saucer at the top held revolving restaurants for decades. A renovation completed in 2018 replaced the observation windows with floor-to-ceiling glass, closer to the original 1962 sketches, and created the Loupe, an indoor deck with a revolving glass floor that looks straight down the structure. The original paint scheme had evocative names, Orbital Olive, Astronaut White, Re-entry Red and Galaxy Gold, and the gold roof has returned for anniversaries.

Elevators rise to the observation level at 520 feet (158 m) in about 41 seconds. From there the view takes in downtown Seattle, Elliott Bay and the islands of Puget Sound, the Olympic and Cascade ranges, and on clear days Mount Rainier and Mount Baker. Since 1999 a beam of light can be projected skyward from the top on special occasions, and the city's New Year fireworks are launched from the tower. It was designated an official Seattle landmark in 1999.

Getting there

The Space Needle stands at Seattle Center, 400 Broad Street, about 2 km north of downtown. The Seattle Center Monorail runs from Westlake Center in downtown to Seattle Center in about three minutes. The nearest airport is King County International (Boeing Field, BFI), about 11 km to the south.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Washington State 8The Most Beautiful Places in the United States 228The Most Spectacular Modern Observation Towers 7The Most Spectacular Viewpoints in the United States 8The Most Spectacular Modern Viewpoints 9The Most Beautiful Modern Buildings in the United States 11The Most Spectacular Observation Towers 12The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments in the United States 14The Most Beautiful Modern Squares, Streets and Monuments 15The Most Spectacular Viewpoints 33The Most Beautiful Buildings in the United States 34The Most Beautiful Modern Buildings 50The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments 173The Most Beautiful Buildings 286

From the encyclopaedia

The Space Needle is an observation tower in Seattle, Washington, United States. Considered to be an icon of the city, it has been designated a Seattle landmark. Located at 400 Broad Street in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood, it was built in the Seattle Center for the 1962 World's Fair, which drew more than 2.3 million visitors.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

47.62040, -122.34910per Wikidata