Bergen Place Honors Seattle's Sister City

This huge three panel mural depicts Seattle relationship with sister city Bergen, Norway (see the complete mural and other photos here). The king and queen of Norway came for the dedication in 1995. There are several carved stone benches around the perimiter of Bergen Place Park, each with a Nordic country's name etched in stone, as well as a dipiction of the Bergen waterfront in marble. The gentleman in the photo is seated on Denmark's bench. Tomorrow many of the City Daily Photo bloggers will be featuring self portraits taken in a favorite place in their city. I'll be posting one of these, as well as a photo for Nordic Week at SDP.

And lastly, thanks very much to Marie McC for including Fluid Motion in her "Best of Daily City Photos" from last week (see link at lower right). If you haven't checked her selections these past three weeks, do visit and enjoy her collection of highlights from daily city photo bloggers from around the world. 

Nordic Week at Seattle Daily Photo

Come back every day this week to see fun and interesting evidence of the deep, rich cultural ties many Seattle residents have with the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

SDP salutes Daily City Photo family members: Copenhagen DENMARK, Kongsberg NORWAY, Oulu FINLAND, Stavenger NORWAY, Stockholm SWEDEN, Trondheim NORWAY, and Tungelsta SWEDEN. When you click on their photo links you may notice natural and geographic similarities that helped immigrants from these areas feel at home here in the Pacific Northwest.

This bust of Leif Erikson sits at the entrance of the Leif Erikson Lodge of the Sons of Norway hall in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. It is fashioned after a full statue (which you can see here) made for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair by August Werner. It now overlooks the Puget Sound at Shilshoal Marina. The Leif Erikson International Foundation is currently raising funds to remount the statue as part of the Port of Seattle's marina renovations at Shilshoal. In 1997, Seattle's Leif Erikson Society gave a replica of Werner's statue to Trondhiem, Norway, in honor of that city's 1000th anniversary. Trondheim Daily Photo shows that statue here.

Seafood Festival

Seattle seems to have one huge summer-long party, with festivals every weekend. Today brought the Seafood Festival (many more pictures of this lively street fair are featured here. This art glass salmon was featured at a display in front of Art By Fire, an art glass studio, school, and gallery. Seattle is well known for salmon and for it's cadre of world-class glass studios and artisans. Here the two meld together. . .

c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Friday Food #2: La Isla Puerto Rican Restaurant

Proported to be the only Puerto Rican restaurant in the state of Washington, the popular La Isla is famous for its cilantro-based sofrito. In the warm weather of July, the sidewalk cafe area is very inviting for sunset dinners and cool drinks.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Fluid Motion

Seattle has a new skate park in the Ballard neighborhood that appeals to children, teens, and adults alike. I got a bit of "Dogtown" north as I watched skateboard enthusiasts drop into the bowl and wheel around the walls like effortless poetry of body, mind, board, and motion.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Reflected High Rise

Fractured and inverted, I captured the reflection of this high rise in the polished granite of a planter box on 4th Ave.

When I first posted this I didn't know the building's name. Justin (who works in the area) informed me it is the Washington Mutual tower, and kindly posted a link to more info. Unfortunately, when I tried to edit the post to reflect that and thank him, Blogger wiped out my entire original post. I don't know if the kind comments including Justin's were also lost, but I thank you for them (MC Escher, eh? Blush.). I also had links to Sydney Daily Photo and Newcastle Upon Tyne Daily Photo, who feature recent reflected building photos. For time's sake, please give yourself a treat by clicking on their links below to the right in the Daily City Photo Blogs list.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Self Portrait

I was photographing a building, but when I looked down, I saw my reflection in some polished granite trim. This one is for Sally of Sydney Daily Photo, who photographed far more glamorous red shoes in action here.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

In Any Language: PEACE

This is maple wooden flooring created by artist Ann Hamilton with raised text which imitates typeface. It covers 7,200 square feet of the first floor reception, check out and literacy areas near the entrance to the Central Seattle Library. It is quite striking and got me to thinking of how many ways we could write "peace."
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Tour de Seattle - Electric Boost for Hills

I spied this pedal-electric bicycle locked at a high rise building's bike rack near Spring Street (pictured here).

You might be interested in this mode of transportation if your commute includes terrain such as this streetscape. Pedal-powered bicycles with electric motor assists that kick in when you most need it have become VERY popular in Seattle. This city is built on a series of hills. For the average person who wants to commute by bike, the terrain can be a challenge. Electric Bikes Northwest in the Fremont district is a great commuter's resource for electric assisted bikes and folding bikes (although I don't know if they carry the brand I photographed downtown).

Seattle has a pretty good system of bike lanes throughout. There are also fabulous urban recreational trails, chief among them the Burke-Gilman Trail which takes riders all the way from Salmon Bay at the mouth of the Puget Sound along the shipping canal through the Ballard and Fremont neighborhoods, under the Aurora bridge, past Gas Works Park, Chihuly's studio (not open to public) and Ivar's Salmon House, under the I-5, past the University of Washington, and around the west shore to the top of Lake Washington. Bicycling in general is HUGE here. Riding bikes more is one small way we can each help reduce the harmful effects of fossil fuels.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Seaplanes

Lake Union is in the middle of the city of Seattle. To the west is Puget Sound, to the east is Lake Washington, and all of them are linked by a well-traveled shipping canal which includes locks and a salmon ladder. Boats aren't the only type of craft one commonly sees on the lake. Seaplanes are ever visible on the water and in the air. When I was in college here one of my roommates' dad took pity on the four of us poor starving students and treated us to dinner out at a restaurant on Lake Union's shoreline. As we were eating and enjoying the lovely view, a seaplane landed on the water and floated up to the restaurant's dock. An elegant couple emerged and came in to dine. You don't have to be well off or elegant to fly and land at Lake Union. This tour company on the east shore will take you up for sightseeing or even give you flying lessons. Seaplanes are one way people do business and get to and from the many the islands of the Sound.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Friday Food Photos #1: La Carta de Oaxaca

Salud a Felicia de San Diego Daily Photo! Inspired by her trek through SDs fab Mexican restaurants, I thought on Fridays I'd try to feature shots of some of Seattle's popular foods and cafes.

La Carta de Oaxaca (pronounced waa-HOCK-aa) is located on shady Ballard Avenue in the heart of the Ballard neighborhood. This is an exceptional restaurant where all dishes are small, cost $9 (US) and under, and are fun to share with others at the table. They carry seemingly a gazzillion kinds of tequila, so if you are in search of a perfect margarita, you will find it here. Here I picture some cold beverages (beer w/lime & margarita/no salt) to wish everyone relief from the heat waves everywhere. The food is authentic regional fare from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, spiced wonderfully and presented attractively. The kitchen is at the center of the small restaurant, and one can sit at a counter and watch the cooks and tortilla maker in action. There is also a tiny bar toward the back. The walls are a photographer's dream, filled with high quality black and white photos of Oaxacan scenes and people, accented with stunning enlargements of backlighted panels of luminous color photos. A powerful effect in these wall arrangements of white-framed images.

I ordered fresh halibut tacos (pictured) and mushroom empanadas. Both were delicious. There is always a line waiting to get a seat, but put your name in, because it's worth the wait, and is a fun place to bring your friends for good conversation and good food.

Big welcome to new Daily Photo family member West Richland Daily Photo, from the eastern side of our fair state of Washington, a region known for its fruit, wine, and wonderful vistas remeniscent of Napa, CA, France, or Italy.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

REI: Legacy of Seattle's Strong Cooperative Movement

 
 
  
Here are photos of the entrance to REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.), a display of kayaks, and a customer exiting the store under Swiss Army knife wrist watch replicas, each featuring a different famous mountain peak's time zone. REI was founded as a cooperative in 1938 by a group of 23 Pacific Northwest mountaineers seeking quality climbing equipment. It began in Seattle, a city which was then and is still now a place with many thriving and influential cooperatives. REI now has 73 store locations in the USA, but this is the flagship. One can find the latest in quality equipment for any kind of outdoor recreation. Interesting features include massive entrance doors with ice axes as the door handles, and one of the tallest freestanding indoor climbing walls in the world (65 ft.), visible in a five story glass tower at the south east corner of the store. Really worth a visit when you are in town.

Many years ago when starting on a hike to the base camp on Mount Rainier, who should we spy just ahead of us on the trail out of Paradise but Jim Wittaker, the first American to summit Everest and then president of Recreational Equipment Cooperative. Jim grew up in Seattle, and after service during the Korean war where he trained military personnel in skiing and mountaineering, he managed REI and was its only full-time employee. The coop ethic for REI was "the idea of a membership organization that not only acquired top-quality goods and sold them at fair prices but also paid back to its members an annual dividend equal to 10 percent." Whittaker invested much of his life in the co-op, where he helped to grow the company and served as its President. I hope to feature other Seattle co-ops in coming months.

Colorful Streetscape in U District

I came across this scene in the U District. The warm afternoon summer sun invited me to photograph this wall. Seattle has a very lively visual arts scene (click here for more info), from the sublime to the funky. There is a lot of expensive public art as well as "found art" like this to be seen in every neighborhood. I hope to feature all the flavors of it here in the months to come. Many neighborhoods feature Art Walks. Also, I invite you to check out the links to the right for Seattle artists Roger Feldman, Dale Chihuly, the Contemporary Art Quilt Association, and the Seattle Art Museum.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Walking My Baby Back Home

It's a perfect summer morning. Mom must be catching up on some rest while dad and baby take a stroll along the bluff at Sunset Hill Park, overlooking the Puget Sound. The Mountains visible in the background are the Olympics. They still have quite a bit of snow pack.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Going Up

He didn't quite get to vanishing point on the second story of a two-story tall illuminated escalator. But, it sure made me dizzy to shoot this photo of the fellow in the dark suit while moving myself. You can see the first part of this very long escalator ride and a detail of the top most part here. Designer of the new Central Seattle Public Library, Rem Koolhaas, certainly was not afraid of bold color. This yellow is on the greenish-side of the spectrum, very much the color of Banana Slugs. Is there an interesting escalator near you?
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

How Many Cities Have "Duck" Tours?

Ham of London Daily Photo also posted a photo of a WWII amphibious craft being used as a tour vehicle on land and water in London. We have them here, too. (Does YOUR city have these used as tour vehicles? If so, post a photo.) It was uncanny, but as I was getting my car washed and snapping photos of the pink elephant sign for Ham, one of Seattle's Duck boats zoomed by. I was surprised I got the shot, as I just had time to look up and click the shutter. I heard the tour driver encouraging those on board to sing out "Shake your money maker. . ." to some really bad disco music as they rolled past the elephant. . .kinda cheesy. The Ride the Ducks tour can orient visitors quickly to many key sites they might wish to visit at length later, and there is no end of city trivia dispensed by the entertaining pilots. Here's something fun to do today: check out Marie of Alexandria, VA, USA's "Best of Daily Photo," where she has chosen personal favorites with her studied eye and has several categories of favorites. Really, really nice.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Seattle's Pink Elephant

Ham has featured a series of elephant photos at London Daily Photo. I thought I'd send him greetings from Seattle's fun pink Elephant Car Wash landmark. Loved by children and adults alike, this rotating car wash sign has been delighting folks since the 1950s. It's especially fun to see at night as their are 380 blinking lights that move in sequence to create a bit of animation. I fell in love with these kitschy lighted signs at a very young age. My favorite was a rotating and saluting giant service station attendant at a Chevron gas station on the corner of Harbor Blvd. and Katella by Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. I also loved the many Googie architecture motel and business signs of the era. I've noticed a number of well preserved examples of these around Seattle (the most notable being this elephant) that I hope to show you in coming months. What have been your favorite signs like this?


c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Windmills of My Mind

A Salute to Eric at Paris Daily Photo and our other French friends on this Bastille Day. Eric recently featured photos of the Bal de Moulin Rouge in Monmartre, and the Moulin Vert restaurant in the 14th arrondissement in Paris. I thought I would show you Seattle's own popular "moulin rouge" (yes, that IS Mount Rainier in the mural painted by Seattle artist Tom Brady). Red Mill Burgers is a favorite small burger restaurant and popular gathering place for many families in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood. It's outdoor seating area overlooks Greenlake. They have consistently won "best burger in Seattle" poll awards since opening in the 1990s (there is one other location in the Interbay neighborhood). They were fashioned after the original Red Mill diner and creamery, open in the Capitol Hill neighborhood from 1937 to 1967.

You can take a virtual tour of France this Bastille Day by clicking the links at the lower right to visit these cities in the daily photo family: Paris, Avignon, Bastia, Bazainville, Bernay, Chateauroux, Dijon, Lyon, Montchauvet, Pont-sur-Sambre, Real, Rouen, Sainte Maxime, Toulouse, Vallaruis, and LeHavre.

After all these French connections, I'm hearing Dusty Springfield's recording of Michel Legrand's beautiful "Windmills of Your Mind" playing in my head.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

World's Fair Window Dressing

Greetings from Seattle! I came across this memorabilia in a card shop window. I remember as a girl receiving a post card from my father from the 1962 world's fair which he visited when his ship was in port. It pictured the Space Needle, which at that time had an orange colored top and looked like George Jetson lived there. Yes it's cliche, and the symbol associated most with Seattle, very much like the Tour Eiffel became for Paris after it's debut at a world's fair. If you click on the link to the right for the Space Needle Web Cam you can actually manipulate the camera at the top of the Needle to point in any direction you would like to look. Have fun with it!
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Latitude 47

This photo taken at Shilshole Bay Marina is the post I had intended for today. Seattle is said to have more boats per capita than any other US city. Here are a few of them behind the breakwater on the Sound, looking southwest toward Bainbridge Island and the Olympic Mountains (hidden in this shot by a cloud bank). Which boat would you pick to sail away on?
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Empty Chairs

Thinking with great sadness of the hundreds of interrupted lives in Mumbai and Srinagar and the painful emptiness their families feel. Thinking also of the renewed feelings of vulnerability these bombings must have stirred up for the people of Madrid and other cities intimately acquainted with such violence. Longing for peace, love, understanding, and freedom from fear for all of us. (I photographed these chairs on the ground floor of the new main Seattle Library featured in Monday's post.)


c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Bright Cafe For a Gray Day

Following my thoughts of how we form little global communities via our personal screens, I caught this shot from El Diablo Coffee Co., a popular cafe with world travelers (they display postcards their patrons send from their worldwide travels). I loved the brightly painted interior on this overcast summer evening, the lively conversation at one table contrasted with the solitary screen users at the others. Wifi, wine, and thou . . .
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

Welcome to Seattle Daily Photo!

Here is a first photo for the global city daily photo community from my little corner of this large American city perched on the northwest of the Pacific Rim. I hope you'll enjoy some of the views of Seattle daily life through my particular lens.


Truly a 21st Century Library: I took this shot in the architecturally amazing new downtown branch of the Seattle Public Library. These six guys at a bank of computers along a sunny window-scape on the ground floor caught my eye. Perhaps one of them is following a link to one of our City Daily Photo Blogs? This is how we connect with each other, on the other side of the screen--our little windows on the bigger world of the cities we have to show each other. I'll have more photos of this very special space for you.
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

World Cup Fever on Queen Anne

The Communique Toys Store
window display on Queen Anne hill, one of the distinctive neighborhoods of Seattle. I wonder if the blue team represents France? This is another practice post. Seattle Daily Photo will officially go live tomorrow, Monday, July 10. See you then!
c. 2006 Seattle Daily Photo

World Cup Pup!

A salute to World Cup fever! Even the soccer loving pups in Seattle want to get into the act. Her name is Spot, and she's crazy for soccer! This shot was captured at the Seattle Nordic Heritage Museum Tivoli/Viking Days on Saturday. For several more photos of Spot the Wonder Dog and her fast moves, click here. This is a test run of the new blog a couple day early to check for unforeseen problems.