Seattle, WA

The US city that keeps changing the world

Published

2 years ago

February 3, 2023

The US city that keeps changing the world

(CNN) — There’s one thing within the air in Seattle. And whereas at first sniff you may assume that it is espresso, nostril just a little tougher and you may discover that Seattle does not run on caffeine — it runs on innovation.

It is not for nothing that this metropolis has spawned Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing and Starbucks, for starters.

Even Pike Place Market — well-known right this moment for its vacationer rely as a lot as for its stalls for locals — was based in 1907 as a approach for farmers to promote produce on to clients.

“Seattle’s a growth and bust city — it has been gold growth and bust, tech growth and bust,” says Ryan Reese, co-owner of Pike Place Fish Market, recognized for its “fish throwers” — employees who hurl the (typically heavy) items between one another as they get orders collectively.

“This city at all times comes again,” he provides, calling the town “gritty, gritty.”

Tossing fish on the Pike Place Fish Market.

CNN

The northernmost main metropolis within the contiguous United States, perched on the west coast round 100 miles south of the Canadian border, Seattle as we all know it’s comparatively new. Town was based in 1869 and named after Chief Si’ahl, a Native American chief of the native Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The settlement was, after all, constructed on indigenous land.

Simply 20 years after its basis, the whole central enterprise district — 25 metropolis blocks — was razed to the bottom within the “Nice Seattle Fireplace” of 1889.

However Seattle rebuilt. Inside a 12 months, the CBD was again — and it was over 20 ft greater in some locations.

Many years later, Seattle did it once more. Town was making ready for its time within the highlight as host of the Century 21 Exhibition, or Seattle World’s Honest, which might attract almost 10 million guests in 1962.

The House Needle, which towers 600 ft above the town with a rotating deck on prime, was inbuilt only one 12 months. It is nonetheless an iconic landmark not simply of Seattle, however of the whole USA.

“There’s at all times somebody in Seattle who can do it just a little bit higher,” says Leonard Garfield, govt director of Seattle’s MOHAI (Museum of Historical past and Trade), the place reveals embody the unique hand-stenciled Starbucks signal, and the primary industrial plane ever made by Boeing.

“We do not essentially invent issues — we make issues higher,” he provides.

Leonard Garfield: “We do not essentially invent issues — we make issues higher.”

CNN

Consuming up the magic

Residents of over 80 nations all over the world drink up Seattle’s innovation day by day. That is the variety of nations the place Starbucks has its over 32,000 shops. Whether or not or not you are a fan of the corporate, it is carried out what few companies handle — making its product a very international one.

Not that the Seattle espresso scene is all about Starbucks, by any measure. Residents of the “Emerald Metropolis” line up for his or her caffeine repair at dozens of smaller companies, like Cone & Steiner. What’s now a slick “nook retailer” with espresso bar was initially based in 1915 by Sam Cone, a brand new immigrant to the town, and his brother-in-law (the Steiner to his Cone).

The overall retailer — in what right this moment is the SoDo space of Seattle — grew to become a spot for the neighborhood to collect and compensate for what was occurring.

Sound acquainted? In reality, in a twist of Seattle destiny, the unique location of Cone & Steiner is now the headquarters of Starbucks. In the meantime Cone’s great-granddaughter, Dani Cone, reopened the overall retailer within the Capitol Hill neighborhood in 2014. She now has two areas.

“I believe this space is a fertile floor for concepts, for innovation, and for contemplating what’s potential,” she says. “There’s simply one thing within the DNA of this place.”

Flying excessive

Boeing’s first airplane.

CNN

Starbucks is not the one Seattle firm to reinvent its total business, after all.

That is the house of Amazon, of Microsoft — and of Boeing. Its innovators, says Garfield, see room for enchancment the place others see perfection.

“They’re like Invoice Boeing. They have a look at the boat, it sails superbly. He could make it fly.”

The corporate delivered its final 747 on January 31 at a ceremony that marked the tip of an period for the “Queen of the Skies” which debuted in 1969.

Whereas Amazon and Starbucks might need modified our on a regular basis lives, Boeing has modified the planet — for higher or worse. So, then, has Seattle.

“If you concentrate on our DNA, it is Boeing, it is laptop engineers with Microsoft, it is cloud engineers with Amazon,” says Garfield.

“We’re nice engineers.”

An old-school ‘cultural historical past’

Scarecrow Video: Seattle’s main retro film format emporium.

CNN

One Seattle place that has defied innovation is Scarecrow Video, house to the biggest non-public video and “bodily media” archive in america. Movies, DVDs Blu-rays and LaserDiscs are all on the cabinets. There are round 145,000 titles on show, based on the shop’s Matt Lynch.

Why so many? That is a horrible query, says Lynch. “You would not stroll into the Louvre and say, ‘Why do you will have so many work?’ Any person has bought to maintain these things alive and kicking and accessible to individuals who wish to see it.” He calls it “a cultural historical past that you simply’re not going to seek out anyplace else.”

The texture is of an old-school video rental retailer — although the group is not your common. One part is labeled “Little Bastards” — “for something tiny that desires to kill you, like “Chucky” or “Leprechaun,” says Matt Lynch.

“It is not nostalgia, it is historical past — cultural historical past,” he says of the shop. “All of us have communal experiences. All of us see the identical films, expertise the identical artwork. These films acquire all these experiences for us.”

And that is the opposite facet of Seattle — one which refuses to march with the gang.

From the 18-foot sculpture of the Fremont Troll, clutching a automotive in its hand in a freeway underpass, to grunge music, which grew to become the sound of a era, Seattle’s historical past of innovation implies that it at all times does its personal factor.

Source link

Click to comment

Seattle, WA

An insider's take on Seattle Seahawks OC candidate Byron Leftwich

Published

5 hours ago

January 17, 2025

Press Room

An insider's take on Seattle Seahawks OC candidate Byron Leftwich

Former nine-year NFL quarterback and Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich is the latest name to emerge in the Seattle Seahawks’ OC search.

Report: Another Seahawks OC candidate gets 2nd interview

NFL on CBS insider Jonathan Jones reported on social media Friday morning that Leftwich has interviewed for the Seattle job, making him the fifth reported candidate to do so.

Leftwich, 45, spent four seasons as Tampa Bay’s OC from 2019 to 2022. During that time, he directed some of the league’s highest-scoring offenses. With Jameis Winston at quarterback in 2019, the Bucs finished fourth in the league in scoring. Then after Tom Brady took over at QB, Tampa Bay ranked third in scoring during its Super Bowl-winning 2020 season and second in scoring in 2021.

However, the Bucs tumbled to 25th in Brady’s final year in 2022. Leftwich was fired after that season and hasn’t coached in the NFL since.

Rick Stroud, who covers the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times, joined Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy on Friday to share his insight on Leftwich. Stroud said it remains perplexing that Leftwich hasn’t gotten another NFL gig, especially after he was considered a front-runner for the Jacksonville Jaguars head coaching job prior to the 2022 season.

“The production (was) really remarkable in terms of the passing game,” Stroud said. “And then of course, once they got Tom Brady, the team really took off and won a Super Bowl. So I think it’s unfortunate for Byron. He didn’t get much credit for what was done here, but he was the game planner. He was the play caller. And he had some of the most prolific offenses in the National Football League.

“It’s really been kind of frustrating for him and mysterious that he hasn’t gotten that attention (from NFL teams),” Stroud added.

During the Jaguars’ 2022 head coaching search, there was a report that Leftwich turned down the job because he didn’t want to work with general manager Trent Baalke. Leftwich denied those claims, according to a recent article published in The Athletic.

“There were a lot of rumors and things that he doesn’t understand – one of them being that he wouldn’t want to work for Trent Balke,” Stroud said. “He told me, ‘Rick, I never had one discussion about the general manager in Jacksonville. I would have taken that job no questions asked about who was in the front office.’

“So in this day of agents and media – and sometime media sharing the same agents, quite frankly – guys push people that they have relations with. And Byron is not a campaigner. He’s the most affable guy I’ve ever worked with. I know the players love him. (He) never had a problem with a coaching staff member that I’m aware. So I think it’s just that, in an era of self-promotion, that’s the part that he may not have done very well. … But he’s ready to coach again.”

During his four-year run in Tampa Bay, Leftwich had one of the league’s top passing attacks. The Bucs ranked No. 1 in passing yardage in both 2019 and 2021, and No. 2 in passing yardage in 2020 and 2022. However, their ground attack was lagging, ranking in the bottom quarter of the league in rushing yardage all four years. In Leftwich’s final two seasons, Tampa Bay had the lowest run play rate in the league.

That run-pass imbalance would seem to be at odds with what Seattle head coach Mike Macdonald is looking for. Macdonald and the Seahawks moved on from offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb after one season, citing philosophical differences that appeared to be centered around Seattle’s inability to get the run game untracked. The Seahawks finished 28th in rushing yardage and had the fifth-lowest run rate in the league.

Stroud was asked whether he thinks Leftwich’s pass-heavy background in Tampa Bay would be an issue for Seattle.

“The offense that he ran is really an adaptation of what (former Arizona Cardinals and Tampa Bay head coach) Bruce Arians did for years and years,” Stroud said. “And it was good enough to win a Super Bowl with a 43-year-old quarterback who wasn’t the most mobile guy in the world. They started that Super Bowl season 7-5 and they made some changes. They shored up some protections and convinced Tom to take more shots down the field, and that’s when their offense really took off.

“And look, there’s a lot of ways to get things done. And a lot of times (with) the screen game, throws in the flat are just an extension of the running game. But I’ve never known Byron to be averse to running the football when you’re doing it successfully. So there’s definitely a philosophy. It was more of a pass-first offense – there’s no question about that. But they attacked people and they created a lot of problems for the defense.”

Listen to the full conversation with the Tampa Bay Times’ Rick Stroud at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Tune in to Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Seattle Sports.

More on the Seattle Seahawks

• Insider: Why Seattle Seahawks’ 28-year-old OC candidate is ‘fascinating’
• Report: Seahawks to hold 2nd interview with Klint Kubiak for OC job
• How would Klint Kubiak fit as Seattle Seahawks OC?
• Daniel Jeremiah: What Seattle Seahawks should look for in next OC
• Seattle Seahawks OC Search: Insiders weigh in on each candidate

Follow @CameronVanTil

Source link

Seattle, WA

Gus Williams, Seattle SuperSonics star and point guard ‘Wizard,’ dies at 71

Published

13 hours ago

January 17, 2025

Press Room

Gus Williams, Seattle SuperSonics star and point guard ‘Wizard,’ dies at 71

Gus Williams, the beloved Seattle SuperSonics star who led the franchise to its only NBA championship in 1979, died Wednesday at age 71.

Williams earned the nickname “The Wizard” thanks to his speed and athleticism as a dynamic scoring guard. He played six of his 12 NBA seasons with the SuperSonics, guiding the team to back-to-back NBA Finals appearances. Both of his two All-Star selections came during his time in Seattle.

A second-round draft pick out of USC, Williams started his pro career with the Golden State Warriors and finished second in NBA Rookie of the Year voting in 1976 behind Phoenix’s Alvan Adams. After two seasons with Golden State, Williams joined the Sonics in free agency and quickly became a star once coach Lenny Wilkens made him a permanent starter in the backcourt alongside Dennis Johnson. Williams finished the 1977-78 season averaging 18.1 points in 79 games and helped Seattle reach the NBA Finals, only to fall to the Washington Bullets in seven games.

The Sonics faced off against Washington in the Finals again the following season, this time beating the Bullets in five games. It remains the only championship for the franchise, which moved to Oklahoma City ahead of the 2008-09 season.

Williams finished the championship season as the SuperSonics’ leading scorer at 19.2 points per game. He saved his best for last, averaging 29.0 ppg against the Bullets in the NBA Finals. Despite his heroics, Williams was not named Finals MVP, with that honor instead going to his teammate Dennis Johnson. Four of the five starters on that championship squad and key reserve Paul Silas are now dead, with Jack Sikma, sixth man Fred Brown and Wilkens the only surviving pillars of the team.

Remembering Gus Williams (1953-2025) pic.twitter.com/UGBFH2mq7v
— NBA History (@NBAHistory) January 17, 2025

James Donaldson, one of Williams’ SuperSonics teammates beginning in 1980, started a GoFundMe account on behalf of Williams’ family to raise funds for his burial.

Williams lived in a care facility in Maryland and died five years after suffering a stroke in 2020. Donaldson wrote on GoFundMe that he remained in contact with Williams “throughout most of this terrible journey” that included Williams battling pneumonia and meningitis after his stroke.

“He has spent the last 5 years, flat on his back and bravely battling this terrible misfortune,” Donaldson wrote of Williams’ health. “He fought a good fight, but alas, it just became too much to overcome.”

Donaldson said Williams’ family asked him to set up the GoFundMe account to bring Williams’ body to his hometown of Mt. Vernon. N.Y., so he can be buried next to his brother Ray, also a former NBA player who died of prostate cancer in March 2013. Donaldson said the Williams brothers’ 100-year-old mother and other relatives would like to be able to visit their gravesites together.

“(Williams) was gregarious, funny, always upbeat and (very) charitable with his time and money. Plus, he was always friendly with the fans and they loved him in return,” Donaldson wrote of his former teammate. “Super fast and super quick on the court. Could stop on a dime and outrun everyone out there. With a deadly jump (shot) to boot. Gus was one of a kind!”

Williams’ one-of-a-kind style extended off the court, too. He refused to back down in a contract dispute with Sonics management ahead of the 1980-81 campaign, ultimately sitting out the entire season. He returned the following season and averaged a career-high 23.4 points in 80 games, earning his first All-Star selection, NBA Comeback Player of the Year and first-team All-NBA honors.

Williams’ time in Seattle ended in 1984 when the SuperSonics traded him to Washington. He spent two seasons with the Bullets, followed by one with the Atlanta Hawks before retiring in 1987.

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Washington Bullets alumni, Gus Williams.
Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones. pic.twitter.com/zhKV1lS5Pw
Advertisement

— Washington Wizards (@WashWizards) January 16, 2025

Williams finished his career with 14,093 points, 4,597 assists and 1,638 steals. He averaged 17.1 ppg in 825 regular-season contests and 19.5 ppg in 99 playoff appearances.

He was inducted into the USC Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009.

(Photo: Focus on Sport / Getty Images)

Source link

Seattle, WA

Seattle weather: Cool blast of air for this weekend

Published

21 hours ago

January 17, 2025

Press Room

Seattle weather: Cool blast of air for this weekend

Seattle weather: Morning fog, sunshine in the forecast

FOX 13 Seattle Meteorologist Ilona McCauley has your latest western Washington weather forecast!

Western Washington is gearing up for some of the coolest air of the season heading into this weekend. A weak cold front will drop our overnight lows into the lower 30s beginning tonight. Chilly conditions will remain into much of next week. It’s time to remember to protect your pipes, plants, pets and people.

A weak cold front moved through earlier Thursday, keeping cold air in place around Western Washington.

As the rain wraps up and the skies clear out, fog will develop overnight. With many spots dipping into near freezing, the possibility of freezing fog along with icy spots will be around for Friday morning’s commute.

Map showing increasing clouds around Western Washington.

Rain and clouds clearing out, leading to overnight fog.

Skies clear out after Thursday stray showers wrap up. Fog will develop on Friday morning with some freezing fog possible. (FOX13 Seattle)

January has gotten off to a cool start already with more cold air on the way. A ridge of high pressure will keep much of our area in a cool, dry, northwesterly flow through at least the end of next week.

The extended 7 day forecast for the Seattle area.

Skies are drying out and some of the coolest air of the season is on the way this weekend. (FOX13 Seattle)

BEST OF FOX 13 SEATTLE

Washington sees record eviction filings in 2024: ‘Not just an isolated incident’

New 2025 laws that are now in effect in WA

Good Samaritan saves mom from road rage incident in WA

Here’s when you’ll need REAL ID to go through US airport security

REI exits ‘Experiences’ businesses, laying off hundreds of employees

To get the best local news, weather and sports in Seattle for free, sign up for the daily FOX Seattle Newsletter.

Download the free FOX LOCAL app for mobile in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for live Seattle news, top stories, weather updates and more local and national coverage, plus 24/7 streaming coverage from across the nation.

WeatherWeather Forecast

Source link