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Space Needle History
Seattle Travel Tip
THE HISTORY OF THE SPACE NEEDLE
Information courtesy DDB Seattle
In 1959, an unlikely artist inspired by he Stuttgart Tower in Germany was
sketching his vision of a dominant entral structure for the 1962
Seattle
World's Fair on a placemat in a coffee house.
The artist was Edward E. Carlson, then president of Western International
Hotels. His space-age image was to be the focus of the futuristic World's Fair in
Seattle, whose theme would be Century 21. Carlson penciled the shape
that would become the internationally known symbol for Seattle, the Space
Needle.
However, Carlson and his supporters soon found moving the symbol from the
placemat to the drawing board to the construction phase was not an easy process.
The first obstacle was the structure's design. Carlson's initial sketch underwent many
transformations. One drawing resembled a tethered balloon and another
was a balloon-shaped top house on a central column anchored by cables.
Architect John Graham, fresh from his success in designing the world's first
shopping mall (Seattle's Northgate), turned the balloon design into a flying
saucer. A dozen architects on Graham's team worked on sketches and
ideas before a final compromise was reached just a year and a half before
the fair was to open.
The next hurdles were location and financing. Since the Space Needle was
to be privately financed, it had to be situated on land which could be
acquired for public use but built within the fairgrounds. Early investigations
indicated such a plot of land did not exist. However, just before the search
was abandoned, a suitable 120-foot-by-120-foot piece of land was found
and sold to investors for $75,000 in 1961, just 13 months before the
World's Fair opening.
Construction, managed by the Howard S. Wright Construction Company,
progressed quickly. An underground foundation was poured into a hole 30
feet deep and 120 feet across. It took 467 cement trucks an entire day to
fill the hole, the largest continuous concrete pour ever attempted in the
West. Once completed, the foundation weighed as much as the Space
Needle itself, establishing the center of gravity just above ground.
The five level top house dome was completed with special attention paid to
the revolving restaurant level and Observation Deck. The top house was
balanced so perfectly that the restaurant rotated with just a one
horsepower electric motor. In keeping with the Century 21 theme, the final
coats of paint were dubbed Astronaut White for the legs, Orbital Olive for
the core, Re-entry Red for the halo and Galaxy Gold for the sunburst and
pagoda roof. The 605-foot tall Space Needle was completed in December
1961 and officially opened a mere four months later on the first day of the
World's Fair, April 21, 1962.
The Space Needle's elevators were the last pieces to arrive before the
opening, the last one just one day before the fair opened. New,
computerized elevators were installed in 1993. The elevators travel 10
mph, 14 feet per second, 800 feet per minute, or as fast as a raindrop
falls to earth. In fact, a snowflake falls at 3 mph, so in an elevator during a
snowstorm it appears to be snowing up.
Storms occasionally force closure of the Space Needle, as they did for the
Columbus Day storm of 1962 and the "Inauguration Day" storm of 1993
when winds reached 90 miles per hour. The Needle is built to withstand a
wind velocity of 200 miles per hour. The Space Needle has withstood
several tremors, too, including a 1965 earthquake measuring 6.5 on the
Richter scale. Frosty Fowler was broadcasting his regular KING-AM radio
show from the Observation Deck during the quake. The Connie Francis
record he was playing never skipped a beat. The tallest building west of
the Mississippi River when it was built, the Space Needle has double the
1962 building code requirements, enabling the structure to withstand even
greater jolts.
Space Needle was built for just $4.5 million, and has had its share of
milestones, including numerous weddings and a jump by six parachutists.
During the World's Fair, nearly 20,000 people a day traveled to the top.
The Space Needle hosted over 2.3 million visitors during the Fair and is still,
nearly 40 years later, Seattle's number one tourist destination.
In 2000, the Space Needle completed a $20 million revitalization. The year
long project included construction of the Pavilion Level, SpaceBase retail
store, SkyCity restaurant, O Deck overhaul, exterior lighting additions,
Legacy Light installations, exterior painting and more.
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