We’re starting the week off right with a vintage shot from Max R. Jensen. You may know the Washington Building as Puget Sound Plaza these days. It opened in the early 1960′s and was designed in part by legendary architect Minoru Yamasaki. Click below for the high res and
click here for the modern day.
Washington Building — Seattle’s newest major office building is a prominent landmark on Seattle’s skyline. Its 22 story gleaming glass and white marble exterior makes it a distinctive structure especially when illuminated after dark.
The three story section fronting Third Avenue houses the new Seattle downtown Post Office.
Color photo by Max R.
Jensen.
I’ve been by there. Never gone in though, but I passed by it a few times.
I worked there for a couple of years just a few years ago. Some of the U.W.’s administrative offices were on the top few floors. Every single office has huge windows and amazing views! Didn’t like that job, but I did like working in that building smack in the middle of downtown. The U.W. moved out of there after I left to their new office building in the Mercer Mess area.
It looks better here than it does in real life. What I like about this shot is the view of the brick building at the lower right, which came down to make room for the Benaroya just as I was starting to appreciate the fact that old brick buildings were disappearing from the downtown area. The Jackson Bldg. was either this one or the next one south on Third (out of frame), can’t exactly remember.
1/3 beautiful building, 2/3 boring lowrise. Most of the post office along with the parking lot next door makes this section of 3rd a pedestrian wasteland (try this view). It would be nice if they took half of the post office and turned it into a high-rise with retail.
Matt the E,
You nailed it — “a pedestrian wasteland”. That stretch of Third is one of my pet peeves. I wish I hadn’t clicked on your link, I nearly barfed. But I knew what I was getting into.
I had no idea that the post office and the Washington Building (now Puget Sound Plaza) were two parts of the same building. You really do learn something new every day!
BTW, Max’s daughter e-mailed me and let me know that not only did he photograph this building, but he helped build it as an iron-worker. Neat!
Cliffe
I worked in this building with UW Medicine for 8 years. I was on the 19th floor when the 2001 earthquake hit. By the time I realized what was going on and got under my desk, the building soon stopped shaking, and then began swaying…back and forth…north-south…to the point where it felt like each time we may have gone all the way down, and I could almost here the swooshing sound. I was also in PSP on the 20th floor when the WTO riots broke out right below on Union Street, and I missed a week of work and later had to show my ID to National Guard to walk down the street and approach my building. Memories!
@Alison,
That was one of Seattle’s shimmering moments, eh? “Come see the violence inherent in the system! Help Help, I’m being repressed! Oh, what a giveaway! Did you hear that, eh? That’s what I’m on about! Did you see him repressing me?”
Twenty-three years ago I did a four-month stint (Apr-Aug 1987) as a document analyst for a corporate law firm in the Washington Building. A herd of document analysts was plugging away on WPPSS litigation on a different floor while our group of only about eight people, most with advanced degrees, worked on a much smaller telecommunications lawsuit on the tenth floor. The job was pretty fun, almost like partying every day, because instead of being huddled away in cubicles, our workspaces were arranged in a big rectangle facing each other in a very large office that had a spectacular view of Elliott Bay.
Among my coworkers at this job were our fearless supervisor Larry Wilson, Tecla Legge (Larry’s fearless supervisor), a guy with a masters in philosophy named Clay Wilson, a guy named Bob Phillips with radio deejaying experience, and a couple others named Hans and Amy.
I remember routinely walking up the stairwell, just for the exercise. Ten floors was just about right. I worked on the 20th floor of the (then) Safeco Building a year later…THAT called for riding the elevator!
In the 1960′s Simpson Timber Company moved its administrative offices from Shelton to Seattle…They found their new home on the 21st (or 22nd) floor of the Washington Building. My father was an asst. traffic manager for the company and worked with Gus Hubbard. I was very proud of him. He was there during the ’65 quake and told me that many people evacuated the building down the stairwells during the quake. The building swayed pretty well but suffered no serious damage. I remember visiting him in his office and sometimes I’d buy a flower in the flower shop on the main floor. At that time the elevators were beautiful and the lobby was always dressed nicely for the holidays…and the view was amazing.