Photography and videography by Billie Winter
You’ve felt it: The chilling stillness of an empty airport terminal that should be crowded with travelers. A long school hallway, after hours and framed by seemingly endless rows of lockers for students who may or may not exist. Neon signs flickering inside a dark, abandoned mall, painting soft streaks of light across the floors for no one.
I feel a kind of eerie coziness in these settings—it’s not unlike the thrill I get when watching a horror movie—and I know I’m not alone. The internet is teeming with communities dedicated to sharing images of such locations, frequently referred to as “liminal spaces.” We’re drawn to these spaces for the simultaneous relief and anxiety of feeling utterly alone. Soothed by the solitude, but wary of the isolation.
Urban exploration, in which adventurers seek out abandoned or remote spaces, has been around for centuries, since daredevils descended into the Paris catacombs in the late 18th century. Our collective cultural fascination with liminal spaces persists in the Backrooms, which began as a creepypasta on a 2019 4chan thread about “disquieting images that just feel ‘off.’” The original, which appeared to be an infinite yellow-wallpapered office space lit by fluorescent lights, has spawned video games, fan art, and a viral series of YouTube shorts created by 20-year-old filmmaker Kane Parsons. It’s become so popular that A24 will release Parsons’s full-length feature film adaptation, Backrooms, on May 29.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Pedants love to split hairs about the definition of “liminal,” a word that is nebulous by nature. Here, we’re talking about a place, often set between two destinations, that evokes an uncanny, dreamlike mood. And Seattle is filled with them. We have a literal underground network of passages—from abandoned city streets in Pioneer Square to transit tunnels scattered throughout downtown—and the gloomy, misty climate certainly lends itself to the possibility that we live in a locale where the veil between worlds is thin. (That’s also why the Pacific Northwest makes such a good setting for stories about horror and the supernatural: think The Ring, Twin Peaks, Twilight, etc.) Here are some of my favorite spaces to pass through, when I want to feel like I’ve fallen through a portal into the twilight zone.
Pike Place Market
Some of the most unnerving liminal spaces are the ones that are usually packed with people when they’re empty. Like the airport terminal, it blends the familiar with the strange. You can almost feel where the bustle should be. When the gates come down at Pike Place Market and the tourists fade away, an unsettling hush falls over the market. And through it, you only hear the buzz of neon signs and the drag, somewhere in the distance, of a janitor’s broom.
It feels for a moment like you might be the only person in the entire city.
Seattle Central Library
The extremely creepy and appropriately named Red Room is probably the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Seattle’s downtown library. It feels like a lost Suspiria set and is covered wall-to-wall in bright, glossy red. But there’s so much more here. This structure feels like it was built specifically to capture corners of peculiar emptiness. There are disappearing escalators and hidden reading nooks. I love the top floor, with utilitarian study carrels illuminated by the glow of fluorescent strip lights and lofty glass ceilings that frame the rainy, cloudy skies. Walking out of here just before closing time, in the dark with no one else around, I feel like I’m a Final Girl who just finished up a late-night session of digging through the archives to research a vengeful ghost.
AMC Pacific Place 11
This is one of the spots that kicked off my fascination with liminal spaces. The zombie shopping center Pacific Place is filled with unfrequented stores and unused seating, but its crown jewel is undoubtedly the AMC theater. The squiggly carpets and weird photo booth recall nostalgic ’90s kid memories, while the general lack of traffic makes it feel hollow. I always get spooked when I have to go to the bathroom after drinking too much Decaf Diet Cherry Vanilla Coke from the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine and walk down the halls without seeing a soul. If you leave from a late screening, you might also emerge from the theater to see the diner Johnny Rockets, a surreal retrofuturist vision of space age silver and neon, completely uninhabited. However, my favorite part is taking the AMC escalator to the upper floor, especially at night. When you look out the windows, you can see the tops of buildings and a vast vacant parking garage, and it feels for a moment like you might be the only person in the entire city.
We’re drawn to these spaces for the simultaneous relief and anxiety of feeling utterly alone.
Convention Center
The Convention Center feels like it was constructed to be a liminal space. Escalators, staircases, cavernous exhibit halls, meeting rooms with expectant tables and chairs. Perched on the precipice of the freeway, its abundance of floors and glass threatens to swallow you whole, while an LED art installation by Jenny Holzer quietly ticks by. It reminds me of the sinister Lumon Industries building in Severance.
5th Avenue Theatre Tunnel
To the tune of Lana Del Rey’s “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd”: Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Fifth Avenue? Next time you pass by the unassuming set of stairs next to the Fifth Avenue Theatre, take the staircase. You will find yourself in a subterranean pedestrian concourse, a parallel world of shops, restaurants, and escalators. Pass through this portal to traverse downtown shielded from the rain and cold.
