@1
What at Seattle Center was built for Allen or Gates that tax payers paid for?
Nothing.
What is on Seattle Center grounds that was built and paid for by Allen or Gates?
Nothing.
What is on Seattle Center grounds that is for the public and paid for by the public?
Everything.
If you're going to be a whiner, at least whine about something real.
I vote for a display of a dozen or so soon-to-be-out-of-order touch-screen kiosks displaying earnest, grad-school-narrated video clips of people riding roller coasters.
I think this would be a reasonably good site for a Seattle version of Portland's food carts. It's a 10 minute monorail ride from downtown, which would be perfect for the lunch rush. The food court vendors may not love this idea, but increased pedestrian traffic from downtown should help them as well.
@15, the food court vendors can suck it, but they've got nothing to worry about. No one from downtown is ever in a million years going to ride the monorail for their lunch hour. Ten minutes, yes, if you can magically teleport yourself from your desk into a departing train, and then do it again on the way back; realistically, from most office towers the round-trip will take the entire hour. No food cart is that good.
The food carts need to be spread all over downtown, filling Occidental Park, lining the street in front of City Hall Park, filling the surface parking lots in Belltown. Every building with a plaza of any kind should be required by law to have a food cart. There should be fifty food carts on the vacant lot that will shortly be taking the place of the giant hole at Second and Pine.
Bring back the Fun Forest, or at least Flight to Mars! They can put it in the EMP building when that organization loses enough money to become a liability.
Ahem, Don't go dissing Flight To Mars (and anyway, wasn't it Rocket to Mars?). It was a fun ride, that got more fun as more of it broke down. Much more interesting than the EMP.
@16 I often ride Link to the International District for lunch. I'm picturing the Monorail advertising free lunch rides for the first few months to get things started.
My childhood would have been very different without the Fun Forest. It used to be really cheap, so for a couple dollars, we could go hang out there all day. When we ran out of quarters for the rides, we used to walk under the Loop-the-Loop or any other ride that went upside down and collect the spare change that had fallen to the ground.
It's been a damned depressing place for the last 20 years or so, though - dingy, antiquated, and staffed by the seriously dysphoric, sitting glumly in the rain, operating rides while listening to suicidal music.
I was a patrol in elementary school. The highlight of my year was going on a patrols only field trip to the fun forest in the spring while the rest of my sucker classmates had to stay in Everett and do arithmetic drills.
I also loved that every morning during school I had to arrive 30 mintues early but I got to go to class a half hour late. The majority of that bonus hour was spent drinking unlimited hot chocolate in the patrol's lounge. Haha, what a weird bunch of memories tied to the fun forest.
Also, @22. no it was MOST DEFINITELY "flight to mars" not "rocket to mars"
Mind you, we Seattle taxpayers will pay for it, not them.
What at Seattle Center was built for Allen or Gates that tax payers paid for?
Nothing.
What is on Seattle Center grounds that was built and paid for by Allen or Gates?
Nothing.
What is on Seattle Center grounds that is for the public and paid for by the public?
Everything.
If you're going to be a whiner, at least whine about something real.
I vote Knoxywood. But what we'll get is concrete plaza.
I think the "off site" city council meeting should be held there until it, or they, are replaced.
The "master plan" was talked about as being a ten year plan last year. This year it is talked about as a twenty-year plan.
Btw, David Brewster write a couple of days ago that there might be a levy to vote on in 2012, in time for the 50th anniversary.
Or something akin to this which would drive people CRAZY. Finally, relocate the Freemont Troll.
The food carts need to be spread all over downtown, filling Occidental Park, lining the street in front of City Hall Park, filling the surface parking lots in Belltown. Every building with a plaza of any kind should be required by law to have a food cart. There should be fifty food carts on the vacant lot that will shortly be taking the place of the giant hole at Second and Pine.
(Besides the one day in June when Seattle Center does anyway, of course.)
Ha-RUMPH!
It's been a damned depressing place for the last 20 years or so, though - dingy, antiquated, and staffed by the seriously dysphoric, sitting glumly in the rain, operating rides while listening to suicidal music.
I also loved that every morning during school I had to arrive 30 mintues early but I got to go to class a half hour late. The majority of that bonus hour was spent drinking unlimited hot chocolate in the patrol's lounge. Haha, what a weird bunch of memories tied to the fun forest.
Also, @22. no it was MOST DEFINITELY "flight to mars" not "rocket to mars"