Symbol of Seattle: a lofty landmark recognized worldwide, the Space Needle is the exclamation point of a great city's skyline - Product/Service Evaluation

Travel America, Nov-Dec, 2003 by Randy Mink

WHEN I COLLECTED STAMPS as a boy, one of my favorite new commemoratives saluted the visionary Seattle World's Fair. It was 1962, and America was on the brink of the Space Age. That same year, "The Jetsons" cartoon series on ABC-TV brought out-of-this-world fantasies into our living rooms.

The fair's theme was "Century 21," its centerpiece a futuristic tripod stnlcrure that still stands 41 years later, gleaming from a recent top-to-bottom renovation. And from downtown Seattle, you can still get to the old fairgrounds, now called Seattle Center, on the monorail that dazzled fair-goers with its technology.

It's taken me until the 21st century to see the Space Needle in person. To absorb its sleek majesty, I made both day and night visits during a get-to-know Seattle trip earlier this year.

The 605-foot Space Needle, a magnet for fist-time visitors to Seattle, is an icon instantly identified with Washington State's largest city and the Pacific Northwest as a whole. Just as the Eiffel Tower says Paris, the Space Needle pinpoints Seattle.

The tower's design was born in 1959 from a sketch penciled on a place mat in a hotel coffee house in Stuttgart, Germany. The unlikely artist, inspired by Stuttgart's television tower with its up-in-the-sky restaurant, was Edward E. Carlson, then president of Western International Hotels (predecessor of Westin Hotels) and chairman of Washington State's World's Fair Commission. With help from a team of architects, his initial doodling underwent many transformations, and the domed top eventually took on a flying-saucer design.

The Space Needle was completed in December of 1961, four months before the fair opened. 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.

Soon after settling in to my downtown hotel, I made a beeline to the Space Needle, taking the monorail for a 90-second ride from Westlake Center, an enclosed mall. Then I was ready for blastff--a 43-second ride on one of three glass off--a 43 second ride on one of three glass elevators.

Panoramic, 360-degree views from the observation deck, 52 stories above the ground, put Seattle into perspective, providing a perfect introduction to this mountain-ringed metropolis on Puget Sound. On clear days you can make out the Olympic Mountains to the west, the Cascades (including snowy Mount Rainier and Mount Baker) to the east. Besides the Elliott Bay waterfront downtown, you see Lake Union, with its sailboats, houseboats, and seaplanes. (For great skyline views from the water, make an Argosy Cruises harbor tour one of the first things you do.)

The complete redesign of the observation deck (O Deck) means uninterrupted viewing space all the way around. The gilt shop has been relocated to the base, and all other ODeck activit, to the base, and all other O Deck activities have been moved to the inside portion of the level, giving visitors a clear walking path and vantage points from every angle. There are telescopes, interactive games, friendly tour guides, and an outdoor viewing platform.

Display panels show the Needle's construction and examples of other monumental structures, such as the Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Taj Mahal, Toronto's CN Tower, and Malaysia's twin Petronas Towers, the tallest buildings in the world. You can enjoy the views over a sandwich and Starbucks coffee from tall chairs at the SkyCafe--and beat the sky-high prices of SkyCity, the Needle's fine dining spot.

SkyCity, redone in 2000 with a fresh new design and menu, is one of those big-splurge, high-altitude restaurants that captivates tourists and lures locals celebrating special occasions. (We saw a man get down on his knees and propose, presenting a ring to his special lady.) Meals there include admission to the observatory, a deck above.

Tables on SkyCity's upper tier offer views as good as those by the windows, and the views keep changing because this is a revolving restaurant, the kind that were such the rage in the 1960s and '70s. (The seating area rotates on a turntable, which makes a full revolution about every hour; the kitchen remains stationary.) This was the world's second revolving restaurant and was based on the one that Space Needle architect Jack Graham had just designed for the Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu.

Just the idea of rotating-while-you-eat appealed to my sense of nostalgia, so I met friends there for dinner, reminding myself I was paying for the view as well. I had the Northwest Salmon Wellington in puff pastry with spinach pesto and lemon cream ($36.50) and SkyCity Greens ($8), a medley of pears, bleu cheese, and huckleberry vinaigrette. Other dinner entrees include seared ahi tuna, prime rib, and a boneless pork chop with apple potato pancakes.

We saved room for the signature Lunar Orbiter, a hot fudge sundae presented in swirls of dry-ice Seattle "fog."

Lunch salads and sandwiches at SkyCity start at $19. The Saturday and Sunday brunch is $36.50. A children's menu is available for ages 10 and under.