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Seattle - Space Needle

Seattle Space Needle

The Space Needle is a tower in Seattle, Washington and a major landmark of the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and a symbol of Seattle.
Space Needle in Seattle
It is located at the Seattle Center, it was built for the 1962 World's Fair, during which time nearly 20,000 people a day used the elevators, with over 2.3 million visitors in all for the World Fair.

Seattle Space Needle Facts : The Space Needle is 605 feet (184 m) high at its highest point and 138 feet (42 m) wide at its widest point and weighs 9,550tons. When it was completed it was the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River. It is built to withstand winds of up to 200 miles per hour (89 m/s) and earthquakes of up to 9.1 magnitude, which would protect the structure against an earthquake as powerful as the 1700 Cascadia earthquake. The tower also has 25 lightning rods on its roof to prevent lightning damage. For stability, the foundation of the tower was designed to be 30 feet (10 m) deep and 120 feet (40 m) across, which required 467 concrete trucks to work a whole day to fill.
Seattle Space Needle View
Seattle Space Needle
The Space Needle features an observation deck at 520 feet (160 m), and a gift shop with the rotating SkyCity restaurant at 500 feet (150 m). From the top of the Needle, one can see not only the Downtown Seattle skyline, but also the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, Elliott Bay and surrounding islands. Photographs of the Seattle skyline often show the Space Needle in a prominent position, even appearing to tower above the rest of the city's skyscrapers, as well as Mount Rainier in the background. This occurs because the tower, which is equivalent in height to a 60-story building, stands more than a kilometer northwest of most downtown skyscrapers.
Space Needle observation deck
Seattle Night View from the Space Needle
Seattle Water Front View
Visitors can reach the top of the Space Needle via elevators that travel at 10 miles per hour (4.5 m/s). The trip takes 41 seconds, and some tourists wait in hour-long lines in order to ascend to the top of the tower. On windy days, the elevators are slowed down to a speed of 5 miles per hour (2.2 m/s). The Space Needle was designated a historic landmark on April 19, 1999, by the City's Landmarks Preservation Board.

The revolving restaurant was an idea of John Graham, who had previously designed a similar restaurant for the AlaMoana Shopping Center in Honolulu. It rotates 360 degrees in exactly forty-seven minutes. The revolving top part was perfectly balanced so that the restaurant could rotate with the help of only one tiny 1 hp electric motor, which was later replaced with a 1.5 hp motor.

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