ArtSEA: Viaduct views return with Seattle’s new Overlook Walk

Plus, Africatown Plaza opens with a striking architectural statement, and Grand Illusion Cinema must find a new home.

photo of a swooping concrete sidewalk and amphitheater with construction workers in progress

Waterfront Park’s new Overlook Walk (opening Oct. 4, 2024) offers pedestrians a gently sloping pathway from Pike Place Market to the edge of Elliott Bay. The amphitheater-style Salish Steps encourage gathering and will soon be enlivened with a Native art installation. (Brangien Davis/Cascade PBS)

I’ll be the first to admit: I held a torch for the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Yes, it was sinking and seismically suspect and, sure, I would hold my breath whenever I drove along the lower deck. And yet.

During its final decade or so, the hulking concrete eyesore (dubbed “a horrible thing” by Seattle World’s Fair architect Paul Thiry) seemed to represent the last vestige of an older, punkier Seattle — one less hellbent on becoming a “world-class city.” It put the brutal in Brutalist architecture, but it was a city icon of sorts. Plus: those unbeatable Viaduct views.


ArtSEA: Notes on Northwest Culture is a weekly arts newsletter from Cascade PBS.


“Nobody misses the Viaduct, but they miss the views from the Viaduct,” said the Office of the Waterfront’s Angela Brady at a recent press tour of the new Overlook Walk. A key component of the $806 million Waterfront Park renovation, this pleasingly curvy and heavily planted pedestrian pathway connects Pike Place Market with the Seattle Waterfront. It opens on Friday, Oct. 4 with a public celebration starting at 4:30 p.m.

As the tour stepped off, Brady told our group we were standing at exactly the same elevation of the upper deck of the Viaduct. And whaddya know, the views of Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains are easier to enjoy from a contoured bench than a moving car. 

Noting the 100-foot drop from Pike Place Market to the piers, additional tour guides Joy Shigaki (director of Friends of Waterfront Park) and Marshall Foster (director of Seattle Center, a partner org) emphasized that this gently graded path makes traversing the steep slope more accessible for more people. 

“This is an ADA pathway,” Foster said. “The topography of the city has never allowed this before.” Shigaki added that the path, which bridges the roadway below, is “a much safer way for the public to cross the street.” Moving down toward the water, amphitheater-style seating configurations allow for plenty of pauses to watch the ferries — and possibly, future performances.

A map shows how the new Overlook Walk connects Pike Place Market to the Waterfront. (Waterfront Seattle) 

In addition to old Viaduct vistas, I was on the lookout for new art at the Overlook Walk. 

Eleven permanent works (including two historic fountains) are slated for installation across Waterfront Park by next year. These started appearing in July 2021, with Stephen Vitiello’s “Land Buoy Bells” at Pier 62. In 2023, Buster Simpson’s chunky “Anthropomorphic Dolos” landed near the ferry terminal. 

You may have spied the beginnings of Oscar Tuazon’s contribution near Pier 54: an open-air wooden post-and-beam structure that stretches for blocks and nods to the Indigenous tradition of carved house posts. It’s due to be completed by the end of this year. 

The art slated for the Overlook Walk area won’t arrive until early next year, but will include a large-scale clam basket sculpture (“so large you can walk through it,” Shigaki noted) created by local artistic trio MTK Matriarchs (Indigenous artists Malynn Foster, Tamela LaClair and Kimberly Deriana). The work will be a centerpiece of the new “Salish Steps,” next to the Seattle Aquarium’s new Ocean Pavilion, where works by Lummi artist Dan Friday are already in place.

And coming soon underneath the overlook: a posse of puppets in perpetual motion, courtesy of renowned artist Ann Hamilton. I’m still a little murky on how this one will look when finished, but I’m going to trust in Hamilton’s genius for public art. Overall, the Overlook has me convinced: It’s a much-needed connection between city and sea.

Africatown Plaza, which opens Oct. 5, 2024, incorporated community input to develop a Central District building that looks like nothing else in Seattle. (Daniel Spils) 

Elsewhere in undulating architecture … The long-planned Africatown Plaza makes its debut this weekend with an open house, tours and live entertainment (Oct. 5, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.). 

A combined effort of Africatown Community Land Trust and Community Roots Housing, the seven-story affordable-housing complex is the result of years of community planning — with the specific goal of bringing Black families back to the Central District after gentrification radically changed the demographics. 

As consulting architect Laurie Allison Wilson explained in 2019, “The goal was to create an iconic building that doesn’t look like the typical building you see in Seattle.” 

Mission accomplished. The distinctively curved facade (at 23rd Avenue and Spring Street, next door to Midtown Square) is a standout amid Seattle’s rash of bland rectangular boxes. Covered in weathered steel — a warm rust color — it makes a powerful visual statement, one with an underlying mission. “Every wave and corner tell the stories of where we’ve been AND where we’re headed,” Africatown Land Trust wrote on Instagram.

And yes, there will be art, including installations by Seattle painter Moses Sun and Tacoma artist Jasmine Brown.

In more news of artful buildings: This week the Grand Illusion Cinema announced that it must find a new location, after serving as Seattle’s coziest, quirkiest and oldest continuously running movie house for some 50 years. If you’ve never seen a film in the red-velvet lair — talk about an iconic Seattle viewing experience — you have until January 31, 2025. (Perhaps partake in the retro-themed All Monsters Attack!, an annual October screamfest.) The good news is the theater is determined to rise again, with its sights set on staying in the U District. 

Meanwhile the fate of the Bellevue Arts Museum building remains in question. As I reported earlier this month, BAM has ceased exhibitions. But last week, remaining staff announced that the facility is available to rent for private events. A note on the BAM website from executive director Kate Casprowiak Scher says funds from rentals will help “support our reinvention,” adding, “We are fully focused on restructuring the museum to being more vibrant than ever before.” This week, The Seattle Times examines what might be next for BAM

Artist Samantha Yun Wall, who just won SAM’s 2024 Betty Bowen Award, creates intricate drawings with ink and conté crayon. (Mario Galluci/Frye Art Museum)

As usual, October has come racing outta the gate with tons of things to do. 

Tonight (Oct. 3) is First Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square with enticing exhibition openings and what looks to be good walking weather.

New gallery shows I’m eager to see: Fulgencio Lazo’s geometric color explosions at Art X Contemporary (Weaving Stories, through Nov. 16); Peter Millet’s sharply shiny shapes at Greg Kucera Gallery (Silver, through Nov. 2); Tony Angell’s frog-filled ink-on-clayboard drawings at Foster/White Gallery (Frog Day, through Oct. 26; book talk Oct. 12); and Please Touch: Together, Breaking Barriers, a curated group show of tactile art objects at ARTS King Street Station (through Jan. 4, 2025).

This weekend, the cornucopia of fall festivals continues, including: the first annual Bainbridge Book Festival, featuring keynote speaker Nicola Yoon and local writers such as Jonathan Evison and Sonora Jha (Oct. 4 - 5); the 16th annual Seattle Latino Film Festival (Oct. 4 - 12), with screenings at venues all over town; the 30th annual Men in Dance Festival at Erickson Theatre on Capitol Hill (Oct. 4 - 6); and Early Music Seattle’s Beyond Baroque Premiere Festival at various venues (Oct. 9 - 13).

Just a few more of the many arts events happening across the city this week:

• Two award-winning novelists in one night: Louise Erdrich in conversation with Karen Russell at Town Hall (Oct. 4 at 7:30 p.m.).

• A rare appearance by Spokane singer/songwriter Donnie Emerson, who with his brother Joe inspired the movie Dreamin’ Wild, at Rabbit Box Theatre (Oct. 8 at 8 p.m.).

• Last chance to see twisted and entwined pen-and-crayon bodies (Frye Art Museum, through Oct. 6) by Portland artist Samantha Yun Wall, who just today won Seattle Art Museum’s prestigious Betty Bowen Award

This issue of ArtSEA is made possible in part thanks to support from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture.

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