You're Not From Around Here, Are You? -- Tourists In Seattle Look For The Distinctive - Beyond The Obligatory Market

It is at about the second hour of playing tourist in downtown Seattle that I wander into one of its big visitor attractions: The Sharper Image store at Fourth and Pike.

Now, around the country, there are 75 of the Sharper Image stores selling expensive gizmos, so it's not like this particular outlet is exuding a distinctive Seattle flavor.

But when you're a tourist visiting a downtown, you start walking and look for something interesting.

What you quickly figure out about the Seattle downtown of 1996 - not the downtown envisioned years ahead, but the one you see right now - is that there isn't much distinctive about it.

Like any other city

It's true that Nordstrom started in this downtown, but a Nordstrom in one city is much like a Nordstrom anywhere else. The Westlake Center mall downtown is full of interesting shops, but you could hear the same piped-in lite jazz and see similar shops at the Galleria mall in Dallas, or some other city.

Fortunately for Seattle's downtown, it borders one entity that has saved its soul, and which all tourists eventually find. More about Pike's Market - remember, we're playing tourist, and for some reason no tourist ever calls it the Pike Place Market - a little later.

On this afternoon, there are five tourists looking at vibrating massage mats and taser guns at the Sharper Image. It's still early in the season for the estimated 7 million overnight visitors expected this year in King County.

These tourists will drop $2 billion, and, like most tourists, they're a generally undemanding lot, willing to accept a national gizmo shop as a local attraction.

"They'll ask me, `Where can you see grunge in Seattle?' They want to experience that `Seattle feeling,' that eclectic thing, that they've read about," Lawrence King, an assistant manager at Sharper Image, tells me.

He shrugs. What can he tell a tourist? "It's a state of mind," he says. "I don't know what they expect, circus jugglers or what."

King says he sometimes tells tourists wanting to experience grunge at 1 in the afternoon about a little coffee shop on Third Avenue. It's got art on the walls, and that's kind of eclectic, right?

I try to find the artsy cafe, but as I walk south on Third Avenue, the most memorable images are of the rubble from a block being torn down, and former shops with signs such as, "Soup du Jour is closed. Thank you to everyone for past support . . ."

Lucky that tourists are so agreeable and don't mind a continual string of "for lease" signs as photo opportunities.

Shut down by 8

Among the many tourists I meet - they all seem genuinely glad to have somebody come up and start talking to them - are Jack Seymour and Charlotte Richer, of Indianapolis. They were on a cruise ship whose journey ended here, and are spending three days at the downtown Sheraton.

"I noticed that here you roll up the sidewalks by 8 at night," says Jack, a retired autoworker.

Ah, you noticed. The office workers go home to the suburbs, the department stores close, and the most action downtown is watching the wind carry a McDonald's burger wrapper.

"At night, we try to figure out someplace to eat, and then we just go back to our room and watch TV," Jack says.

I ask him what's impressed him the most about downtown. "I really liked the Omnidome," he says.

There are more than 20 Omnidomes around the country, showing movies on a 180-degree screen. No wonder businessmen who travel a lot say it's easy to forget what city they're in.

The Seattle Omnidome also is on the waterfront, not downtown, but when you're a tourist, neighborhood boundaries get a little blurry.

Jack and Charlotte tell me something else they'll remember about downtown.

"The first thing we noticed was so many people sleeping on the streets," Jack says. "You would think that with all the rain you get here, they'd go to some other city."

You would think that, but Seattle has a reputation as a place where a street person can find a meal and a handout, I explain.

Jack nods. This is his and Charlotte's third day downtown. They've gotten used to being panhandled on every block.

I decide to walk the route that the couple would have taken from the Sheraton to the waterfront.

Past the parking lots and parking garages that uglify downtown. Past the adult entertainment centers that ooze sleaze. Past the Newmark Center mall with the prominent sign saying "This building has no public restrooms." Past the Pike Place Market (I'll get to it). Down the Pike Hill Climb. Under the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

I keep thinking how lucky it is for Seattle that tourists are so understanding. Especially as I walk under the viaduct and its wind-tunnel noise from the speeding traffic. During the Seattle rush hour that now begins at 3 in the afternoon, it is a constant din that carries right to the waterfront sidewalk, and you can hardly hear yourself talk.

The waterfront at this time of the year: T-shirts, fish and chips, trinkets at Trident Imports, the Omnidome, the Seattle Aquarium, looking at ferries, temperature in the 50s, drizzle, wind.

A smattering of history

A group of tourists I meet from Melbourne, Australia, walk around for a bit, take some quick pictures. Where they're standing used to be a working waterfront. Silk, tea, gold, lumber. Trading ships came and went through here, although you couldn't tell now. The Australians are interested in the history of the waterfront, but only get a perfunctory smattering from the tour bus guide. They head for the Westlake Center to do some shopping.

I walk to the Pike Place Market.

The tourists you see there are positively ebullient because this is a place where suddenly Seattle comes alive. There is no lite jazz being piped in from the ceiling. Instead, you get a sidewalk musician playing a mean steel guitar, or a bunch of guys doing some doo-wop harmonizing.

Except for the Market, you don't hear people talking in the downtown sidewalks. It is a silent city. Spend a little time by any bus stop downtown, and you'll see.

The Market frees up the spirit of Seattle. Sure, the guys throwing salmon around at Pike Place Fish Co. look like frustrated actors, but so what?

I talk to Ron and Sally Donkowski, of Alpena, Mich. They've been mesmerized by the salmon guys. They hand me their camera and ask if I'll take a picture of them and the salmon. "People are so friendly here," says Sally.

California, New Zealand, Germany, Japan, Hawaii, New York, Washington, D.C. The parade of tourists continues.

Then the market clock shows it's 5:45 p.m., the stalls begin to close up in the only distinctive landmark in downtown, and the tourists head back to their hotels or their cars.

By 8 p.m. it's just me and the McDonald's wrappers.

The tourists, they visit here for a few days, they're satisfied enough. They saw Pike's Market and the Sharper Image store.

What else could you ask from a city's downtown?

Erik Lacitis' column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. His phone number is 464-2237. His e-mail address is: elac-new@seatimes.com. Include your phone number(s) in your messages.