public transport – Unravel Travel

Seattle – some history, tourist sights and building sites

It’s always a bit of a shock travelling from Vancouver BC to Seattle – the American accent (after the nice soft Canadian ‘oos’ and ‘ehs’), the repeated border checks, and when you get there, the ridiculous number of homeless people. Luckily I was only in safely blue Democrat-voting cities, the shock of meeting someone who actually voted for Trump might have been too much for me. In fact the cities I did visit were all fretting about the threat of a federal crackdown on their clearly lucrative cannabis industries – Seattle is in some ways the Amsterdam of the United States, and its free newspaper The Stranger is rather childishly obsessed with getting high and should, I think, just be called The Stoner.

The First Nations or Native Americans are not as visible as they are just to the north in British Columbia, and their culture is not treated with the same respect; there are totem poles in Seattle, but they’re typically made in Alaska or just appropriated. On the other hand, African-Americans are more visible, notably among the homeless community. The last overnight count found 11,643 homeless people in the Metro Seattle area, 5,485 of them without any shelter. In 2017 144 homeless people died here – 144!! It’s often been said that there is no safety net in the USA, and you really see what that means here. And it gets worse – in January 2018, days after I left, a homeless camp (in Belltown) was cleared and the city then put in cycle stands in a location where there was absolutely no need for them, to prevent anyone making camp there again; likewise public benches have arm rests to stop anyone from lying down.

Originally a pretty wild logging town, Seattle’s development was kick-started by (paradoxically) the Great Fire of 1889 and then the Klondike gold rush of 1897, when up to 30,000 obsessives mined the gold, and Seattle mined the miners, providing supplies, bars and gambling. Soon after this, a couple of hills were regraded (creating space for Chinatown to establish itself in what is now known as the International District) and the spoil was used to create the present waterfront, burying the original Skid Road – not Skid Row – which you can now see on underground tours. However it’s still a city of villages with names such as Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill.

Seattle’s twentieth-century history of attracting the new high-tech industries began as early as 1910 with the establishment of the Boeing Airplane Company (their first plane flew in 1916, so 2016 was marked as the centenary). The First and Second World Wars led to ship- and plane-building booms, continued by Boeing’s becoming the world’s leading manufacturer of jet planes. However modern Seattle was really born in 1979 when Bill Gates and Paul Allen moved the nascent Microsoft (founded in New Mexico in 1975) to their hometown of Seattle, which was soon home to lots of start-ups, many founded by the 12,000-odd millionaires created when Microsoft became a public company in 1986. In 1971 Starbucks was founded here, riding a coffee craze that shows no sign of abating, followed in 1994 by Amazon (which eventually made a profit in 2001, and now produces more, and hotter, start-ups than Microsoft). Nowadays Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud computing platforms are the market-leaders, and the Seattle area is likely to be the centre for developments in this area as well as in AI and biotech. Between 1990 and 2007 the population of Greater Seattle grew from 2.4 million to 3.3 million (it’s now 3.7 million, the 15th-largest conurbation in the US).

In November 2017 Microsoft announced plans to redevelop its Redmond campus over the next seven years, with pitches for soccer and cricket (for its many South Asian employees) at its heart; it’ll be designed around pedestrian and bike movements and will have its own light rail station. Likewise Amazon, the city’s largest private employer with 40,000 staff, is developing a sustainable Urban Campus close to downtown in the South Lake Union district (where the main property developer is Paul Allen’s Vulcan), although it would have been cheaper and easier to build out in the suburbs; Amazon is also subsidising light rail. Currently 20% of its staff walk to work, and ‘only’ 45% drive. Despite the lamentable weather on the ‘Wet Coast’, Seattle does share the trend for inhabitants of tech-savvy cities to favour cycling and public transport (as well as craft beer and third-wave coffee).

However the highest-profile infrastructure under way at the moment is the replacement of the Alaska Way freeway (State Highway 99), along the waterfront, by a two-mile tunnel – the existing viaduct not only cuts the city off from Puget Sound but is at risk of collapsing in an earthquake (and that’s a question of when, not if). There have been delays and cost over-runs, reminiscent of Boston’s ‘Big Dig’ but not nearly as bad, and it should open in 2019, allowing the city to build a linear park and, I would hope, a high-quality (and level) north-south cycleway. Because the tunnel won’t have the downtown exits that the present viaduct has there’s a parallel project, known as the Center City Connector, to join the city’s two existing streetcar lines, creating a new north-south link through downtown; this should open in 2020. This is not to be confused with the Link light rail service which already runs north-south through downtown, using what used to be called the Bus Tunnel (opened in 1990). Even worse than the Alaska Way viaduct was the decision to drive I-5 (the interstate highway that runs the length of the West Coast from Canada to Mexico) right through the east side of downtown; it now carries far more traffic than was ever envisaged and produces insane levels of noise and pollution. One effort at remediation was the Freeway Park, opened in 1976 and hailed as a masterpiece of Brutalism, all concrete blocks and rather sterile plantings above the freeway – the constant traffic noise now makes it less than restful. It’s next to the Convention Center, which is well worth walking through for its excellent displays of contemporary art (on several floors) and a café selling all kinds of weird and wonderful wraps, rice bowls, juices and smoothies.

As for more conventional tourist sights, Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) and the Museum of Flight are all well known, but there are many more: I enjoyed the Wing Luke Museum (of the Asian Pacific American Experience), with excellent exhibits (including on local boy Bruce Lee) and tours of the historic Freeman Hotel (1910), first home to many Asian immigrants to the US. There’s also the vaguely similar Northwest African American Museum , which opened in 2008. The main history museum (given that the state history museum is in Tacoma – see my forthcoming post) is the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), which moved in 2012 to the former Naval Reserve Armoury in Lake Union Park; its main permanent exhibit, True Northwest: The Seattle Journey, includes the first Boeing plane. I’m also intrigued by the Center for Wooden Boats, also in Lake Union Park, which has exhibits on the area’s boat-building history but is also recommended by locals as a great place to rent rowing and sailing boats. History buffs should also not miss the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, a brilliant little free museum in the former Cadillac Hotel (1889), downtown near Pioneer Square, which stresses Seattle’s rôle as jumping-off point for the gold rush and has information on visiting the Alaskan parts of the park (which I visited when writing the Rough Guide to Alaska, of course).

Of books and beer

It’s hard to believe now that until 1976 Seattle bars were not allowed to have windows, lest the sinners inside be visible to passers-by. Virtually all of America’s hops are grown in the Pacific Northwest, so it’s little surprise that nowadays there are craft breweries all over. This is also a great area for wine (Merlot being the big thing in Washington, and Pinot Noir in Oregon), and there are also new distilleries producing gin, vodka and even absinthe. Anyway, there are fourteen breweries in South Seattle (an area with an industrial brewing heritage), including half a dozen in the up-and-coming Georgetown area, on and near Airport Way South. They all have tasting rooms, in other words bars, but you should also make a point of stopping in at the Jules Maes Saloon – its website is still listing the gigs for April 2008, so better see their Facebook page. Lowercase Brewing is an excellent new place that has a growler-sealing machine for take-outs, while the Machine House Brewery makes the closest equivalent to English real ales, served from hand pumps in full-size imperial pint glasses. And then grab some tasty tacos at tiny Tu Cantinas at 6031 Airport Way South.

It’s a bit more of a surprise to learn that Seattle was designated a City of Literature by UNESCO in 2017. Of course there are good writers here (although it’s arguable that the best is actually the British Jonathan Raban) and the central library by Rem Koolhaas (opened in 2004) is great (go to the top and work your way down), but there are also lots of good bookshops and the Hugo House literary centre. This will move to a new permanent home on Capitol Hill in mid-2018, where they’ll be able to hold even more of their mostly free readings, launches and classes. There are also lots of readings and other events at the Elliott Bay Book Company and the Ballast Bar at Capitol Cider, and even a monthly Silent Reading Party at the Hotel Sorrento. Open Books is devoted purely to poetry, Kinokuniya to Japanese books and comics, and there are great second-hand bookshops on the lower level of Pike Place Market that the tourists never see. And being Seattle, many bookshops contain a congenial coffeeshop – Little Oddfellows at the Elliott Bay, Raconteur at Third Place Books, El Diablo at Queen Anne Books, and the Bookstore Bar & Café (more of a gimmick than a bookshop) at the Alexis Hotel on Pioneer Square.

And finally

Also in January 2018, a few days after I left, the first Amazon Go automated supermarket opened at 2131 7th Ave (near Blanchard, just north of downtown) – this has no checkouts, but customers tap in with a smartphone app and are then tracked by cameras and shelf sensors and billed automatically. The technology seems to be working fairly well, despite journalistic attempts to beat it, offering another alternative to queuing and dealing with human beings in shops. In 2017 Amazon bought the Whole Foods chain, beloved of the organic middle classes, and was soon generating bad publicity for introducing new stock-control technology which led to empty shelves and rotting food. Most amazing of all is that Amazon opened a genuine physical bookshop in Seattle (at the University Village shopping center) in 2015 – talk about reinventing the wheel.

I flew quite a few times with Alaska Airlines when I was writing the Rough Guide to Alaska, and they’ve always been one of the better US airlines – but they’re now very much a Pacific Northwest airline rather than an Alaskan one, firmly based in Seattle. So it’s a little surprising to see that they’re opening a new base in the area, at Everett – they’ll fly to eight cities from there, none in Alaska.

Singapore – a new cultural dynamo

I like Singapore – it’s clean and efficient (if a bit hot and humid) and the people are friendly, businesslike and go-ahead. But I have to say, it’s changed a lot since I was last here in 1983 – for one thing, it’s literally grown 100 square kilometres in size since then, thanks to land reclamation at Changi airport at its eastern tip, at the Jurong industrial zone to the west and, most obviously, at Marina Bay immediately south of the historic city centre. The close-packed skyscrapers around the Downtown MRT (subway) station have only been there a few years, and there’s much more to come. The aim is for the island-state to be the size of New York City (789 square kilometres) by 2030.

Singapore’s amazing growth was built in the 1960s and ‘70s on manufacturing, then it moved into finance and transport (it’s the world’s second busiest port and busiest transhipment hub, with a ship arriving or departing every three minutes, and 1,000 vessels in port at any time), and recently it has decided to also establish itself as a tourism centre and also as a cultural hub for the region. On the downside that means it’s allowed two casinos to be established (each with a fairly poor museum set up as part of the deal), but on the other hand a huge amount of public money has gone into culture and beautification. A large chunk of Marina Bay (just over 100ha) has been used to create Gardens by The Bay, a public park with a difference, notably its artifical SuperTrees, huge sculptural forms with creepers growing up them and solar panels that light them up at night in a variety of crazy colours. There are two biodomes that you have to pay to vist, and a 128m-long Skywalk between some Supertrees, but otherwise this is free (5am-2am). There’s a 3.5km pedestrian route around Marina Bay, incorporating the high-tech Helix Bridge (although this and the Jubilee Bridge, also on the trail, are rather devalued by being alongside busy roads); it links to the 8km Jubilee Walk, created in 2015 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Singapore’s full independence, which follows the Singapore River from the bay to Fort Canning Hill, passing many historic buildings that have recently been repurposed for cultural activities.

Lots of new museums

The most impressive of these are right on North Boat Quay, in the heart of the Colonial District, notably the Court House (1867), which re-opened as the Asian Civilisations Museum in 2003, the Old Parliament House (1827), which became The Arts House after the current parliament opened in 1999, and the Town Hall (1862), which became the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall in 2014. Immediately behind is the grandest of them all, the National Gallery Singapore, created in 2015 when the Supreme Court (the last of Singapore’s huge Neoclassical edifices to be built, in 1939) and the City Hall (1929) were linked by a modern atrium, giving access to the basement ticket desks and as far up as the rotundas and the roof terrace (don’t miss the great views over the Padang, the grassy expanse in the middle of the Colonial District). It houses a good spread of Singaporean art (first by Europeans, and then largely by Chinese artists until the 1970s, including some fine woodblock prints) and also comparative displays by artists from across South-East Asia, a good idea but slightly unfocussed.

Across the river to the south, the massive Fullerton Building was built in 1928 as the General Post Office, where virtually all the mail between Europe and Australasia was sorted, and was converted to a luxury hotel in 2001; it’s very imposing, but right next to it is the more charming Fullerton Waterboat House, a lovely piece of Art Deco from 1949 that’s now a restaurant. It’s so called because the main supplier of drinking water to ships in the harbour was based here.

The excellent Singapore National Museum was actually built as a museum, in 1887, but was also revamped for the Jubilee, with a new atrium and a children’s wing – it’s on the north side of Fort Canning Hill, at the inland end of the Jubilee Walk. Nearby, and also well worth looking out for, is the Peranakan Museum, built as a school in 1906-12, which opened in 2008 to commemorate the culture of the people who were known as Straits Chinese (and as Baba-Nyonya) last time I was here – the community formed since the 15th century by Chinese traders who settled here, in Melaka and Penang and across the wider region, and intermarried with Malays. Their furniture and other artefacts, in particular, are of very high quality.

Characteristic shophouses, characteristic apartment blocks

There are also heritage centres dedicated to the Chinese Indian and Malay communities, in the hearts of Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glem respectively, three areas of two- and three-story shophouses that are now conservation areas amid the city’s modern skyscrapers. Shophouses, with accommodation above and behind a shopfront, originated in the 1840s, but many of the most spectacular ones date from 1900-40, with some fine Art Deco examples from the 1930s-60s. The centre of Chinatown is now horrendously crowded and touristy, but it’s worth pushing on south to Neil Road (also the place for Korean restaurants) and Blair Plain, to see terraces of shophouses that now house cool coffee houses and boutique guesthouses. The Baba House, at 157 Neil Road, was opened in 2008 by the National University and gives a fine insight into Baba-Nyonya culture, although this is now a less attractive stretch of Neil Road.

Note that I’m talking about the Chinatown Heritage Centre, not the Chinese Heritage Centre at Nanyang Technological University, which does have a museum but is more of an academic centre. The Indian Heritage Centre opened in 2015 in a very striking modern building and has the most modern displays of the three; the Malay Heritage Centre opened in 2004 in the relatively dull palace of the Sultan in Singapore (NB not the Sultan OF Singapore – this was a cunning ruse to allow the Sultan of Johore to be replaced by his chief minister in 1855, while the Sultan retired to Singapore).

Opened in April 2015, the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum claims to be the newest museum in Singapore, but the Indian Heritage Centre actually opened a month later, and in any case it inherited its collections from the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, which dates back to the original donation by Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore in 1819, to create a general museum for Singapore.

A non-governmental museum project – but seemingly just as well funded – is the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum – occupying a whole block of Chinatown, this was established to house a tooth of the Buddha found in Myanmar and donated in 2002 for safekeeping. Opened in 2007, the temple is largely in 7/8th-century Tang style, but the upper floors house a surprisingly good museum (free, and air-conditioned, of course) that tells the story of the historic Buddha along with an excellent selection of sculptures, including quite a few from Gandhara. I first came across these 2nd- and 3rd-century Buddha carvings in Pakistan in 1983, and have loved them ever since for their Oriental spirituality allied with an oddly Greek style, especially in the clothing. It’s also worth mentioning the ‘vegetarian dining hall for charity’ in the basement.

Another private venture is the Singapore Art Museum, opened in 1996 in a former mission school (1855 to 1990), which aims to be the regional centre for contemporary (edgy) art.

Finally, there are fifty World War II sites dotted about the island, twenty of them with plaques put up either in 1995 (the 40th anniversary of liberation) or in 2012 (the 70th anniversary of the Fall of Singapore). The Ford Factory at Bukit Timah, where the British surrendered in 1942, is apparently interesting, but is closed for renovation; otherwise I found Reflections at Bukit Chindu excellent (and the Canopy Walk at the start of the Southern Ridges Trail is right opposite the gate – see my next post, on natural Singapore). This is where soldiers of the Malay Regiment, founded only in 1933, put up heroic resistance to the Japanese on 14 February 1942, as they closed in on the city and pressed for a British surrender, which came the next day.

The Singapore Museum Guide, published in January 2016, includes virtually every little museum in town but, oddly, not the National Gallery; virtually all museums are free for Singapore citizens and residents, but others will pay around S$20 (£11) – don’t hesitate, these are easily the best museums in the region, with very professional standards of presentation.

Some practicalities

Singapore does, of course, have an excellent public transport system, with two companies operating a fully integrated system of buses and MRT trains. Most signs and notices are in English (but stations all have numbers, such as CC1 to CC29 (so far) on the Circle Line) and there are squeaky-clean public toilets at most stations. If you’re around for more than a day or so, you should buy an EZ-Link chip-card which costs S$5 (non-refundable) and can store as much credit as you want – and this can be refunded. With the EZ-Link card journeys are far cheaper than with the ‘standard’ ticket, a card with a chip which can store anything up to six trips; there’s also the Singapore Tourist Pass, which comes loaded on an EZ-Link card and gives free travel on MRT, LRT and basic bus services for up to three days (S$10 for one day, S$16 for two days and S$20 for three days). There’s a S$10 deposit for this which will be refunded if you return the card within five days of purchase, or you can simply top it up and use it like a regular EZ-Link card.

The MRT is undergoing a major expansion programme at the moment, aiming to double the system’s length by 2030, including a new 50km Cross Island Line from Changi to Jurong just north of the city. In the second quarter of 2017 the East-West Line will be extended west from Joo Koon to Tuas Link (adjacent to the Second Link to Malaysia), amd later in 2017 Stage 3 of the Downtown Line will open from Chinatown to Expo, out east near Changi Airport. In 2023 the North East Line will be extended 1.6km from Punggol to Pinggol Coast, to serve a new Digital District. It’s worth mentioning that the Circle Line will actually be a circle from 2025 when the 4km missing link from Marina Bay to Harbourfront, via Cantonment and Keppel, will open.

Singapore has an unspoken social contract – the infrastructure has to run well (for instance signal failures on the MRT are unacceptable) to compensate for loss of freedoms, if people are going to continue supporting the governing party – so the 2011 elections, when the opposition won six seats, came as a shock and forced the government to get a grip – it is now taking back control of the MRT stations, track and trains, and the operators will provide only the passenger services.

Given that public transport is so good, why do so many Singaporeans drive at all? From the 1960s to the 1980s Singapore built a system of expressways before realising that they were simply generating traffic. The first MRT line opened in 1989 (with the North-South and East-West lines both opening in 1990), and in 1990 the Vehicle Quota System was introduced – this limits the number of cars in Singapore by means of public auctions, twice a year, for a Certificate of Entitlement allowing one to own a car for a ten-year period. Currently this costs about S$5,000 (£32,000), although it has been twice as much, and on top of that cars are heavily taxed. There’s also Electronic Road Pricing (a congestion charge) to pay. The odd effect is that Singaporeans buy more top-end cars and SUVs than most other nations, because you might as well go the whole hog if you’re spending that sort of money, and it doesn’t seem very much more overall – and then of course having spent so much they’re impelled to use the car as much as possible when the MRT might well be easier. So the expressways are still ridiculously busy.