The open market in Seattle
Pike Place Market is an open market located in Seattle, Washington. It was founded on August 17, 1907, and it is one of the country’s oldest continuously operating public farmers’ markets. It serves as a site of business for many small farmers, crafters, and merchants, and it overlooks the Elliott Bay coastline on Puget Sound. Pike Place, the neighborhood’s main thoroughfare, stretches northwest from Pike Street to Virginia Street on Seattle’s western outskirts. With over 10 million yearly visits, Pike Place Market is Seattle’s most popular tourist destination and the world’s 33rd most visited tourist attraction.
The location and coverage: –
The Market is located in Seattle’s core business district, about in the northwest corner. Belltown is to the north. The central waterfront and Elliott Bay are to its southwest. Because the street grid runs roughly along the Elliott Bay shoreline, the boundaries are diagonal to the compass.
Varied persons and groups create different boundaries for the market, as is usual in Seattle neighborhoods and districts. One of the more expansive definitions is found in the City Clerk’s Area Map Atlas, which defines the “Pike-Market” neighborhood as extending from Union Street northwest to Virginia Street and from the riverfront northeast to Second Avenue. Even though it comes from the City Clerk’s office, this definition has no official standing.
Attractions of this place: –
- Pike Place Fish Market
Pike Place Fish Market is one of the Market’s most popular attractions, with staff throwing three-foot salmon and other fish to each other rather than distributing them by hand. When a customer orders a fish, an employee at the Fish Market’s ice-covered fish table picks it up and hurls it over the countertop, where it is caught and prepared for sale by another staff member.
- Buskers
Pike Place Market has been recognized for street performers since the 1960s.
- Rachel and Pigs on Parade
Rachel, the unofficial mascot of Pike Place Market, is a bronze cast piggy bank that weighs 550 pounds (250 kg) and has been located behind the “Public Market Center” sign since 1986 at the corner of Pike Place.
- Dining and drinking in the Market
While it is easy to nibble one’s way through the Market’s food stalls and businesses, the Pike Place Market also provides a variety of additional eating (and drinking) options.
