Seattle, Washington

[theterminizer 0]

Downtown has just reached 250,000 so this seemed like an appropriate time to start my first CJ. The city has gone through a lot of change so I'll post some chronological shots from the beginning to get us up to present day as seen in the above photo.

The major skyscrapers are largely landmarks from the Pacific Northwest (mainly Portland, Oregon and Seattle). The tall green-and-yellow building to the far left is the Washington Mutual Building, my favorite building in Seattle and one of my favorite in the world. The salmon-colored highrise at the top is Portland's Bancorp Building (I live just across the river from it and can see it out my window in the winter when the trees have no leaves). The blue highrise in the lower-right is Fox Tower, also from Portland, and my favorite building in the world. The two-layered skyscraper in front of the stadium is the Erastus Corning Tower from Albany, NY.

You can also see Seattle's Smith Tower two blocks down from the Erastus Corning Tower. When I first started playing Sim City, I found myself putting Smith Tower in every city because it was the perfect lowrise landmark. It became a joke for me to literally put it in every city I make, so this is Downtown's version.

The large park block to its right used to be the Consolidated Edison Building but it suddenly and unexpectedly went abandoned and I demolished it. I'm debating whether to leave it as a park or build the Transamerica Pyramid from San Francisco on the lot.


Stay tuned, plenty more photos to come....

[Fairlane500 8]

Interesting, and I will say, as a Washingtonian, I'm going to watch anything involving the cities in my state.

[theterminizer 0]

Here is essentially the same location after 105 years:



The creation of Pioneer Square, with Smith Tower, Big Ben and don miguel's beautiful passenger train station, dubbed New Union Station (the original passenger station to the south was the original Union Station). Across from Smith Tower is Philadelphia's Independence Hall:



Farther away on City Center following the construction of Pioneer Square. Buckingham Fountain is built adjacent to Smith Tower:

[theterminizer 0]

Now facing south (all above photos are facing east), an elevated rail line called the Fontaine Street Railway is built to help feed people into Smith Tower and the Pioneer Square area, with deadwoods's Elevated Rail Shops lining Fontaine Street. While these would eventually be demolished along with the Fontaine Street Railway, the shops would be preserved as lardmarks in the northern part of town. Note the commercial development around Pioneer Square.

[theterminizer 0]

The rail line is extended north on both sides of Pioneer Square. One extension leads straight to Smith Tower, hoping to improve traffic to the highrise, and the other travels north to another burgeoning development. A new office building goes up at the new termination of the Fontaine Street Railway.

[theterminizer 0]

The end of the northern elevated rail line. The large cathedral to the south (right) is St. Johns Cathedral in Maastricht, Netherlands. The university at Maastricht is a place I would like to study someday and I have great admiration for the Netherlands as a country. You will notice many of vanderaap's buildings in my city. I wanted a very European feel and love his work.

For a sense of perspective, note the diagonal street in the upper-left-hand corner that marks the northeast boundary to the city in the above photos.

[Slowhand 0]

Nice work!

I like the development, especially downtown and the fountain. Keep up the great work!

sLowhand

[theterminizer 0]

Thanks for the comments so far. I've been playing Sim City since the original and am pretty heavy into SC4. I got Vancouver, BC (my favorite place in the world) to over 1 million people, got bored and decided to start on Seattle. I've never really been involved on the forums so I don't know how other people tend to approach their cities. It will be interesting to get feedback from other players for the first time.

The Long Building, the largest and most elegant residential building to date, goes up in Pioneer Square. Seeing no benefit from the rail extension, the Fontaine Street Line is pushed back to its original termination:



And the old block is demolished, replaced by New York's Consolidated Edison Building (remember this building). I'm now pushing the city hard to develop:

[Lyhoko Leaci 770]

It looks good, but you should group all of your pictures into a single, larger update and then wait a while (at least half a day) for other people to post, because it isn't good to keep bumping your own thread every 10 minutes or so.

[SamFlash 0]

Seattle and the surrounding area is one of my favorite places.  My wife and I try to get up there for a long weekend 3 or 4 times a year. 

[katie2007 0]

interesting looking city

[da_sim_dude 5]

Real nice city.Cool towers on yo first pic.

[artdutra04 0]

Where's the Seattle Center Monorail? That is like a classic Seattle icon...

I just love those ALWEG monorails in Seattle. They are the only remaining ALWEG built-trains in existence. (For those who don't know what ALWEG is, it was a research and development company in the 1950s and 1960s that invented the modern monorail system in which the monorail train rides on top of a single concrete beam, exactly like the monorails in SC4.)

[robierap 2]

Nice job so far....

 

Are you going to incorporate the 76-story Columbia Building or 600-ft Space Needle into your skyline?? They are significant signature structures in the present-day Seattle skyline.

[palmgurl 1]

not bad needs spice if youy ask me

[toxicpiano 125]

well i've been to seattle, and it dosen't look very much like downtown at the moment, and er you forgot the useless monorail that goes ten blocks, but it's a great start and im sure you will make look a lot like the city eventually.

[Rickk 16]

Mention all of the skyscrapers in the first shot except for the one I did? It's always good to see my work at least included in someone's CJ.

Good job so far! Looking forward to when it really comes together!

[MayorTim 16]

Looks OK.

[theterminizer 0]

Rickk, you made Washington Mutual, no? It was the first one I mentioned. It's absolutely wonderful; this is the second city I've used it in. As I said, it's my favorite building in Seattle and you did a great job on it. As a side note, I also LOVE your Library Tower, being a native Los Angelino. That was the centerpiece of my 750,000-population Vancouver.


Just to clear things up, my intent is not to recreate Seattle. I'm building on the land as if the city never existed. The fact that I live in Portland makes me want to use a lot of landmarks from the northwest but there's no real motivation behind their location except to stimulate the area they are in.

I will, however, most likely use the BofA (Seafirst) building and possibly the Space Needle. I used an elevated rail (as shown in the pics) in lieu of a monorail. I've never used a monorail before and this was my first time using the elevated rail in all the cities I've built. I actually made a point of using it, inspired by the wonderful railtop shops that I found on the stex one day. I've always just gone straight to the subway.

Here is more of downtown's progression. I want to get this part of town up to speed and then start documenting the growth of other areas of the city before continuing forward.


The two new rail lines, with a third highrise, the Pioneer Park Building, alongside the southernmost point of the northern railway (remember that building).


The elevated rail extends to the southwest. At the southwest corner of the rail junction is a news building dubbed the Liberal Media Center (its actual name escapes me, though I'm sure many of you will recognise it). Commercial and Spire Streets are made into opposing one-way streets to alleviate the increasing traffic in and out of the City Center.


Farther down the new line goes my favorite building in the world, Portland's Fox Tower. I'm starting to push a little too hard for the city to develop and soon it will turn into a very expensive miscalculation.


Here you see central Seattle with the city's population at 30,000.


North Seattle at 30,000:


The expansion push seems to be paying off as the city passes 40,000 and City Center sees great development.


North Seattle sees similar if not better growth at the termination of the northern elevated railway.





Coming up next... the biggest mistake in the city's history.

[isc9114 0]

Dude, where's the Space Needle! You can get it in the STEX...

~ Ian

[sloppet 3]

nice work there! keep it up!

[richiedamien 0]

hope to see more of this CJ! in the future (in some months) ill be starting my own historic/realistic CJ from Seattle... to comemorate the 150 years of the emerald city, here's my signature...get ready Seattleites!!

Cheers!

[Cjah 15]

Originally posted by: isc9114 Dude, where's the Space Needle! You can get it in the STEX...

~ Ianquote>

 

Its on the STEX?

btw nice job reviving this CJ....lol

[jacqulina 162]

great work so far nice start

[cityhawk 12]

C'mon man; don't let this CJ die! It was off to such a nice start!

[CocaTertoka 7]

well, good thing this isn't a recreation....but overall very good!

[TheSixCents 0]

Im am so tired of people bumping threads

[yoshikoroyimara 5]

hopefully it becomes more like Seattle...because right now...nothin' near it...but I'll wait...keep going...don't stop!

[patriots_1228 51]

STRIPPERS!!!!!

now that I've got your attention, i'd like to point out that this thread is dead, and it would be pointless for anyone to continue posting after this post, unless your telling me how funny i am

DEAD THREAD DO NOT POST DEAD THREAD DO NOT POST