Tower

Smith Tower was the tallest skyscraper outside of New York City when it was completed in 1914.Not a megatall building, certainly, but it did remain the tallest building on the West Coast for half a century until the Space Needle was built in 1962.  It was built by Lyman Cornelius Smith, the “Smith” in Smith Corona Typewriters.Parts of the building have been turned into an extremely engaging museum celebrating the building as it was in the 1920s.At the observatory level, there is a Prohibition-themed bar.  I tried their barrel-aged Manhattan……and their barrel-aged Old Fashioned.From the observatory level, I looked west from the observatory at Elliot Bay with Alki point in the middle, Bainbridge Island on the right, and the Olympic Mountains in the distance.Looking north, up Second St. to the Space Needle.When the building first opened, it had a place called the Chinese Room which had been furnished by the Empress Dowager Cixi.