The Fourth Friday Art Walk has run for years as a monthly activation of downtown Seattle's gallery corridor — and it passes directly through the blocks that surround the Washington State Convention Center.
Tonight's walk takes a route that's also an argument. From Plymouth Pillars Park through the Pike/Pine corridor, past the Summit building, around the Arch — the same ground covered in the walking-tour essay on this site, now lit up and inhabited.
The galleries are open. The streets are full. And the Arch is dark.
That contrast is the point. The convention center's Arch building — 435,000 square feet, nine stories, occupying the equivalent of three city blocks — sits empty except when it's booked for a convention. On Fourth Friday, that means zero public programming. Zero contribution to the activation that the art walk is generating around it.
The galleries on Capitol Hill and in First Hill are doing the work that the Arch's footprint could be doing every day: creating density of experience, pulling foot traffic, giving people reasons to stay.
The Fourth Friday Art Walk is proof of concept. Activation at this scale, in this district, works. The question is why the biggest building in the neighborhood is the least activated one.
Photos from tonight's walk to follow.
Resources
- Downtown Seattle Art Walk — monthly, fourth Friday, free
- Walk the Evidence — block-by-block observations on the convention district
- The Commons proposal — what 435,000 square feet could become