Seattle Waterfront - A Shoreline Reborn

A stop on Seattle Pike Place and Downtown, a free self-guided tour.

You've come down the Overlook Walk, which opened in October 2024, to the water at Pier 62. Not long ago this stroll would have been impossible. From the 1950s until 2019, a double-decker highway called the Alaskan Way Viaduct ran along the shore here, noisy and shadowy. Once a tunnel replaced it and the viaduct came down, the city rebuilt the whole waterfront as a park.

Pier 62, rebuilt and reopened in 2020, is a broad public deck with seating, open views and a floating dock at water level. Look down near the seawall: special grating lets daylight reach the shallow water so young salmon can travel along the shore.

Just south are the Seattle Aquarium and the Seattle Great Wheel on Pier 57. This shoreline also launched Seattle's gold rush boom. In July 1897 the steamship Portland docked on this waterfront, a little to the south, carrying gold from the Yukon, and soon the piers were jammed with stampeders bound for Alaska.

Getting here: Walk back south a short way to the MarketFront plaza and follow the Overlook Walk's terraces, stairs or elevator down across Alaskan Way to Pier 62.

Did you know?: When the crumbling Pier 63 next door was removed in 2022 to improve salmon habitat, crews pulled out 894 old timber piles.

Photo op: Walk to the end of Pier 62 and turn around to frame the skyline, the Great Wheel and the market rising above the Overlook Walk.

More on Wikipedia: Central Waterfront, Seattle · Alaskan Way Viaduct · Seattle Aquarium · Seattle Great Wheel

Seattle Waterfront - A Shoreline Reborn

Stops on this tour