— पांच हजार नौ सौ छियासठ —

There would be no other single block in Seattle with more architectutral fascination for me than Rainier Square, especially since the massive redevelopment of the entire block, with construction of two entirely new buildings between 2018 and 2020. And now, it's where I work! Granted, in the anchor tenant space on the ground floor beneath Rainier Square tower to which I have no other access, but whatever. I technically still work in a skycraper! And the second-tallest one in Seattle, no less—a height record not likely to be surpassed any time soon, maybe not for decades. The way office vacancy rates are these days, I just can't imagine any justification for it anymore. No one knew a world-changing pandemic was coming when they built Rainier Square Tower.

Anyway, this block also has a rich history, both objectively and in the context of my own personal architectural fascination: it's been the site of the 514-foot tall Rainier Tower, with its 30 floors of offices perched atop an 11-story, famously tapered base, since 1977. I recently found this photo of it under construction on Reddit.

There is also an underground pedestrian concourse that connects Rainier Square to Union Square two blocks away, connecting three different city blocks and which I now walk through regularly, but which I have been aware of since very shortly after I moved to Seattle in 1998—I'm having a hard time finding information online as to when the tunnel was constructed, but it's been around as long as I can remember.

Gina visited me in Seattle once pretty early on in my years living in Seattle, and I took her to the public terrace a couple of floors above street level that surrounded Rainier Tower at the time. The arc of the pedestal made her dizzy when she looked up at it. There was a shopping center of sorts that covered the block out of which Rainier Tower sprouted; I even reviewed a burleque show at a venue there once in 2001, which at least in part featured a Madonna impersonation. Local critics eviscerated the show, I remember, and The Stranger did a story on how their promotional materials misquoted nearly universally bad reviews as though they were good ones, but quoted me as the only reviewer that had anything kind to say about it. (It was also slightly unkind to me: "While I hate to make fun of Matthew--he did give my one-person show a good review--I'm not sure his taste in theater is any more reliable than his command of syntax.") I know I did not mention this in my review at the time, but I do remember a guy connected with the show running after me with a promotion packet when I left after the show. This was through the walkways around the businesses at Rainier Square.

I don't have any photos of the inside of what Rainier Square looked like then. But Rainier Tower is a bit of a different story: thanks to a night in 2007 when I attended a screening of Best In Show at "Movies on the Pedestal," wherein outdoor movies were projected against the side of the tapered base of the tower, I do have a few photos of what the outdoor terrace looked like then. It was much more spacious than the bilevel terrace that exists now, because it extended to the corner at 4th & Unversity, where you could look down at 4th Avenue from a couple floors up. You still can now, just with much more limited access, because there is a 10-story building on that corner. I'll get to that momentarily.

Check out this photo I took during a snow day in 2004. It looks down 5th Avenue, and you can see Rainier Tower a couple of blocks south in the distance. It's hard to see, but you can barely see part of the tapered base. That same view now would be largely constructed by the 850-foot tall Rainier Square Tower, which now stands on the north side of that same block (and which I work under at my desk every day).

But it was around 2018 that things changed radically on this block. I took this photo in February of that year, showing most of the block surrounding the building demolished and removed—it exposed more of the pedestal of Rainier Tower than I had ever seen. Then, you can see this photo album on the overall redevelopment, with a lot of photos of the construction of Rainier Square Tower—850 ft, 55 floors, topped out by 2020 and becoming Seattle's second-tallest building, surpassing 1201 Third Avenue (originally Washington Mutual Tower, built 1988) by 78 feet and three floors. As you can imagine, I kept a close look at the construction of Rainier Square Tower. A long had a bookmarked page of a webcam tracking the construction progress in one of my browsers on my work computer, of course never having a clue that one day relatively soon I would actually be working on the ground floor of it.

Rainier Square Tower later came to be more officially referred to as either "The Residences at Rainier Square" when referring to the top 20 floors which are residential; or just "Rainier Square" when referring to the office floors below—something I find annoying and potentially confusing, as historically "Rainier Square" referred to the entire block complex. Whatever you call it, the architectural design is in a way the inverse of Rainier Tower: the lower 10 floors or so have far more square footage per floor than the upper ones, as this tower has a much wider base that gets narrower as it goes up. I always thought it had a very cool design, unusually distinctive compared to most of the drab residential towers being erected over the past 15 years; to me it has always looked like a giant platform boot. If nothing else, its design has an artistic vision to it, which is less and less common in this city as time goes on.

And all this brings me to the 400 University building—the second major construction that was part of the redevelopment, making it the third building on this block. Originally conceived as a hotel but now an office building, at only 10 stories it's totally overshadowed by both the skyscrapers on either side of it. Until last night, the most attention it could get from me as a result was as a major part of how the new terraces (also part of the redevelopment—and much, much nicer than before) exist as sort of hidden-gem corridors between buildings. Even at only 10 stories, from the terrace level, the buildings hover pretty high above you on nearly all sides.

And then, sometime last year or maybe even the year before, I noticed a sign on the wall outside the Fogo de Chao that opened at the ground level of the 400 University building on the corner of 4th & University: "Rooftop Bar." What? Soon enough I learned this was part of Fogo de Chao's expansion plans at 400 Unversity; I even found a web page and Instagram account, all declaring it was "coming soon." I coordinated with Laney to get it on our Happy Hour schedule, and we had to postpone it more than once; the original announcement was that it would open last summer—Laney even called them a couple of times to ask.

Months went by, and it went off my radar, until I heard at work that the rooftop bar had opened. When it came up that this month is Gabby's third anniversary at PCC, it was either Cathryn or Amy who suggested the rooftop bar right here on our block. Amy had even already been up there. Soon enough, Gabby had it booked on our calendars, and made the reservations for us on Wednesday, February 4. And just like that, the 400 University building had its own distinct claim to fame: nowhere near as famous or as tall as either of the skyscrapers it shares a block with, but a very cool rooftop bar on the 10th floor.

— पांच हजार नौ सौ छियासठ —

— पांच हजार नौ सौ छियासठ —

Ideally we would go to our quarterly team Happy Hours at 3:00 or 3:30, but Gabby discovered the Next Level Lounge (what they call Fogo de Chao's rooftop bar) does not open until 4:00. We all decided we could still make that work. And even though three of us usually only come to the office on other days of the week, Cathryn made Wednesday her in-office day this week instead of the usual Thursday; and Amy drove up just to join us for the Happy Hour. Brandy, who usually comes in on Thursdays (but is not here today; not sure what's up with that), was the only one unable to make it. In fact, seeing only Gabby and Cathryn in-office today, I was thinking it might be just the three of us this time. It's actually not often that all five of us make it to one of these Happy Hours. But then Amy drove in and joined us right when we were waiting in the lobby inside the 4th & University entrance, so at least there were four of us who made it.

Another slight monkey wrench is that, due to Wednesday being the day Gabby most commonly comes into the office each week, this is the day most often scheduled for these Happy Hours, and this often means it's the same day as Action Movie Night, which happens every other Wednesday. That starts at 6:30, which usually gives me plenty of time, if we head out for our Happy Hours by 3:00 or so. But we couldn't do this week's until 4:00.

And we were up there at Next Level Lounge a solid two hours, 4:00 to 6:00. I suppose it was probably closer to 4:10 to 6:00; they made us wait a little while before taking us up the elevator—in fact, Gabby and Cathryn and I all got to the lobby at 3:50, and the guy was like, "We open at 4:00." So then the three of us went back up the stairs to sit in some lobby chairs in front of the main 400 University building front desk. We chatted for about ten minutes and then went back down again, and it was still a few minutes before they took us up. Okay, the first photo I took is time stamped 4:09.

We had beautiful weather yesterday, and honestly could have easily taken outdoor seating, even in early February—of course, we all know this is the notorious "false spring" that happens often in Seattle. We'll get plenty of wet, rainy and cold weather even though June probably. Still, the high yesterday was a whopping 62°, which was just before 4:00. The sun was so brought when we first got off the elevator and walked into the Next Level Lounge that, when they moved us after the host seated us at one four-top because they needed that space for a large group reservation, we were actually happy at the new table close to the bar because it was more in shadow. The table itself was weirdly high and made us all feel like children in need of booster seats, but whatever.

We shared three of the items from the Bar Bites menu, only two of which could I eat as a vegetarian but it was plenty: the "Queijo Assado" (bistered cheese you could marinate in honey with a little spoon; we actually got two orders of this in the end) and the "Burrata & Roasted Tomatoes." Both were delicious.

As for the cocktail menu [scroll down], Amy ordered a "Tio Fumado Código," I think, as her first drink; Gabby, Cathryn and I all ordered the "Yellowbird": "Casamigos Blanco, passion fruit, pineapple, Cointreau, La Marca Prosecco." Both of them found it really delicious; I thought it was pretty good. When we all predictably did another round of drinks, that time all four of us got a Yellowbird. So, I had two cocktails with the team last night. They were strong enough to feel the alcohol effects, but I wasn't too buzzed by the end of the night.

I did go out onto the patio seating outside to get some photos shortly after we sat down, and I went back to get another couple after the sun went down—we were there though sunset. We went out one more time when we all got up to leave; I had been thinking I would just settle for photos of the venue as I get lots of photos at every new rooftop bar I visit. But it was Cathryn who was like, "We haven't gotten a picture!" So then I suggested we all go outside for a group selfie, and that's what we did.

Gabby broke off from the group to use the bathroom on the way out. I went out the University Street exit so I could go across the street and get the requisite exterior shot of the building, which took a couple of minutes. Then I crossed the street back to the south side again so I could go down to the Symphony Station to catch Light Rail. Gabby caught up with me shortly after I got to the platform. Then, as the train was about to arrive, she said she rides closer to the back of the train so we said our goodbyes. I don't often ride northbound from there so I thought I was on the end of the train I wanted to be on but realized only later that I wasn't. I like to be at the south end of the train when getting off at Capitol Hill Station so I can walk right over to the elevator that takes me up to the south entrance right by Cal Anderson Park. I had to walk the entire length of the platform at Capitol Hill Station as a result, and I tried to spot Gabby through the windows as I walked past but I never found her.

— पांच हजार नौ सौ छियासठ —

I then walked through Cal Anderson Park to Pine Street and then the rest of the way home, reaching the building right at 6:30. Shobhit was standing there with the pot of pasta he made when the elevator doors opened on the 4th floor. I almost asked if he wanted to wait for me before going down to the theater, but then noted that I needed to use the bathroom. So, he went down ahead of me as I dropped off my backpack and peed.

Then I went downstairs, and in short order an unusually large group had arrived for Action Movie Night: we had 10 this week, leaving only 4 empty seats in the theater. I can have mixed feelings about a group this large, though it often depends on the makeup of it. There can be just three concurrent group conversations going on in that Community Kitchen, and the din in there is super loud. And Tom, whenever he laughs, which he does a lot, will laugh even louder than the din.

We had one new guy this week, a guy named Dylan who apparently used to work with Tony, who had invited him. Tony brings a lot of guys from his work. This guy was tall, and young. He could easily have been in his twenties, I would say early thirties at the very oldest. The other nine were made up of Tony himself, Jake, Ryan, Chris B, Tom, Greg, Daniel, Shobhit, and myself. Shobhit's rehearsals start next week, so between rehearsals and performances, Shobhit is going to miss the next two Action Movie Nights, and thus the next month of them; I am currently scheduled for the movie choice on March 4, which means Shobhit will miss it. Oh well. He's already seen the movie I have in mind. It's a movie I've been considering since we very first started going regularly three and a half years ago and I just kept having reasons to see something else instead. But I'm pretty dedicated to it as the choice this time around.

I had already eaten plenty at Next Level Lounge, but I had some of Shobhit's spaghetti, which everyone else really liked but I found to be a bit too spicy (he had chopped and added two jalapeños). There was no pizza this time, which is unusual, but someone did bring a plastic container of Costco chocolate chip cookies, which I had one and a half of; and Shobhit and I had a good amount of the fries from the several bags of Dick's burgers Jake brought, as he typically does.

I ususally take a cocktail to Action Movie Night, but I had already drank two. I just took a can of Zevia Cherry Cola with me.

And then, it was Tom's choice—two of his previous three choices on the log indicated good taste: The Silence of the Lambs and Alien Romulus. The third, though, was Dodgeball: A true Underdog Stpru, which sucked. So, I guess sometimes Tom has good taste and sometimes he doesn't. This week's choice was kind of a mixed bag: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

It was kind of wild to realize that movie was released twenty years ago. That's fucking nuts. (It was the same year the original The Devil Wears Prada was released, which is getting a sequel this year. Borat got a sequel in 2020, but I still feel confident I never had any need to see that one.) I went back and looked at my original review for Borat, and had forgotten I found it quite overrated at the time. And, inspite of laughing pretty hard several times even last night, I stand by that assessment. Being "ironically" bigoted for the sake of humor just isn't as fun a bit as Sacha Baron Cohen clearly thinks it is. Granted, the underbelly of America that this movie revealed—long before the first election of President Fuckwit made us all reckon with the truth of America in a way we never really had before—was something worth examination and arguably even study. But that alone doesn't make it a great movie. I still fall on the side of it being a mixed bag at best.

— पांच हजार नौ सौ छियासठ —

In other news, I finally figured out last night that I can search by date range and filter to just vidoes on my Flickr account, which makes finding good videos for my 50th birthday life-retrospective video a lot easier. I may have to go back and re-check for each year of my thirties again. Already though, I'm finding some pretty amusing clips from my forties, which is making me realize that when people watch this video, they'll see my gradually turning into an old man over the course of 15 minutes. That's all part of the fun, I guess.

— पांच हजार नौ सौ छियासठ —

[posted 1:01pm]