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Published in The Seattle Times online on Oct. 29, 2026
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Nov. 1, 2026

Grounded in Transition

Scenes of empty World’s Fair site
illustrate the inexorability of change

By Clay Eals

Crowded or sparse, Seattle Center offers all of us a year-round symphony of sights, smells and sounds. One sense, however, can surpass the rest — our imagination. As we stroll the many-faceted 74-acre site, it’s tempting to envision the incarnations of yesteryear.

Of course, the center hosted the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, many of whose touchstones endure.

We also have, thanks to Robin Adams of West Seattle’s Arbor Heights neighborhood, a rare glimpse of the fairgrounds during the brief lull after the six-month fair ended Oct. 21, 1962, and before redevelopment of the center began months later.

In 2015, Adams snagged a tin of Kodachrome slides at an estate sale in the Boulevard Park section of Burien. While the photographer and his/her purpose is unknown, the images were stamped “Feb-63,” likely their processing date. They reveal familiar features immersed in eerie emptiness.

Prime among them is our main “Then” photo, which captures the spectacular 60-by-17-foot mural created for the fair by Paul Horiuchi and installed near the Space Needle.

During the fair, the colorful mosaic rose above a reflecting pool and was flanked by Bell System, Standard Oil and IBM pavilions. Today, it’s the backdrop for the oft-used Mural Amphitheatre, home to countless concerts drawing thousands. But here, in this east-facing interim view, it looks out at parked cars, bare pavement, sections of dirt, and bent and broken light standards.

In another scene, looking north to Queen Anne Hill, the International Fountain — an irresistible all-ages attraction in both 1962 and today — is dry and abandoned, with the La Fiesta and Hofbrau Haus eateries among nearby boarded-up structures. Even the surrounding brush is turning brown.

The grounds, which officials said had drawn 10 million admissions (3.1 million individuals) and generated $170 million in visitor spending, clearly were in transition. Mainstays such as the Needle, Monorail and renamed Science Center remained open while temporary buildings vanished.

Jockeying for more permanent and public uses of the park never stopped. Case in point: In July 1963, less than a year post-fair, sloped grass facing the Horiuchi mural began drawing audiences of 2,500-7,500 to weekly evening folk-music hootenannies. Jazz, ethnic and veterans shows soon followed there.

Some of the concert attendees may have pondered, just as we might today, what the fair’s own structures replaced. Mostly the site bore half-century-old houses, each of whose interior/exterior/foundation condition was adjudged “fair” by the King County assessor in the 1930s. New federal housing was proposed for much of the land, but the city rejected the project in 1940. The homes came down in 1959-60 for the fair.

What of Seattle Center will survive generations from now? That, too, is a question for our imagination.

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Robin Adams for her invaluable help with this installment!

To see Clay Eals‘ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos while hearing this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below, you will find 4 additional photos and 41 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers, Small Town Papers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

A favorite Seattle Times headline (see below), from Oct. 22, 1962, the day after the World’s Fair closed: “Carillon Strikes Midnight — City Re-Enters Century 20.”