knute berger

Who Was the Real Chief Seattle? A New Biography Separates Man From Myth

Who Was the Real Chief Seattle? A New Biography Separates Man From Myth

Knute Berger considers historian David Buerge's in-depth book that puts flesh on the city’s namesake

A new biography of Chief Seattle separates man from myth

How Seattle's activist past shaped the future of transportation in the region

How Seattle’s activist past shaped the future of transportation in the region

Gray Matters: History, says Knute Berger, shows us that activism can make a positive difference in local projects.

Some Seattleites want to save the “ramps to nowhere” as a monument to citizen activism

A New Vision of Seattle Center Comes into View

A New Vision of Seattle Center Comes into View

From a new high school to a refurbished KeyArena, Knute Berger sees visions under way for the next evolution of Seattle Center

KeyArena, originally called the Coliseum, is one of several things at Seattle Center in play for an upgrade

Bellevue's University Bookstore to Close, but the East Side Keeps Its Edge

Bellevue’s University Bookstore to Close, but the East Side Keeps Its Edge

Bellevue is in many ways more “urban” than Seattle now—certainly, it’s racially more diverse, which is complete flip from the white-bread suburbs of the ‘60s and ‘70s

Berger supervising a photo shoot of Bill Gates and Brian “The Boz” Bosworth in 1988

Seattle, Island of Blue

Seattle, Island of Blue

The next four years will challenge Seattle, says Knute Berger. Are we up to the task?

On election night 2016, Seattle learned just how much of a national outlier it is. During the past eight years, the uplifting message of hope personified by Barack Obama led us to believe our own PR: that we were a national role model for social justice, the economy, reform and progressive politics in general. Our…

Can Bigfoot Heal America?

Can Bigfoot Heal America?

Bigfoot (or in this case, Harry, from ‘Harry and the Hendersons’): making America great again

Gray Matters: A Short History of Pike Place Market Tiles, Including Barack Obama's

Gray Matters: A Short History of Pike Place Market Tiles, Including Barack Obama’s

Selling tiles to raise funds for the Pike Place Market started in the 1980s. Today, you can buy a steel “charm” to help fund the market’s expansion

Is Seattle on a Levy Binge?

Is Seattle on a Levy Binge?

Why Knute Berger is feeling the early stages of levy fatigue

In our bi-monthly Seattlemag.com column, Knute Berger–who writes regularly for Seattle Magazine and Crosscut.com and is a frequent pundit on KUOW–takes an in-depth look at some of the highly topical and sometimes polarizing issues in our city. Seattle is booming economically, but as we know, it’s a haves and have-nots economy. A major dilemma is…

Back to the Future: Why Seattle's World's Fair Mattered

Back to the Future: Why Seattle’s World’s Fair Mattered

Our own Knute Berger—who is the official writer of the Space Needle—looks back on the 1962 Seattle W

In the winter of 1962, my Cub Scout den had taken a field trip to the top of the Smith Tower, then one of the tallest buildings west of the Mississippi. We went to the observation deck, where we had an unobstructed view across downtown to a strange spire that was rising near Queen Anne…

13 Seattle Icons Worth Keeping

13 Seattle Icons Worth Keeping

Our resident mossback risks his curmudgeon status with a list of local icons he actually likes.

My column “Statues of Limitations” (March 2011), on the topic of local icons that I’d like to Photoshop out of the picture if I were Seattle’s Stalin, generated a lot of debate. I came down against Fremont’s Troll and Lenin statues, and the Darth Vader–ish Columbia Tower. I said the Pioneer Square totem pole was…

How Seattle Measures Up Against 1962 Predictions

How Seattle Measures Up Against 1962 Predictions

Predictions for the growth of ‘Pugetopolis’ were off—but not always by much.

Fifty years ago this summer, Seattle was in the middle of a major transformation. Planners were rushing to build the first World’s Fair in America since World War II. Construction was under way on a second floating bridge across Lake Washington, and the I-5 freeway was marching toward the Canadian border. Seattle was being spruced…

Grey Matters: Knute Berger on Seattle's War-making Business

Grey Matters: Knute Berger on Seattle’s War-making Business

Despite our peacenik reputation, a key to Seattle’s economy is the war-making business.

If you listen to people like Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, “Left Coast” cities like Seattle are so far out of the mainstream that we’re on the outer banks of reality. It’s true that we’re an antiwar kind of place, having been at the forefront of opposition to nuclear submarines, and wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central…

Space Needle Writer-in-Residence: Knute Berger Lands the Coolest Gig Ever!

Space Needle Writer-in-Residence: Knute Berger Lands the Coolest Gig Ever!

This just in! Knute Berger, Seattle mag’s editor-at-large and expert on all things Pugetopolis has landed the coolest gig ever: Space Needle Writer-in-Residence. As part of the 50th anniversary of the Seattle Center landmark, Knute (or “Skip” as he’s known here around the office) has been commissioned to write the Needle’s official history. From its…

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