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Disclosure (film)

Disclosure (film)

Disclosure is a 1994 thriller based on Michael Crichton's novel of the same name. The movie stars Michael Douglas and Demi Moore and is directed by Barry Levinson.

Plot

Tom Sanders (Douglas) a brilliant analyst for the Digicom Corporation, a computer company in Seattle, Washington. Happily married with two young children, Tom had big hopes for a promotion to the top brass by his boss, Bob Garvin (Donald Sutherland). Instead, it goes to Meredith Johnson (Moore), Tom's seductive ex-girlfriend. Somehow Tom takes it with a grain of salt, until a personal meeting turns into a night of seduction when Meredith decides to relive her sexual fantasy and pick up from where they left off. Tom refuses and shoves her away, making Meredith completely frustrated. Tom's only choice is to sue Meredith for sexual harassment. But then everyone in the company believes it was the other way around and his boss wants to transfer him to an another division, forcing him to lose everything Tom has ever gained. But Tom's not going down without a fight. He has only four days to confess his innocence, save his marriage, and his job. Can he do it? Does he stand a chance?

External links

- Category:1994 films Category:Thriller films Category:Drama films Category:Films based on novels

Michael Crichton

Dr. John Michael Crichton (born October 23, 1942, pronounced 'cry-ton' ) is an author, film producer and television producer. His best-known works are science fiction novels, films and television programs. His genre can be best described as techno-thriller which is usually the marriage of action and technical details. Many of his novels have medical or scientific underpinnings, reflecting his medical training and science background. Crichton directed the film Coma, adapted from a Robin Cook novel, and there are other similarities in terms of genre and the fact that both Cook and Crichton are physicians, are of similar age and write about similar subjects.

Biography

Michael Crichton was born in Chicago, Illinois to John Henderson Crichton and Zula Miller Crichton and raised in Roslyn, Long Island, USA. He attended Harvard University, where he graduated summa cum laude in anthropology. He went on to teach anthropology at Cambridge in England, later returning to Massachusetts to gain an M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School. Crichton has admitted to once plagiarizing a work by George Orwell and submitting it as his own. The paper was received by his professor with a mark of "B−". Crichton admitted to plagiarizing when he was on the stand in the course of a lawsuit trying to defend the authenticity of Twister, a movie which one individual claimed was based on their story entitled "Catch the Wind". Crichton has stated that the plagiarism was not intended to defraud the school, but rather as an experiment. Crichton believed that the professor in question had been intentionally giving him abnormally low marks, and so as an experiment Crichton informed another professor of his idea and submitted Orwell's paper as his own. While in medical school, he wrote novels under the pen names John Lange and Jeffrey Hudson (under which pseudonym A Case of Need won the 1969 Edgar Award). He also co-authored Dealing with his younger brother Douglas Crichton under a shared pen name Michael Douglas. The back cover of that book contains a picture of Michael and Douglas at a very young age taken by their mother. His two pen names were both created to reflect his above-average height. According to his own words, he was about 206 cm (6' 9") tall in 1997 [http://www.adara-interactive.com/crichton/ow_transcripts2.htm]. "Lange" (adverb) means "for a long time" in German and Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a famous seventeenth century dwarf in Queen Henrietta Maria's court. Crichton has two sisters, Kimberly and Catherine, and a brother, Douglas. He is married to Sherri Alexander and has a daughter, Taylor, with ex-wife Anne-Marie Martin.

Scientific concepts

Crichton has been introducing breakthroughs in science and technologies with his books. Many of the ideas he used were novel to the average person, despite having quite a solid scientific base. Before Jurassic Park, Robert T. Bakker's theory of "warm-blooded" and athlete-type dinosaurs was unimaginable to ordinary people, who were accustomed to seeing stop motion clay dinosaurs crawling sluggishly over the volcanic prehistorical terrains. However, Crichton's version of highly intelligent man-eating dinosaurs was also criticized by scientists: : The scientific scheme is not completely outrageous; unless one looks too closely, ... Although they are dinosaurs ..., they could have been any death-dealing automata ... substitute hostile extraterrestrials, lunatic Nazis, or predatory androids and it would have been the same film with a different title -- Aliens, Raiders of the Lost Ark or Terminator 2: Judgment Day. (Henry Gee, "Jaws with Claws," Nature 363:681, 1993.)

Literary techniques

From time to time, Crichton has recycled a well-known story's structure for his own story. For example: The Andromeda Strain was influenced by H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. However, rather than reusing the early twentieth century plot devices, Crichton introduced the idea of an imaginary microscopic pathogen's evolution of virulence with his own story. Most of his stories tend to be somewhat open-ended, including Jurassic Park, Sphere and Prey. The use of author surrogate has been a feature of Crichton's writings since the beginning of his career. In A Case of Need, one of his pseudonym whodunit stories, Crichton used first-person narrative to portray the hero, a Bostonian pathologist, who is running against the clock to clear a good friend's name from medical malpractice in a girl's death from a hack job abortion. That book was written in 1968, long before Roe v. Wade of 1973, the landmark case that partially legalized abortion in the U.S. It took the hero about 160 pages to find the chief-suspect, an underground abortionist, who was created to be the author surrogate. Then, Crichton gave that character three pages to justify his illegal practice. Some of Crichton's fiction uses a literary technique called false document. For example, Eaters of the Dead is a fabricated recreation of the Old English epic Beowulf in the form of a scholastic translation of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's tenth century manuscript. Other novels, such as The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, incorporate fictionalized scientific documents in the form of diagrams, computer output, DNA sequences, footnotes and bibliography. In The Terminal Man, Crichton created a dialog between two computer programs, good-natured Saint George and evil-minded Martha, variations on ELIZA. In the end, the Charlie Brown–like Saint George shouts "GO TO HELL I WILL KILL YOU:::::::::::::: ..." at the provocative Martha, foreshadowing a killing spree conducted by the ill-fated hero, a nice person implanted with an experimental computerized device to control his epilepsy. Some novels, such as Jurassic Park, create a paradox within the plot. Crichton sets up a story in which something is implied to be impossible through technological means, but it is then contradicted. In Jurassic Park a theme park is created with every security measure taken. Ian Malcolm, a mathematician in the novel, says that the dinosaurs will escape. Later in the novel this happens in part, although the dinosaurs have not really escaped, they have reproduced and live beyond the designated areas. Sphere contains a similar dialog, in which a panicked scientist in an underwater lab tries to talk the omnipotent but innocent "extraterrestrial life" out of manifesting beautiful aquatic creatures that are harmful to human beings. A common criticism of Crichton's novels is that they are generally based on the conceit of a "false revolution": while the novels describe potentially world-changing concepts such as alien plagues, cloned dinosaurs, and time travel, the books always end with the threat destroyed or the scientific breakthrough lost. In other words, the events described in the novels might as well never have happened in the context of their fictional universes. This allows Crichton to avoid having to describe how, for example, time travel or cloning of extinct animals would change society.

Non-fiction

Apart from fiction, Crichton has written several other books based on scientific themes, amongst which is Travels, which also contains autobiographical episodes. As a personal friend to the "Neo-Dadaist" artist Jasper Johns, Crichton compiled many of his works in a coffee table tome also named Jasper Johns. That book has been updated once. Crichton is also the author of Electronic Life, a book that introduces BASIC programming to its readers. In his words, being able to program a computer is liberation: : In my experience, you assert control over a computer -- show it who's the boss -- by making it do something unique. That means programming it. ... [I]f you devote a couple of hours to programming a new machine, you'll feel better about it ever afterward. (p. 44) To prove his point, Crichton included many self-written demonstrative Applesoft (for Apple II)) and BASICA (for IBM PC compatibles) programs in that book. Crichton once considered updating it, but the project seemed to be cancelled. His non-fiction works are:
- 1970 Five Patients
- 1977 Jasper Johns
- 1983 Electronic Life
- 1988 Travels

Movies and television

Crichton has directed several motion pictures:
- 1972 Pursuit (a TV movie)
- 1973 Westworld
- 1978 Coma
- 1979 The Great Train Robbery
- 1981 Looker
- 1984 Runaway (movie)
- 1989 Physical Evidence Westworld was the first feature film that used 2D computer-generated imagery (CGI) and the first use of 3D CGI was in its sequel, Futureworld (1976), which featured a computer-generated hand and face created by then University of Utah graduate students Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke. Many of his novels have been filmed by others:
- 1971 The Andromeda Strain
- 1972 Dealing
- 1972 The Carey Treatment (A Case of Need)
- 1972 The Terminal Man
- 1979 The Great Train Robbery
- 1993 Rising Sun
- 1993 Jurassic Park
- 1994 Disclosure
- 1995 Congo
- 1997 The Lost World: Jurassic Park
- 1998 Sphere
- 1999 The 13th Warrior (Eaters of the Dead)
- 2003 Timeline
- 200? Prey
- 2004 State of Fear He has written the screenplay for the movies Extreme Close Up (1973) and Twister 1996 (the latter co-written with Anne-Marie Martin, his wife at the time). Crichton is also the creator and executive producer of the television drama ER. In December of 1994, he achieved the unique distinction of having the #1 movie (Disclosure), the #1 TV show (ER), and the #1 book (Disclosure, atop the paperback list).

Awards

- Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allen Poe Award, 1969 (A Case of Need) – as Jeffrey Hudson
- Association of American Medical Writers Award, 1970 (Five Patients)
- Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allen Poe Award, 1980 (The Great Train Robbery)

Speeches

"Aliens Cause Global Warming"

In 2003 he gave a controversial lecture at Caltech entitled "Aliens Cause Global Warming" [http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/GW-Aliens-Crichton.html] in which he expressed his views of the dangers of consensus science and junk science—especially with regard to popular but disputed theories such as nuclear winter, the dangers of second-hand smoke and the global warming controversy. Crichton has been critical of widespread belief of ETs and UFOs, citing the fact that there is no conclusive proof of their existence. Crichton has commented that belief without a factual basis is more akin to faith. Faith alone is not a proper foundation for scientific belief.

Environmentalism as a religion

In a related and equally controversial speech given to the Commonwealth Club, called "Environmentalism as a religion" [http://cdfe.org/religion.htm], Crichton describes what he sees as similarities between the structure of various religious views (particularly Judeo-Christian dogma) and the beliefs of many modern urban atheists who he asserts have romantic ideas about Nature and our past, who he thinks believe in the initial "paradise", the human "sins", and the "judgement day". He also articulates his belief that it is the tendency of modern environmentalists to cling stubbornly to elements of their faith in spite of scientific evidence to the contrary. Crichton cites what he contends are misconceptions about DDT, second-hand smoke and global warming as examples (however these examples are heavily disputed in the scientific community).

Widespread speculation in the media

In a speech entitled "Why Speculate?" [http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote03.html], delivered in 2002 to the International Leadership Forum, Crichton took the media to task for engaging in what he saw as pointless speculation rather than the delivery of facts. As an example, he pointed to a front-page article of the March 6 New York Times that speculated about the possible effects of U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to impose tariffs on imported steel. Crichton also singled out Susan Faludi's book Backlash for criticism, saying that it "presented hundreds of pages of quasi-statistical assertions based on a premise that was never demonstrated and that was almost certainly false". He referred to what he calls the "Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect" to describe the public's tendency to discount one story in a newspaper they may know to be false because of their knowledge of the subject, but believe the same paper on subjects with which they are unfamiliar. Crichton used the Latin expression "falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus", which he translated as "untruthful in one part, untruthful in all", to describe what he thought a more appropriate reaction should be. The speech also made several references to Crichton's by-now-familiar skepticism of environmentalists' assertions about the possible future ramifications of human activity on Earth's environment.

Criticism

Many of Crichton's publically-expressed views, particularly on subjects like the global warming controversy, have caused heated debate. As pointed out in Dr. Jeffrey M. Masters' review of the book,

[F]lawed or misleading presentations of Global Warming science exist in the book, including those on Arctic sea ice thinning, correction of land-based temperature measurements for the urban heat island effect, and satellite vs. ground-based measurements of Earth's warming. I will spare the reader additional details. On the positive side, Crichton does emphasize the little-appreciated fact that while most of the world has been warming the past few decades, most of Antarctica has seen a cooling trend. The Antarctic ice sheet is actually expected in increase in mass over the next 100 years due to increased precipitation, according to the IPCC (although recent findings by NASA call this result into question). Additionally, Crichton correctly points out that there has been no rise in hurricane activity in the Atlantic over the past few decades (a point unchanged by the record four hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004).

- [http://www.wunderground.com/education/stateoffear.asp# Dr. Jeffrey M. Masters – Chief Meteorologist, The Weather Underground]
- [http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/murray200412210839.asp Iain Murray – senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute] In September 2005 Crichton testified at a Congressional hearing on climate change, having been called by Senator James Inhofe.[http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1580590,00.html]

References

- Elizabeth A. Trembley, 1996, Michael Crichton: A Critical Companion, Greenwood Press, ISBN 031329414.

Notes

# - Crichton, Michael (2005). [http://michaelcrichton.com/foryoungerreaders/index.html "For Younger Readers"]. Retrieved Dec. 11, 2005.

External links

- [http://www.michaelcrichton.com/ Michael Crichton's Official Homepage]
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/fivelive_aod.shtml?5L_michaelcrichton Recorded BBC Five Live interview with Michael Crichton]
- [http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/2004/story12-13-04b.html Earth Institute News, Columbia.edu Criticism of the science of State of Fear]
- [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000341/ Michael Crichton at IMDB]
- [http://snarkfest.9.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=712 Discuss Michael Crichton] Crichton, Michael Crichton, Michael Crichton, Michael Crichton, Michael Crichton, Michael Crichton, Michael ja: ko:

Michael Douglas

, June 19, 2004]] Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25 1944 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA) is an Oscar winning American actor and producer. He is the son of American actor Kirk Douglas. Douglas starred in the long-running TV series The Streets of San Francisco from 1972 to 1976. Though a capable actor, his career was somewhat stagnant after the series and he only appeared in occasional movies which were usually less than popular (for example, 1979's Running). All this changed with 1984's romantic adventure comedy Romancing the Stone. His role in this hit movie re-introduced him as a capable and likable leading man. Michael Douglas received an Academy Award as producer for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975 and for the leading role in Wall Street in 1988. He is one of the most sought after actors in Hollywood and commands a hefty sum for his roles. Douglas starred in Fatal Attraction with Glenn Close and the film became a world-wide hit. Both Douglas and Close attended the same prep school, Choate Rosemary Hall. Douglas married Diandra Luker on 20 March 1977. They had one son, Cameron. The marriage failed in 2000 after 23 years after Diandra complained of his womanising, absenteeism and not being a proper father to Cameron. That same year, Douglas married actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is exactly 25 years younger than he is. He's been married to Jones since November 18 2000. They have two children, Dylan (b. 2000) and Carys (b. 2003) In 1980 he was involved in a serious skiing accident which sidelined his acting career for three years. In September of 1992 he underwent treatment for alcohol abuse at Sierra Tucson Center. His father is Jewish and his upper-class mother, Diana Dill, is of Scottish and English descent. In 1998 he received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Trivia

- He and wife Catherine Zeta-Jones have the same birthday. However, Douglas is 25 years her senior.
- In 1975, he quit The Streets of San Francisco to produce One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The decision eventually earned him an Academy Award.
- He and his wife Catherine Zeta Jones, hosted the annual Nobel Peace Price concert in Oslo, Norway in 2003. It is the most prestigeous price and award show / concert in the world.

Filmography

- Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)
- Hail, Hero! (1969)
- Adam at Six A.M. (1970)
- Summertree (1971)
- Napoleon and Samantha (1972)
- Coma (1978)
- The China Syndrome (1979) (also producer)
- Running (1979)
- It's My Turn (1980)
- The Star Chamber (1983)
- Romancing the Stone (1984) (also producer)
- The Jewel of the Nile (1985) (also producer)
- A Chorus Line (1985)
- Fatal Attraction (1987)
- Wall Street (1987)
- Black Rain (1989)
- The War of the Roses (1989)
- Oliver Stone (1992) (documentary)
- Shining Through (1992)
- Basic Instinct (1992)
- Falling Down (1993)
- Disclosure (1994)
- The American President (1995)
- The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) (also executive producer)
- The Game (1997)
- A Perfect Murder (1998)
- Get Bruce (1999) (documentary)
- One Day in September (1999) (documentary) (narrator)
- Wonder Boys (2000)
- Traffic (2000)
- One Night at McCool's (2001) (also producer)
- In Search of Peace (2001) (documentary) (narrator)
- Don't Say a Word (2001)
- Direct Order (2003) (documentary) (narrator)
- It Runs in the Family (2003) (also producer)
- The In-Laws (2003)
- Tell Them Who You Are (2004) (documentary) Upcoming:
- The Sentinel (2006) (also producer)
- You, Me and Dupree (2006)
- Racing the Monsoon (2006) (also co-producer)

External links

- [http://www.michaeldouglas.com/ Official Michael Douglas site]
- Douglas, Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas, Michael ja:マイケル・ダグラス

Barry Levinson

Barry Levinson (born April 6, 1942 in Baltimore, Maryland) is a Jewish-American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television. After growing up in Baltimore, he attended American University in Washington, D.C. before moving to Los Angeles to work as in actor and writer. His first writing work was for variety shows such as The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, The Lohman and Barkley Show, The Tim Conway Show, and The Carol Burnett Show. After some success as a screenwriter (Silent Movie, 1976, High Anxiety, 1977, ...And Justice for All, 1979), he began his career as a director with Diner (1982), for which he had also written the script and which earned him a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination. Diner was the first of a series of films set in the Baltimore of Levinson's youth. The other films in this series were Tin Men (1987), starring Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito, and the turn-of-the-century immigrant family saga Avalon (which featured Elijah Wood in one of his earliest screen appearances), as well as the more recent Liberty Heights (1999). All four movies were written and directed by Barry Levinson himself; for the last two he also acted as producer. His biggest hit, both critically and financially, was Rain Man (1988) with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. The film won four Academy Awards including Best Director for Levinson. Other notable films in his directing career were The Natural (1984), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) with Robin Williams, and Bugsy (1991) with Warren Beatty. He directed Dustin Hoffman again in Wag the Dog (1997), a political comedy about a war staged in a film studio. He was also an uncredited co-writer on Dustin Hoffman's transvestite comedy Tootsie (1982). Apart from producing many of his own films, he has also been producer or executive producer for such major productions as The Perfect Storm (directed by Wolfgang Petersen, 2000), Analyze That (2002, starring Robert de Niro as neurotic mafia boss and Billy Crystal as his therapist), and Possession (2002, based on the bestselling novel by A. S. Byatt). He was also executive producer for the television series Homicide: Life on the Street (which ran on NBC from 1993-1999) and the HBO prison drama Oz. Levinson published his first novel, Sixty-Six (ISBN 076791533X), in 2003. Like several of his films, it is semi-autobiographical and set in Baltimore in the early 1960s. Levinson married his writing collaborator Valerie Curtin in 1975. They would divorce seven years later. He later married Dianna Rhodes whom he met in Baltimore while filming Diner.

External links

- [http://www.levinson.com Official site]
- Levinson, Barry Levinson, Barry Levinson, Barry Levinson, Barry Levinson, Barry Levinson, Barry Levinson, Barry Levinson, Barry

Seattle, Washington

:This article is about the city. For the Suquamish chief, see Chief Seattle. Chief Seattle Seattle is the largest city in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located in the U.S. state of Washington between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, nearly 108 miles (174 km) south of the United States–Canadian border in King County, of which it is the county seat. Seattle was founded in the 1850s named after Chief Seattle, or Sealth. As of 2004, the population estimates of the city given by the U.S. Census Bureau was 571,480, however, in 2005, the city has an estimated population of 573,672 and a metropolitan population of almost 3.8 million. It is sometimes referred to as the "Rainy City", the "Gateway to Alaska", "Queen City", and "Jet City" (due to the heavy influence of Boeing). Its official nickname is "the Emerald City". Seattle is known as the birthplace of grunge music, and has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption. Seattle was also the site of the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization and anti-globalization demonstrations. Seattle residents are known as Seattleites. Based on per capita income, one of the more reliable measures of affluence, Seattle ranks 36th of 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked.

History

Founding

Most of the Denny Party, the most prominent of the area's early white settlers, arrived at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. They relocated their settlement to Elliott Bay in April 1852. The first plats for the Town of Seattle were filed on May 23, 1853. The city was incorporated in 1869, after having existed as an incorporated town from 1865 to 1867. Seattle was named after Noah Sealth, chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes, better known as Chief Seattle. David Swinson ("Doc") Maynard, one of the city founders, was the primary advocate for naming the city after Chief Seattle. Previously, the city had been known as Duwamps (or Duwumps)—a variation of that name is preserved in the name of Seattle's Duwamish River.

Major events

Duwamish River, the Downtown Seattle skyline, and Mount Rainier (to the right).]] Major events in Seattle's history include the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, which destroyed the central business district (but took no lives); the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, which is largely responsible for the current layout of the University of Washington campus; the Seattle General Strike of 1919, the first general strike in the country; the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, a World's Fair; the 1990 Goodwill Games; and the WTO Meeting of 1999, marked by street protests. On February 28 2001, a state of emergency was declared after the Nisqually Earthquake, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake, rocked the region. Damage was moderate, but served as a reminder that the coastal Pacific Northwest — and the area around the Seattle Fault, in particular — is under a constant threat of earthquakes.

Economic history

Seattle has a history of boom and bust, or at least boom and quiescence. Seattle has almost been sent into permanent decline by the aftermaths of its worst periods as a company town, but has typically used those periods to successfully rebuild infrastructure. company town, is the result of a public vote on the "Libraries for All" bond measure approved by Seattle voters on November 3, 1998.]] The first such boom was the lumber-industry boom covering the early years of the city (it was during this period that Yesler Way became known as the first "Skid Row", named after the timber skidding down the street to be milled), followed by the construction of an Olmsted-designed park system. Arguably the Klondike Gold Rush constituted a separate, shorter boom during the last years of the 19th century. Klondike Gold Rush Next came the shipbuilding boom in the early part of the 20th century, followed by the unused city development plan of Virgil Bogue. After World War II the local economy was marked by the expansion of Boeing, fueled by the growth of the commercial aviation industry. When this particular cycle went into a major downturn in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many left the area to look for work elsewhere, and two local real estate agents put up a billboard reading, "Will the last person leaving Seattle — Turn out the lights." Seattle remained the corporate headquarters of Boeing until 2001, when the company announced a desire to separate its headquarters from its major production facilities. Following a bidding war in which several cities offered huge tax breaks, Boeing moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago, Illinois. The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's commercial airplanes division; several Boeing plants including the Boeing 737, Boeing 747, Boeing 757, Boeing 767, Boeing 777, and Boeing 787 factories; and BECU, formerly the Boeing Employees Credit Union. The most recent boom centered around Microsoft and other software, Internet, and telecommunications companies, such as Amazon.com and RealNetworks. Even locally headquartered Starbucks held investments in numerous Internet and software interests. Although some of these companies remain relatively strong, the frenzied boom years had ended by early 2001.

Geography and climate

Geography

Starbucks Seattle is located between Puget Sound and Lake Washington. West beyond the Sound, Seattle faces the Olympic Mountains; across Lake Washington beyond the Eastside suburbs are the Issaquah Alps and the Cascade Range. The city itself is hilly, though not uniformly so. Some of the hilliest areas are quite near the center, and Downtown rises rather dramatically away from the water. The geography of Downtown and its immediate environs has been significantly altered by regrading projects, a seawall, and the construction of an artificial island, Harbor Island, at the mouth of the city's industrial Duwamish Waterway. The rivers, forests, lakes, and fields were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. Today, a ship canal passes through the city, incorporating Lake Union near the heart of the city and several other natural bodies of water, and connecting Puget Sound to Lake Washington. Opportunities for sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking are close by and accessible almost all of the year. An active geological fault, the Seattle Fault, runs under the city. It has not been the source of an earthquake during Seattle's existence; however, the city has been hit by four major earthquakes since its founding: December 14, 1872 (magnitude 7.3); April 13, 1949 (7.1); April 29, 1965 (6.5); and February 28, 2001 (6.8). See also Nisqually Earthquake. Seattle is located at 47°37'35" North, 122°19'59" West (47.626353, −122.333144)¹. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 369.2 km² (142.5 mi²). 217.2 km² (83.9 mi²) of it is land and 152.0 km² (58.7 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 41.16% water. See also: Seattle neighborhoods, List of Seattle parks, Bodies of water of Seattle

Climate

Seattle's climate is mild, with the temperature moderated by the sea and protected from winds and storms by the mountains. The "rainy city" receives an unremarkable 35 to 38 inches (890 to 970 mm) of precipitation a year, less than most major Eastern Seaboard cities, e.g., New York City averages 47.3 inches (1200 mm), but Seattle is cloudy an average of 226 days per year vs. 132 in New York City. Most of the precipitation falls as drizzle or light rain because Seattle is in the rain shadow of the Olympic mountains. Average low temperatures range from the mid/upper 30s (just above 0 °C) at night in winter to the mid/upper 70s (mid 20s °C) for summer highs. Seattle's hottest temperature ever recorded was 100 °F (37 °C) on July 20, 1994 and the coldest temperature ever recorded was 0 °F (-17 °C) on January 31, 1950. 80 miles (130 km) to the west, the Hoh Rain Forest, in the Olympic National Park, records an annual average rainfall of 142 inches (3600 mm), and the state capital, Olympia, south of the rain shadow, receives 52 inches (1320 mm). Snow falls on occasion, but rarely sticks very long. Sunnier "California weather" typically dominates from mid-July to mid-September, arriving later and leaving earlier than in Portland, Oregon, to the south. The [http://www.komotv.com/weather/faq/convergence_zone.asp Puget Sound Convergence Zone] is an important feature of the Seattle area's weather. In the Zone, air arriving in the area from the north meets air flowing in from the south. Both streams of air originate over the Pacific Ocean; airflow is split by the Olympic Mountains to Seattle's West, then reunited by the Cascade Mountains to the East. When the air currents meet, they are forced upward, resulting in convection. An active Convergence Zone results in rain at the very least (snow in the Cascades), and sometimes more severe weather such as thunderstorms and hail. Usually the Zone forms north of Seattle in the Edmonds/Lynnwood area, but depending on the relative strengths of the winds it can range as far south as Pierce County or as far north as Skagit County. Serious exceptions to Seattle's raininess can occur during El Niño years, when the marine weather systems track to the south, affecting California instead. During the drier summer months, the region's water comes from its mountain snow packs, so El Niño winters not only produce substandard skiing, but can result in water rationing and a shortage of hydro-electric generated power the next summer.

Demographics

As of the U.S. Census of 2000, Seattle had a population of 563,374 and in all the Greater Puget Sound metropolitan area is home to almost 3.8 million people. The population today is approximately 73.40% Caucasian, one of the highest percentages of Caucasians for a major American city. The city also has one of the nation's highest percentages of multiracial ancestry: 4.70% claim ancestry from two or more races. [http://www.brookings.org/es/urban/livingcities/seattle.htm] According to the 2000 U.S. census, 13.71% of Seattleites are Asian Americans, 8.44% are African Americans, 1.10% are Native Americans, 0.50% are Pacific Islanders, and 6.84% are from other non-Caucasian backgrounds. The median income for a household in the city is $45,736, and the median income for a family is $62,195. Males have a median income of $40,929 versus $35,134 for females. The per capita income for the city is $30,306. 11.8% of the population and 6.9% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 13.8% are under the age of 18 and 10.2% are 65 or older. Seattle has seen a major increase in legal and illegal immigration in recent decades. The foreign-born population increased 40% between the 1990 and 2000 census. [http://www.brookings.org/es/urban/livingcities/seattle.htm] Although the 2000 census shows only 5.28% of the population as Hispanic or Latino of any race, Hispanics are believed to be the most rapidly growing population group in Washington, with an estimated increase of 10% just in the years 2000 to 2002. [http://www.theolympian.com/home/specialsections/Census/20030918/103142.shtml] It is estimated that 1.25% of the population is homeless, and that up to 14% of Seattle's homeless are children and young adults. Many people in Seattle are involved with social causes; among the larger local groups nonprofits dealing with poverty and related issues are the Fremont Public Association [http://www.fremontpublic.org], the Asian Counselling and Referral Service [http://www.acrs.org/index.htm], and the Seattle Indian Center [http://www.seattleindiancenter.org/]. In September 2005, King County adopted a "Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness", one of whose near-term results is a shift of funding from homeless shelter beds to permanent housing. [http://www.metrokc.gov/mkcc/news/2005/0905/Ten_Year_Plan.htm] In 2005, Men's Fitness magazine named Seattle the fittest city in the U.S.

Government and politics

fittest neighborhood. Rescued from Eastern Europe, some argue that the statue is a leftist political statement instead of historical art]] Seattle is a charter city, with a Mayor-Council form of government, unlike many of its neighbors that use the Council-Manager form. Seattle's mayor and nine city council members are elected at large, rather than by geographic subdivisions. The only other elected office is the city attorney. All offices are non-partisan. The city government provides more utilities than many cities – either by running the whole operation, such as the water, sewer, and electricity services, or by handling the billing and administration, but contracting out the rest of the operations such as trash and recycling collection. In most neighboring cities, for example, electricity is provided by either a private company such as Puget Sound Energy, or a county public utility district. See the Utilities section for more details. As with most U.S. cities, the county judicial system (courts and jails) handles felony crimes — the Seattle Municipal Court deals with parking tickets, traffic infractions, and misdemeanors. Seattle does not have its own jail, contracting out inmates it convicts to either the King County Jail (which is located downtown), the Yakima County Jail, or (for short-term holdings) the Renton City Jail. In 2004, there were only 24 murders in Seattle, the fewest since 1965. Violent crime has declined by nearly 42% since 1994, to a rate of approximately seven per 1,000 people. Auto theft has increased about 44% in the same period; the SPD has responded by almost doubling the number of detectives in the auto theft detail, and is starting a "bait car" program. A Money magazine table, using 2001 statistics, ranked Seattle 18th highest in crime rate in the U.S., with 80.5 crimes per 1,000 citizens. Seattle's politics lean famously to the left compared to the U.S. as a whole, although there is a small libertarian movement. Only one precinct in Seattle, located in the famously exclusive Broadmoor area, voted for Republican George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. In partisan elections, such as for the State Legislature and U.S. Congress, most elections are won by Democrats, with Greens getting more votes than in many other cities.

Official nickname, flower, slogan, and song

In 1981, Seattle held a contest to come up with a new official nickname to replace “the Queen City”, which had been used since 1869 and was also the nickname of Cincinnati, Toronto, Buffalo, Bangor, Maine and Charlotte, North Carolina. The winner, selected in 1982, was "the Emerald City". Submitted by Californian Sarah Sterling-Franklin, it referred to the lush surroundings of Seattle that were the result of frequent rain. Seattle has also been known in the past as the "Jet City" though this nickname, related to Boeing, was entirely unofficial. (This nickname is made reference to in the song "Jet City Woman" by Seattle progressive metal band Queensrÿche.) Seattle's official flower has been the dahlia since 1913. Its official song has been "Seattle the Peerless City" since 1909. In 1942, its official slogan was "The City of Flowers"; 48 years later, in 1990, it was "The City of Goodwill", for the Goodwill Games held that year in Seattle.

Seattle mayors of note

Among Seattle's notable past politicians is Bertha Knight Landes, mayor from 1926 to 1928. She was the first woman to be mayor of a major American city. Another, Bailey Gatzert, was mayor from 1875 to 1876. He was the first Jewish mayor of Seattle, narrowly missed being the first Jewish mayor of a major American city (Moses Bloom became mayor of Iowa City, Iowa in 1873), and has been the only Jewish mayor of Seattle so far. See List of mayors of Seattle for a list of Seattle's mayors going back to 1869. See also: Current leaders of Seattle, Washington

Sister cities

Seattle is internationally partnered with a number of sister cities to promote global cooperation, cultural exchange and economic collaboration. See List of Seattle sister cities for a complete list.

Economy

Five companies on the 2004 Fortune 500 list of the United States' largest companies, based on total revenue, are currently headquartered in Seattle: financial services company Washington Mutual (#103), insurance company Safeco Corporation (#267), department store Nordstrom (#286), Internet retailer Amazon.com, (#342) and coffee chain Starbucks (#425). Many Seattle residents work for companies based outside of Seattle proper. Airplane manufacturer Boeing (#21) was the largest company based in Seattle before its 2001 move to Chicago. Because several production facilities remain in the region, Boeing is still a major Seattle employer. Other Fortune 500 companies popularly associated with Seattle are based in nearby Puget Sound cities. Warehouse club chain Costco Wholesale Corp. (#29), the largest company in Washington, is based in Issaquah. Microsoft (#46) is based in Redmond. So was the cellular telephone pioneer McCaw Cellular, which in 1994 became AT&T Wireless (#120), before being absorbed in 2004 into Cingular. Weyerhaeuser, the forest products company (#95), is based in Federal Way. And Bellevue is home to truck manufacturer PACCAR (#250) and international mobile telephony giant T-Mobile's U.S. subsidiary T-Mobile USA. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has announced a desire to spark a new economic boom driven by the biotechnology industry. Major redevelopment of the South Lake Union neighborhood is underway in an effort to attract new and established biotech companies to the region, joining current biotech companies such as Corixa, Immunex (now part of Amgen), and ZymoGenetics. The effort has public support and some financial backing from Paul Allen. See List of companies based in Seattle for a more detailed compilation. In 2005 Forbes magazine ranked Seattle as the most overpriced city in the US based on median home prices and median incomes.

Education

Seattle has an educated population: of Seattle's population over 25, 47% (vs. a national average of 24%) hold a bachelor's degree or higher; 93% (vs. 80% nationally) have a high school diploma or equivalent. In fact, Seattle has the highest percentage of college graduates of any major U.S. city. In addition to the obvious institutions of education, there are significant adult literacy programs and considerable homeschooling. Like most urban American public school systems, Seattle Public Schools have been subject to numerous controversies. Seattle's schools desegregated without a court order, but continue to struggle to achieve racial balance in a demographically divided city (the south part of town being much more ethnically diverse than the north). The schools have maintained high enough educational standards to keep white flight (and middle-class flight in general) to a minimum, but some of the area's suburban public school systems — not all of them in wealthy suburbs — have consistently higher test scores. Notably, Seattle schools seem to be failing their minority students, as high academic standards are not realized uniformly by all racial groups in many of the city's secondary schools. The public school system is supplemented by a moderate number of private schools: four of the high schools are Catholic, one is Lutheran, and six are secular. Postsecondary education in Seattle is dominated by the University of Washington, with over 40,000 students, making it the largest university in the Pacific Northwest. Most prominent of the city's other universities are Seattle University, a Jesuit school, and Seattle Pacific University, founded by the Free Methodists. There are also a handful of smaller schools, mainly in the fine arts and business and psychology. Seattle is also served by North Seattle, Seattle Central, and South Seattle Community Colleges.

Culture

Landmarks

North Seattle, Seattle Central, and South Seattle Community Colleges have both caught the "flying fish" at the Pike Place Market, one of Seattle's most popular tourist destinations.]] The Space Needle is Seattle's most recognizable landmark, having been featured in the logo of the television show Frasier and the backgrounds of the television series Grey's Anatomy, not to mention countless films. The Needle dates from the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, a World's Fair. Contrary to popular belief, the Space Needle is neither the tallest structure in Seattle, nor is it in downtown. This misconception results from the Space Needle often being photographed from Queen Anne Hill, where it is closer to the viewer than are the skyscrapers of downtown. The surrounding fairgrounds have been converted into Seattle Center, which remains the site for many local civic and cultural events, such as Bumbershoot and the Bite of Seattle. A monorail runs from Seattle Center to Westlake Center, a downtown shopping mall -- a distance of about a mile. Other notable Seattle landmarks include the Smith Tower, Pike Place Market, the Fremont Troll, the Experience Music Project) (which is at Seattle Center), the new Seattle Central Library, the Washington Mutual Tower, and the Columbia Center, which is the fourth tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi River and the twelfth tallest in the nation. (On June 16, 2004, the 9/11 Commission reported that the original plan for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks included the Columbia Center as one of ten targeted buildings.) [http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/betweenthelines/archives/2004_06_16.html] The original Starbucks Coffee is in Seattle's Pike Place Market.

Annual cultural events and fairs

Among Seattle's best-known annual cultural events and fairs are the 24-day Seattle International Film Festival, Northwest Folklife over the Memorial Day weekend, numerous Seafair events throughout the summer months (ranging from a Bon Odori celebration to hydroplane races), the Bite of Seattle, and Bumbershoot over the Labor Day weekend. All are typically attended by over 100,000 people annually, as are Hempfest and two separate Independence Day celebrations. Several dozen Seattle neighborhoods have one or more annual street fairs, and many have an annual parade or foot race. The largest of the street fairs feature hundreds of craft and food booths and multiple stages with live entertainment, and draw more than 100,000 people over the course of a weekend; the smallest are strictly neighborhood affairs with a few dozen craft and food booths, barely distinguishable from more prominent neighborhoods' weekly farmers' markets. Other significant events include numerous Native American powwows, a Greek Festival hosted by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals associated with Festal at Seattle Center. As in most large cities, there are numerous other annual events of more limited interest, ranging from book fairs; the premier anime convention in the Pacific Northwest, Sakura-Con; and specialized film festivals to a two-day, 8,000-rider Seattle-to-Portland bicycle ride.

Performing arts

Seattle is a significant center for the performing arts. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras [http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/meet/recordings/] and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at McCaw Hall (which opened 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States. [http://www.danceusa.org/Press%20Archives/pnwballet0402.html], [http://www.pnb.org/pnbschool/philosophy.html] The Seattle Youth Symphony is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States, and among the most distinguished. In addition, Seattle has about twenty live theater venues, a slim majority of them being associated with fringe theater. It has a strong local scene for poetry slams and other performance poetry, and several venues that routinely present public lectures or readings. The largest of these is Seattle's 900-seat, Romanesque Revival Town Hall on First Hill. Seattle is often thought of as the home of grunge rock musicians like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Temple of the Dog, and Mudhoney, all of whom reached vast audiences in the early 1990s. The city is also home to such varied musicians as avant-garde jazz musicians Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot, smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G, and such poppier rock bands as Goodness and the Presidents of the United States of America. Such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Duff McKagan, Nikki Sixx, and Quincy Jones spent their formative years in Seattle. Ann and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart, often attributed to Seattle, were actually from the neighboring suburb of Bellevue, as were progressive metal band Queensrÿche. Since the grunge era, the Seattle area has hosted a diverse and influential alternative music scene. The Seattle-based record label Sub Pop—the first to sign Nirvana—has signed such non-grunge bands as Sunny Day Real Estate, The Postal Service, and The Shins. Other Seattle-area bands of note in this period include Death Cab for Cutie (Bellingham), Foo Fighters, Maktub, Modest Mouse (Issaquah), and Sleater-Kinney (Olympia). Earlier Seattle-based popular music acts include the collegiate folk group The Brothers Four; The Wailers, a 1960s garage band; the Allies and the Heaters (later "the Heats"), 1980s teen-pop bands; from that same era, the more sophisticated pop of the short-lived Visible Targets and the still-performing Young Fresh Fellows and Posies; and the pop-punk of The Fastbacks and the outright punk of the Fartz (later Ten Minute Warning), The Gits, and Seven Year Bitch. Spoken word and poetry are also staples of the Seattle arts scene, paralleling the explosion of the indie scene during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Seattle's performance poetry scene blossomed with the importation of the poetry slam from Chicago (its origin) by transplant Paul Granert. This and the proliferation of weekly readings/open mics and poetry-friendly club venues like the Weathered Wall, the OK Hotel, and the Ditto Tavern (all now defunct), allowed spoken-word/performance poetry to take off in a big way. The Seattle Poetry Festival (launched first as the Poetry Circus in 1997) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry such as Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Ted Jones, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ismael Reed, Seku Sundiata, and many others. Regionally famed poets like Bart Baxter, Tess Gallagher, and Rebecca Brown have also been featured at the Poetry Festival, as well as numerous other events such as the world-famous Bumbershoot Arts Festival.

Museums and art collections

Bumbershoot Arts Festival The Henry Art Gallery opened in 1927, making it the first museum in Washington. The main Seattle Art Museum opened in 1933. Art collections are also housed at the Frye Art Museum and the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Regional history collections are at the Museum of History and Industry and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Industry-specific collections are housed at the Center for Wooden Boats, Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, and Museum of Flight. Regional ethnic collections include Nordic Heritage Museum and the Wing Luke Asian Museum. In addition, Seattle has a thriving artist-run gallery scene, including 10 year veteran Soil Art Gallery, and the newer Crawl Space Gallery. See also: Museums and galleries of Seattle

Other cultural institutions

The Woodland Park Zoo, opened as a private zoo in 1889, is one of the oldest on the West Coast, and has been a leader in innovations in naturalistic zoo exhibits. The Seattle Aquarium has been open on the downtown waterfront since 1977. The Seattle Underground Tour, visiting many of the places that existed mostly before the great fire, is also popular.

Media

Seattle's leading newspapers are the daily Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer; they share their advertising and business departments under a Joint Operating Agreement, which (as of 2004) the Times is seeking to terminate or renegotiate. The most prominent weeklies are the Seattle Weekly and the Stranger. Both of these consider themselves "alternative" papers; the Stranger has a reputation for a younger and hipper readership, the Weekly has a reputation as more serious and slightly more politically conservative, but both make frequent forays into each other's editorial and demographic turf. There are also several ethnic newspapers and numerous neighborhood newspapers. Seattle is also well served by television and radio. Seattle's major network television affiliates are KOMO 4 (ABC), KING-TV 5 (NBC), KIRO 7 (CBS), KCTS 9 (PBS), KSTW 11 (UPN), KCPQ 13 (FOX), KONG 16/6 (Ind.), KTWB 22/10 (WB), and KWPX 33/3 (i); five of them can be seen across Canada via digital cable or satellite. Seattle cable viewers also receive CBUT 2 CBC from Vancouver, British Columbia, often as cable channel 99. Leading radio stations include KUBE 93.3, KNDD 107.7, KIRO-AM 710, KOMO-AM 1000, and NPR affiliates KUOW-FM 94.9 and KPLU-FM 88.5 (Tacoma). Other notable stations include KEXP-FM 90.3 (affiliated with EMP) and KNHC-FM 89.5, owned by the public school system and operated by students of Nathan Hale High School. Many Seattle radio stations are also available through internet radio, with KUOW, KNHC, and KEXP being notable web radio innovators. On the internet Seattle is covered by the blogs [http://www.seattlest.com/ Seattlest], [http://seattle.metblogs.com/ Seattle Metroblogging] and [http://www.thestranger.com/blog/ Slog]

Sports

The first major professional modern day sports franchise started in Seattle was the Seattle SuperSonics (known to most as the "Seattle Sonics") NBA team (1967). They were joined by the Seattle Pilots baseball team in 1969. Both team names reflected the local importance of the aerospace industry. The Pilots played in Seattle for only one year at Sick's Stadium, previously home to several minor league teams (most notably the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League), before relocating to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Their sole season was immortalized in Jim Bouton's book Ball Four. Legal wrangling over the move of the Pilots pressured Major League Baseball to award Seattle a new franchise, the Mariners, in 1977. The Mariners would play in the newly built Kingdome, an indoor sports facility they shared with the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL, who started play the previous year. For a time, all three of the city's major sports teams used the Kingdome, despite ongoing maintenance issues with the venue. After some controversy (voters defeated two funding initiatives), the Kingdome was demolished in 2000 and replaced with Seahawks Stadium (later renamed Qwest Field), built on the same site. By this time, the other sports had long since relocated: the Sonics now use KeyArena exclusively, and the Mariners' new home is the modern, retractable-roofed Safeco Field, built with state money after the city voted down a bond issue to build it. The city's first professional sports championship was brought to the city by way of the PCHA Seattle Metropolitans in 1917. The professional hockey team, which represented Seattle from 1915 to 1924, was in fact the first U.S. team to win the coveted Stanley Cup, beating the Montréal Canadiens. They returned to the Stanley Cup finals twice more. Their first return, again versus Montreal, was in 1919; that series was cancelled due to an outbreak of influenza with the two teams tied at 2–2–1. The Metropolitans last went to the Stanley Cup finals in 1920, when they lost to the Ottawa Senators. The Seattle SuperSonics last won a modern-day championship, the NBA crown, in 1979, with Lenny Wilkens as coach. It is the only major sports championship Seattle has won. In addition to professional sports, the University of Washington, Seattle University, and Seattle Pacific University field teams in a variety of sports, including football and basketball. Their teams are known as the Huskies, Redhawks, and Falcons, respectively. The Husky football team has a following that ranks with those of the major professional teams in the city. In 1991, the Huskies shared an NCAA Division I collegiate football championship with the Hurricanes of the University of Miami. In 1990, Seattle hosted the 1990 Goodwill Games. In 1998, the Seattle City Council failed to pass a resolution supporting a Seattle bid for the 2012 Olympics. In 2004, the Seattle Storm won a WNBA championship. In 2005, the Seattle Sounders won the USL First Division championship. The cities of Everett and Tacoma, to the north and the south of Seattle, respectively, have sports teams of their own. Most notable are the Tacoma Rainiers, a double-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners in the Pacific Coast League, and the Everett AquaSox, an A team playing short-season baseball in the Northwest League.

Infrastructure

USL First Division

Transportation

As in almost every other city in western North America, transportation in Seattle is dominated by automobiles, although Seattle is just old enough that the city's layout reflects the age when railways and streetcars dominated. These older modes of transportation made for a relatively well-defined downtown and strong neighborhoods at the end of several former streetcar lines, most of them now bus lines. There is no subway, though a bus tunnel running roughly north-south through downtown will be used by light rail beginning in 2009. There are a small number of commuter trains from Tacoma and Everett and an extensive system of bus routes. About fifteen of King County Metro's bus routes serving downtown Seattle are electric and run on overhead wires. Like Vancouver, British Columbia and San Francisco, California, Seattle is one of the few cities in North America that use electric trolleybuses. A monorail line constructed for the 1962 Exposition still exists today between Seattle Center and downtown and is still used by tourists and by commuters from the north, who often find it cheaper to park at Seattle Center and take the monorail downtown to work than to take their car downtown. In the 1990s the city proposed to build a longer monorail to convert the monorail from a tourist attraction into a real commuter service. Controversy over scope, governance, financial difficulties, and so forth led to a series of five separate votes on the expanded monorail; although the voters initially approved the plan, anticipated cost overruns and other problems forced the city to return to the voters for approval no fewer than four times with updated plans. The project was definitively defeated by a November 2005 referendum. The Sound Transit light rail project also faced difficulties early on, although the first 15.7 mile-section from downtown to Sea-Tac Airport will be operational in 2009. Additional expansion of light rail will include an extension north to the University District (already funded) and eventually to Northgate Mall. Also in the planning stages are lines across Lake Washington to Bellevue and south to Tacoma. The South Lake Union line of the Seattle Streetcar passed full City Council on June 27, 2005. The streetcar is "on track" to be built and operating by 2007. The 2.6 mile (4.2 km) streetcar line will run between Westlake Center in downtown Seattle and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Property owners along the right-of-way will pay about $25 million of the $45 million total capital cost through a local improvement district. Seattle is noted for its reliance on water traffic, with many people commuting to work from Bainbridge Island, films originally released in 1994. See also 1994 in film Category:Films by year Films

Category:Drama films

Category:Films by genre Category:Drama

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