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Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

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Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#111

Post by hinkley »

flippyhead wrote: post #38
erickhill wrote: post #32

To be honest, the section of the city Amazon has "swallowed" was grass and weed filled parking lots 5 years ago as well as broken down buildings. While the construction has been a drag for drivers in that area, the city looks and feels so much better, IMO, due to their investments. Now, has Amazon invested enough in infrastructure to help the swelling population they are partly to blame for increasing (not to mention…

Yeah I don't get the complaints and honestly don't hear them much at least from my friends (I don't work for Amazon). I've lived here my whole life, seen the city change a lot. I used to think I'd probably move away some day. I've been to probably 40 countries now and the more I see of the world the more I see Seattle as ideal and heading (mostly) in the right direction.

I think people forget that Seattle was one of the first big cities to successfully revitalize their downtown. It started at Westlake Center and took twenty years to make it a mile north to South Lake Union.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#112

Post by hinkley »

rconti wrote: post #103
erickhill wrote: post #32

To be honest, the section of the city Amazon has "swallowed" was grass and weed filled parking lots 5 years ago as well as broken down buildings. While the construction has been a drag for drivers in that area, the city looks and feels so much better, IMO, due to their investments. Now, has Amazon invested enough in infrastructure to help the swelling population they are partly to blame for increasing (not to mention…

To be fair, the article was complaining about Amazon advancing towards the real downtown, not the Mercer St wasteland Amazon's development fixed. OTOH they're talking about having space for 50k employees at SLU so I'm not sure why the author thinks Amazon is advancing downtonw...

They have 4 city blocks on Westlake Avenue, around 6th and 7th Ave. That's right on the edge of what people would call Downtown.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#113

Post by johan_larson »

gohrt wrote: post #48
SaberTail wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read that the Bell Labs offices were designed in order to promote collaboration. It was laid out such that there'd be long hallways between the offices and things like restrooms and stairs, so that there'd be greater chances of colleagues bumping into each other and talking about work. I don't have a copy of The Idea Factory[1], where I recall reading this handy, but that's my best recollection. [1] https://www.…

And now we put everyone in open-floorplan barns to "promote colllaboration", with nowhere for people to go back and work at when they are done collaborating. "Hallway conversations" have become "constant conversations"

I have two theories of why open-plan offices are popular.

The first is simply that it's cheaper to have an open office. Modern office buildings tend to have large spaces -- nearly whole floors -- that are open, but can be subdivided. But subdivision costs money. Paying carpenters to put up walls isn't cheap, and even cube systems can be surprisingly expensive. Plus managers are accountable for costs. So they choose the cheap option.

The second is that open office plans are good for communication and collaboration, though less good for individual silent work. Managers are essentially all about communication and collaboration, which is why they love these open offices. Unfortunately while programmers need to both communicate and work alone, they need to communicate and collaborate much less than managers do, which is why office plans that are selected by managers make things difficult for the programmers.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#114

Post by __derek__ »

vonkow wrote: post #108
__derek__ wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't like Discovery Park, Washington Park, Volunteer Park, Golden Gardens, Carkeek Park, or Lincoln Park?

They're all lovely parks, but none are within walking distance of downtown.

We may have different definitions of walking distance from downtown because I think that both Volunteer and Washington Park fall in that range, although I understand that they are farther than a hypothetical South Lake Union park. On the other hand, I would note that neither Golden Gate Park nor Central Park are near their respective downtowns.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#115

Post by hinkley »

Analemma_ wrote: post #21
MrMullen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked at Amazon.com, we used to joke that we could get anyone to move to Seattle if they interviewed in August. The summers are pretty amazing in Seattle, but the weather sucks the other 9 months of the year.

You are correct, though ironically the weather today is pea-soup fog, at least in Bellevue ;)

Sun breaks in downtown, sucker :)

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#116

Post by hinkley »

rconti wrote: post #101
Analemma_ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct, though ironically the weather today is pea-soup fog, at least in Bellevue ;)

July 5 is the first day of summer. Every year on the 4th you'd be biting your nails wondering if it was gonna stop raining so you could set off fireworks when it got dark at 10pm.

I thought the locals were joking about that, but in 18 years I can hardly remember a time when that wasn't true.

Although this year it sure looked like we started early.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#117

Post by justanotherbody »

__derek__ wrote: post #98
dluan wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, a giant green park within the city like SF's golden gate park or NYC's central park sounds really incredible.

You don't like Discovery Park, Washington Park, Volunteer Park, Golden Gardens, Carkeek Park, or Lincoln Park?

Carkeek is nearly 100 blocks from downtown...

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#118

Post by vonkow »

__derek__ wrote: post #114
vonkow wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're all lovely parks, but none are within walking distance of downtown.

We may have different definitions of walking distance from downtown because I think that both Volunteer and Washington Park fall in that range, although I understand that they are farther than a hypothetical South Lake Union park. On the other hand, I would note that neither Golden Gate Park nor Central Park are near their respective downtowns.

I don't really disagree, but it's a 50 minute (uphill) walk from Pike Place to Volunteer Park, whereas it's 15 minutes to the edge of SLU. I don't really mind walking an hour, but many people do.

Golden Gate is a little out of the way, Central Park is super accessible by subway.

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#119

Post by zippergz »

techsupporter wrote: post #9
yunong wrote: post #2

"one of the best recruiting tools Amazon has is if people come interview on a nice day, and people are sitting outside having lunch from a food truck." Have they been to Seattle during the months of November to June?

I have (I live in Seattle, but don't work for Amazon) and the weather is pretty great roughly nine months out of the year. Late November to February are dreary but spring, summer, and most of fall make up for it. Sorry for leaking the secret, fellow Seattleites.

I lived in Seattle for almost 12 years, and I only found 2-3 months a year to be what I'd call "great" weather (or even good). My life and mood have improved dramatically since I moved to a place with more sun and fewer clouds. Obviously this is largely a matter of personal preference, but I couldn't disagree more that 9 months of the year in Seattle are great....

Re: Amazon Has Swallowed Downtown Seattle

#120

Post by brewdad »

brightsize wrote: post #35
davidw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the "intermountain West" gets cold but sunny winters. It doesn't rain that much here in Bend - we get a lot of sun, actually. Cold and dry beats just above freezing and drizzly gray rain any day, in my book.

Totally agree. Here in Spokane we get four seasons including sunny, hot, dry summers and cold sun-on-snow winters. It's striking how much it's like my native New England, right down to the Maple trees, but minus the humidity and mosquitoes. I lived in Seattle for years and the winter temps in the 30s and 40sF combined with damp and gray just wore me down. In my opinion winter ran from October-June. One of the more co…

Rather than sun breaks, I've always referred to them as "sucker holes." A whole bunch of suckers are going to get caught out in the next downpour that's surely only a few minutes away.
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