Pike Place Market is publicly photographed; the neon sign is the iconic image
— — the photograph the city makes of itself.
Not only on a wall.
“The market faces the city across Pike Street, the long-shed roofline flagged at the corner by a 1937 neon sign and a round Public Market Center clock beneath it. Visitors pause on the median to make the photograph everyone makes; the red letters carry over the rain at dusk and burn against blue glass during the long northern summer evenings. The corner has served as the postcard image of Seattle for nearly a century. No fee, no permit, no permission asked. The market keeps the lights on.
Pike Place Market is publicly photographed; the neon sign is the iconic image, on ceramic.
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Pike Place Market opened on August 17, 1907 in downtown Seattle, on a wood-plank street above Elliott Bay. The corner at Pike Street and Pike Place is the most-photographed spot in the city: the long arcade roofline, the red Public Market Center neon, and the round clock beneath it have served as the postcard image of Seattle since the sign and clock were installed in 1937. The historic district covers about nine acres, with no admission charge and no photography restriction in the public spaces. The market draws roughly ten million visitors a year, most of whom photograph the corner under the sign before they go inside.
The Public Market Center sign and its clock have been lit nearly continuously since 1937, making the neon among the longest-running installations of its kind on the West Coast. The corner faces west toward Elliott Bay, so the red letters read against an orange-pink sky on clear summer evenings and against grey marine cloud most other days. Twilight in Seattle runs long: at the summer solstice the city's civil dusk lasts past 10 p.m., and on a clear June night the sign sits in deep blue for nearly an hour. Winter afternoons turn the corner electric early, with the sign on by 4 p.m. against the blue hour. On wet nights the asphalt of Pike Street doubles the sign in long red ribbons.
The market sits one block west of First Avenue between Pike Street and Virginia Street, reached on foot from the downtown core or from the waterfront by the Pike Hill Climb stairs. The photograph everyone makes is taken from the median of First Avenue at Pike, looking northwest across the intersection toward the neon and the clock above the corner of the Stewart House building. There is no admission, no permit required, and no fee for photography in the public spaces of the market. The corner is busiest on weekend afternoons; for the long-exposure portrait, the early morning, the blue hour around sunset, and the small hours after the crowds thin are the favoured times.