The Lookout He Couldn't Save Twice

You're standing in Victor Steinbrueck Park, the little grassy lookout at the north end of Pike Place Market, where Western Avenue meets Pike Place and Virginia Street. Turn toward the water. That's Elliott Bay spread out below you. This view is the reason the park exists, and the man it's named for spent years telling Seattle so.

Victor Steinbrueck was a Seattle architect. In the 1960s he became one of the loudest voices in the fight to save the Market behind you, at a time when its future was very much in doubt. He did the same for Pioneer Square, where this walk will end. But this patch of ground is where he lost a fight first.

Where you're standing used to overlap the Washington National Guard Armory, a building that went up around 1909. In 1962 it was damaged by fire, and its remains sat here while the city argued over what to do with the old waterfront. Steinbrueck wanted the armory restored. He wrote that buildings like it offer "an irreplaceable tie with the past," and he added, a little sharply, "Others can always find practical reasons for destruction."

The practical reasons won. In 1968 the city bought the land and tore down what was left of the armory. That same year, Steinbrueck wrote that this corner was "one of the grandest downtown lookout places" in Seattle, neglected by the city and enjoyed by only "a few habitués and passing pedestrians." So the building was gone, but the view was saved for everybody. The park opened in 1971, the same year the Market itself was saved for good. It was first called Market Park. After Steinbrueck died in 1985, the city renamed it for him.

Here's the part the plaque won't mention. This lawn is basically a roof. There's a parking garage underneath you, and by the 2020s the waterproofing between the grass and the cars had worn out and was leaking. Fixing the leak closed the park for more than two years.

That renovation also reopened an older question. For four decades, two cedar totem poles stood here, designed by Marvin Oliver and carved by James Bender. But totem poles are not a tradition of the people whose land this is, the Coast Salish peoples of Puget Sound. The city proposed replacing them with welcome sculptures by Suquamish and Muckleshoot artists. The Market's historical commission insisted on the original poles. The park reopened in March 2025 with the dispute unresolved and the poles still not back. It's a very Steinbrueck kind of argument: what's worth keeping, and who gets to decide.

When you're ready, walk southeast about two minutes into the Market, to a small storefront where a coffee company you may have heard of got its start.