King Street Station Restoration

main waiting area with restored plaster ceiling, new plaster on the walls, and LED light fixtures modeled after the originals

new tile work on the walls

The King Street Station in Seattle was under restoration almost the whole time I lived in Seattle. Now that I'm back for a few weeks, I got to finally see the finished product on my way to Portland last week. It's been restored to be similar to the way it looked when it originally opened in 1906. It looks fantastic. It's much more open and light than it used to be. And ornate.

In the 1960's the station was "updated" to include a dropped ceiling with fluorescent box lights that covered up the plaster ceiling and the upper windows. Last time Ryan and I were in King Street Station they had a display on the restoration. It included newspaper articles from the 60's hailing the dropped ceiling as "modernized."

The dropped ceiling was incredibly ugly. You can see before and after photos of the whole restoration here. It's funny to look back and, like a lot of things, see how funny fashions and styles are in hindsight. And now, over 100 years later, we prefer the original style!