Seattle Wa

Just in time for the summer tourist throngs, mimes, musicians and balloon-animal shapers have been newly empowered to bring their entertainments and tip jars to public parks. In a ruling with potentially wide implications for street artists throughout the West, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday struck down curbs imposed by Seattle on those performing at the popular Seattle Center, home of the landmark Space Needle.

This city's historic landmarks include the majestic St. James Cathedral, the elegant Paramount Theatre and, best-known of all, the towering syringe known as the Space Needle. Soon this list may include a Denny's. This month, a city board opened the way to give historic landmark status to a recently closed Denny's restaurant in northwest Seattle, a decision that has left some questioning the city's selection process.

If there were a list of the geekiest landmarks to visit in Seattle, RE-PC would be near the top. It's the place that old computers go to die. Most are disassembled for parts, stripped down like wrecked cars at a junkyard. Some are recycled. But a select few escape. They make it to a tidy room in the corner of the folksy high-tech salvage shop. That's the site of the RE-PC Computer Museum.

Conservation-mindful Seattlites know their garbage. They pack compost bins, fill yard waste carts, separate glass bottles and jars into tubs, and pack paper, cans and plastic jugs into oversize recycling containers. A city ordinance prohibits putting recyclables in the garbage. Residents can be fined for tossing too much glass or paper in the trash. Low-cost city-issued rain barrels help homeowners reroute well-known Northwest drizzle.

In the summer of 1993, everything seemed to be going the Gits' way. Bypassed in the initial wave of interest in Seattle's grunge bands, the punk quartet was close to signing with a major label and had begun recording its second album. But on July 7, after leaving friends at a local bar, the Gits' singer, Mia Zapata, was raped and murdered, her body dumped on the street. Within days, the Gits were national news for the worst imaginable reason. Zapata was famous, not as a singer, but as a victim.

They were a distasteful breed, all in all, the loud-mouthed young hustlers who sold newspapers on this city's street corners, and when the 11- and 12-year-old newsboys got driven out in the early part of the last century, the old men and toothless reprobates who replaced them were scarcely any better. "In every condition of decrepitude, some with two crutches, some with one, some with but one arm, some partially blind and some totally blind," a county judge wrote in 1937.

A cold snap swept through Seattle and surrounding areas on the heels of the season's second snowstorm, closing schools for more than 350,000 students, snarling traffic and causing at least one traffic-related death. Snow flurries ended early in the day, just as temperatures dipped into the 20s. The frigid temperatures worsened conditions on already slick roads that slowed traffic around the Puget Sound. Public schools were closed in Seattle, Tacoma, Everett and outlying areas.

The school board in this Seattle suburb has restricted showings of Al Gore's movie on global warming, including requiring that it be balanced with an adequate opposing viewpoint. The board also required that Supt. Tom Murphy approve when the former vice president's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," could be presented. The decision was sparked by complaints from parents who said their child was taking the film as fact after viewing it at school.

The 9-acre waterfront plot at the northwest edge of downtown Seattle was an oil depot for much of the last century; for years it was considered a fuel-soaked toxic waste site. After a decade-long cleanup, it caught the eye of developers, who floated proposals for apartment buildings there in the 1990s.

SURROUNDED by the West Coast's only inland sea and two snowcapped mountain ranges, Seattle has one of the most scenic settings in the United States. Along with its beauty, it offers visitors plenty of activities, indoor and outdoor. It's a good place to spend a day or more pre- or post-cruise. Seattle rose to international prominence because of its waterfront; its location along Puget Sound is still the city's most prized facet.