Seattle, WA

Of all the places I love in Seattle the one I love most and go to as often as possible, is Pike’s Place Market. I’d marry that place if I could and then my every day would be filled with beautiful flowers, fresh seafood, street buskers, fresh fruits and vegetables, gorgeous handmade lotions and clothing. I’d dine on crepes and wander the market sampling all the goodies. Each day I’d try to catch your flying fish and I’d feed your little bronze piggy, Rachel, all my pennies.

Earlier this month, Pike’s Place Market celebrated it’s centennial, making it the longest continually-operated farmer’s market in the U.S. Located in the heart of downtown Seattle, Pike’s Place Market occupies an impressive 9 acres, has it’s own free medical clinic, senior center, childcare center, food bank and low-income housing. In fact, the Market houses some 500 low-income residents in 8 buildings. The Market even has it’s own government of sorts in the Pike Place Preservation & Development Authority (PDA).

If you’re wandering about Seattle right now you might run into a few piggies gone to market! Why pigs? Well, way back in 1971 the market was nearly destroyed to make room for a plaza but thankfully citizens rallied to save the Market. The Market Foundation had a bronze piggy bank sculpted as a fund raiser and so “Rachel” was born. To date, Rachel has earned the Market over $120k. Not bad for a pig’s days work. Rachel is very popular with kids of all ages and it can be very difficult to get her picture due to the number of people trying to do the same. For the centennial the Market decided to populate Seattle with 100 Pigs and thus was born the Pigs on Parade project, a larger version of a theme from 2001. Pigs on Parade is a fund raiser for the Market’s human services.

I just love turning a corner and finding a new piggy. Each pig has a sponsor and a fun name of some sort. There are 100 pigs, one for each year the Market has been in business. I took pictures of each pig I came across. One, named Gloria, with it’s purplish hooves was sure to get a laugh out of my similarly named purple-crazy friend, Gloria. Then there was the pirate pig and the i-pig which I had to capture for my buddies working at Apple. There was one with monopoly money stuck all over it named appropriately, PigMillion. Here I am standing behind “Lost in Time Swine”:

For those of you who would like to track down all the piggies yourself, don’t be pig-headed, use this handy map.

Seattle, Pike’s Place Market, history, Pigs on Parade, Rachel, Pig, crepes, flowers, vegetables, seafood, farmer’s market, centennial