STEVE DUNKELBERGER: VOYEUR TOUR OF TACOMA >>>

In honor of nationally recognized walking advocate Dan Burden’s lecture on making Tacoma a more walkable city tonight, I present my downtown Tacoma walking tour. 

The best place to start the downtown Tacoma voyeur tour is the heart of the theater district at Ninth and Broadway. The clean, wedge-shaped Tully’s coffeehouse is always filled with a mix of government suit-jockeys walking over from City Hall between meetings and artsy folks running out to grab a squat between artistic inspirations.

This is the headquarters of any walking tour around downtown Tacoma since it generally has ample parking for anyone willing to swing around the block a few times.  Besides, with its expansive windows, Tully’s makes for good people-watching too.

One of the best urban walks through downtown heads south along Broadway to see the deli windows and gallery displays at places such as Pastrami’s in the Rhodes Center at 11th and Broadway and the Woolworth Windows across the street. People are funny while they eat, especially if passersby press their faces against the large panes of glass and stare at them as they stuff their faces with cured meat and chips. A handful of street-side businesses along Broadway provide ample material for voyeurs in the making. One standout is the Opti Staffing office at 13th and Broadway, where there always seems to be an ample stable of attractive women hanging around the receptionist’s desk in hopes of landing a job. The floor-to-ceiling windows make this office a massive fishbowl, prime for people watching from a legally safe distance.

The next stop on the tour is the Starbucks at 15th and Commerce, next to the Convention Center station for the Tacoma Link line. Those java peddlers and the customers they serve never disappoint any voyeur seeking to spy a clever exchange, smitten flirting or eavesdrop on a private conversation. Consistently having people break up with their girlfriends, cheat on their husbands, battle their credit card company or gripe about their bosses for all the world to hear is a tell-tale sign of being a great urban destination.

At the corner of 15th and Commerce is the Rainier Pacific Bank. This branch and bank headquarters at Pacific Avenue and 15th Street always seems to have a heavy gaggle of attractive looking 20-somethings loitering around the information desk. Walkers can’t help but look at the eye candy available within. Watch but don’t touch. This is a walking tour not a grocery store. You aren’t allowed to thump the melons anywhere along the tour. Sorry for not explaining this earlier. My apologies. I thought that was understood.

Taking a left takes walkers back to the Theater District via Pacific Avenue, where walkers will see their share of desk workers sitting at their street-side workstations as they fiddle with their hair or clandestinely pick their noses while they talk on the phone, apparently oblivious to the fact that the people they see walking along the street outside their window can also see them. Others have wised up a bit and turned their desks away from the window only to allow passersby to look at what information is displayed on their computer screens. Some window-office dwellers in Tacoma’s Financial District, for example, are spending excessive time in Yahoo chat rooms and checking sports scores.