CityStream: What Happened to the Bubbleator?

[@Toolman12345]

I remember this vividly too, from when I was maybe 10 years old. I was always thrilled to go to Seattle Center, always thrilled to go up into the Space Needle, and I loved the building the Bubbleator was in at the time. Upstairs was an International Food Court, and downstairs was an International Shopping Bizarre. We used the Bubbleator to go between those two areas. I always got to get some little thing in the international stores, often a foreign coin from a little coin/currency shop. The Bubbleator wasn't like any other elevator I'd ever seen, which made it totally cool.

[@mikescholtz]

Great story! It makes me happy and sad, simultaneously.

[@insidedianeslife2456]

To have it come back would be interesting. Just as a display or a working elevator? It would be wonderful to ride it again. Such great memories of the Bubbleator.

[@nomadbrad6391]

My first memories are riding it as a 4 year old in the fall of 1967.....there were dozens of curiosity shops back then on the 2nd level above the food court and on weekends a scary phantom type charactor used to lurk and skulk around circa 1967 to 1970 that would scare the crap out of little kids....it was a hoot for a small boy back then....by the mid 70s the curiosity shops and the phantom were long gone ;-(

[@dianadiamond9145]

Happy to hear it’s still around!

[@Kevmike68]

I remember riding the Bubbleator with my family and loved it! And one Christmas Season, they dressed up the bubble up as a Snowman! 🙂🙂

[@merlepatterson]

I rode the Bubbleator a lot when I was a kid. It was cool beause when it was full of people my brother would go over to the opposite side of it and then whisper and I could hear what he was saying over all the people talking between us (about 20' apart) as if he was standing right next to me.

[@groovyroses]

I remember riding the bubbleator as a kid when it was in the Armory

[@jimanderson4865]

I was 7 yrs old when I rode on that....

[@johnsmith-wk2tb]

Why isn't it at MOHI?

[@johnsmith-wk2tb]

Im confused as to why it isnt at MOHI

[@skeezix8156]

I’d love to see it back at the Armory in functional, restored condition.

[@chrisyarbrough785]

On the weekend we would go too the food circus and go up and down on that silly thing. It only went up one level

[@larryfromwisconsin9970]

I rode that in 1962. Age 8.

[@tomtroy3792]

I used to like going up in that space needle they had a machine there you put a penny in and it would come out flat with the picture of a space needle on it

[@tomtroy3792]

It would puzzle me because I always heard it was illegal to deface money

[@tomtroy3792]

I remember being 9 years old and putting pennies on the railroad tracks and when I train ran over it would flatten them

[@acmejia]

I think it should go to MOHAI and be reunited with the chair... I don't think it helps to preserve it to have it at that house (doesn't look good either). The bricks being supported by it made me sad. I'm glad the homeowner saved it but it can be better preserved in a museum.

[@tdickensheets]

😥

[@orbyfan]

There may have been room for 100 people in 1962, but the population has gotten much fatter since then.

[@sergeygolubovich1838]

bring a lot ah money lol