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All the United States Washington Seattle Phinney Park Air Raid Tower

Phinney Park Air Raid Tower

This Cold War siren is one off the last of its kind still standing with its immensely powerful original horn.

Seattle, Washington

Added By
Mike Veitenhans
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A Cold War relic and Seattle historical landmark   mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
2014 GloCone installation   mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
2014 GloCone at night   mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
Programmable LEDs “Dance” Thanksgiving Through New Year’s   mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
New 3200 LED Computer-Controlled GloCone   mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
Tower (February 2025)   Joe from Bellingham / Atlas Obscura User
  mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
GloCone lighting ceremony   mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
World’s most powerful mechanical siren in the 1950s   mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
  mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
  Aty Trocious / Atlas Obscura User
  mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
Now LEDs “dance” in ever-changing patterns during holiday season   mikeveets / Atlas Obscura User
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Erected in 1954 in response to the perceived threat of nuclear air raids Seattle's Phinney Park Air Raid Tower is one of two remaining example of the six Victory sirens that once blared out across the city during nerve-wracking weekly tests. 

The tower is one of the few remaining Cold War air raid towers not only in Seattle, but in the United States at large. The warning tower was topped by the most powerful siren ever built: a 12-foot long, six-foot high monster powered by a 331-cubic inch, 180-horsepower, Chrysler V-8 Hemi engine that could push out a blare that could be heard for miles around. The siren no longer works, but up until the 1970s, it sounded every Wednesday at noon as part of routine testing that would see children diving under their desks.

Since the end of the Cold War, most of these installations and car-sized sirens have been scrapped, but the tower in Phinney Park managed to survive. The tower was sandblasted and repainted in 2006 and is now a Seattle historical landmark.

Since 2014, the tower has been put into service suspending the Phinney Neighborhood's five-meter-high, 7,500 LED "GloCone" which lights up like a modern, neon Christmas tree from dusk to dawn between Thanksgiving and New Year's.

Related Tags

Cold War Towers Military History Abandoned Military

Know Before You Go

It's in the Heart of Phinney pocket park at Phinney Ave N and N 67th St in Seattle, about 1.5 miles west of I-5 and a half a mile north of the Woodland Park Zoo. There is a second siren in North Acres Park near Haller Lake.

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mikeveets

Edited By

angusperformance, Aty Trocious, Joe from Bellingham

  • angusperformance
  • Aty Trocious
  • Joe from Bellingham

Published

February 13, 2015

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  • http://www.victorysiren.com/x/index.htm
  • http://www.conradchavez.com/World/PacificNW/Seattle-Cold-War-air-raid/
  • http://www.phinneycenter.org/hopp/
Phinney Park Air Raid Tower
6532 Phinney Ave North
Seattle, Washington, 98103
United States
47.677126, -122.354031
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