Just heard it, at midnight Monday, breaking news. Will still have daytime party, and fireworks at midnight, but Seattle Center grounds will be locked down at 6 PM. Mayor Paul Schell said he didn't want to take chances with public safety. They were expecting fifty thousand people.

-- and the band (played@merrily.on), December 28, 1999

Answers

I also heard this on the radio - cited terrorism concerns.

-- Bruce (Mayer@party.down), December 28, 1999.

50,000? wasn't cancelled due to lack of ticket sales like everywhere else?

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 28, 1999.

Hokie,

This was the free (I think) New Year's Eve celebration at Seattle Center, so no, ticket sales (or lack thereof) were not a concern...

The private party (booked in 1992) that's going on in the Space Needle is still going on as planned, however.

-- Don (whytocay@hotmail.com), December 28, 1999.

Weird.

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 28, 1999.

Tuesday December 28, 1999 7:04 a.m. EST

Seattle's New Year's Eve Celebration Canceled

SEATTLE (AP) -- The mayor has canceled the city's New Year's Eve celebration below its landmark Space Needle, citing the possibility of terrorist acts.

``It is safer to be prudent,'' Mayor Paul Schell said Monday. ``This is already an unprecedented, unpredictable New Year's, and we did not want to take chances with public safety, no matter how remote the threat might seem.''

International media coverage of the event makes it ``impossible for federal officials to rule out the area as a terrorist target,'' he said.

The mayor said federal officials have not advised him of any specific threat to the city.

An estimated 50,000 people had been expected to gather below the sky-dotting Needle, located at the 20-acre Seattle Center just off the city's downtown. The 605-foot landmark, built for the 1962 World's Fair, is a traditional gathering point for New Year's Eve revelers.

Afternoon concerts and a circus performance will go ahead as planned on Friday, and fireworks - the centerpiece of the millennium party - will still pour from the Needle at midnight. But the Center will be cleared and the gates locked at 6 p.m., Schell said in today's edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Only a private function atop the Needle will be allowed to go ahead, he said.

Schell's decision is the latest in a string of moves to scale back the city's once grand ambitions for the event.

A plan to set aflame 14 giant wood-and-papier-mache sculptures - part of a $120,000 project - was canceled last Wednesday, while the mayor's plan to cover nine bridges and four parks in colored lights to mark the new century was scaled back to just one bridge because of cash shortages.

The city's nerves have been strained in recent weeks following tumultuous, sometimes violent World Trade Organization protests. Both Schell and Police Chief Norm Stamper, who has announced his resignation, came under fire for their handling of the demonstrations.

News that a man arrested at the U.S.-Canadian border with alleged bomb-making materials had booked a hotel room near Seattle Center also heightened security fears.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), December 28, 1999.

Fed's anti-terrorist campaign has had at least one success then.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 28, 1999.

I think the WTO experience has got the mayor spooked. This is major CYA, but IMO, not a bad thing.

-- Sammie (sammiex0@hotmail.com), December 28, 1999.

Given the way things got out of hand at the WTO meetings, the warnings out of the federal government and the recent suspected terrorist arrests along the Canada/Washington border, can you blame the administration of Seattle for being gun shy?

-- Paul Neuhardt (neuhardt@ultranet.com), December 28, 1999.

I expect Austin and its' A2K downtown block party to be cancelled next.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), December 28, 1999.

Lisa: My best friend and her husband live in Austin and I bet her 25 bucks that Austin's celebration would be cancelled.

BTW, about the Seattle thing, we have this "commentator" (and I use that term loosely) in Dallas on 570 AM , I believe, named Mark Davis, who was talking about this and said that Seattle was CAVING IN TO TERRORIST PRESSURE!!! HUH??? He said "NOW, all these OTHER cities are going to do the same thing and this is just RIDICULOUS!" I wanted to call in and tell him he is an idiot.

-- preparing (preparing@home.com), December 28, 1999.