This Belltown restaurant and bar has been around since 1903, and appeared in the movie "Sleepless in Seattle." Two decades later, the menu's fancier and the crowd is more touristy, but the vibe is still laidback. (Photo: Seattle Municipal Archives).
Wrong: How to get to this houseboat
Taking a small motorboat through the Locks, over to Alki, and back? It's not undoable, but it's definitely unorthodox.
Seattle Municipal Archives//
Double wrong: Driving to Alki
As Meg Ryan's character is trying to follow Sam and his son in their boat, she crosses the Fremont Bridge...headed North. On her way to Alki.
It's essentially the same faux pas as the last slide, but it's a pretty glaring (and common) one for Seattle viewers.
Grant Hindsley/SEATTLEPI.COM
Right: Pike Place
It's one of those classic Seattle places that earns its spot as a tourist locale, and deserves every feature in pop culture it can get.
YouTube image
Right: (well, ish)
Tom Hanks' character's cool houseboat still draws gawkers even 25 years later. But those interiors? That's not the actual houseboat.
P-I file
Wrong: New Year's fireworks
Tom Hanks steps out onto the deck of his lovely Westlake-Avenue houseboat, and somehow sees the New Year's fireworks display...at Gasworks.
But any Seattleite worth their salt knows Gasworks is for the 4th, and the Space Needle is New Year's.
GRANT HINDSLEY/SEATTLEPI.COM
Right: How wet and gray Seattle winters are
Though we may dream of a white Christmas, we're more likely to get a damp one. Something "Sleepless in Seattle" managed to capture — at great cost...
KURT SMITH, PI FILE
Wrong: Seattle winters
"Sleepless in Seattle" notoriously filmed during the summer in Seattle, back when an insanely warm summer was an anomaly instead of the new normal. In fact, it was an actual drought, making the city pretty mad at the way filmmakers had to "create" the rain effect of winter.
GENNA MARTIN/SEATTLEPI.COM
Double right: Seattle loves its seafood
How many people knew about this joint before the movie? Who knows. But knowing Seattleites, they already knew where they liked their seafood served.
Right (at least, temporarily):
Nora Ephron said in an 1993 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine: "(Tom Hanks' character) goes from Chicago, which is your modern, work-driven urban environment, to Seattle, which is – let me tell you, after three days there with my husband, Nick says, 'This is a city where people have chosen lifestyle over work.' And he’s right. There are cities like this all over America, full of people who are kayaking and living the good life.”
At the time that was a bit more true than it is now — one look at South Lake Union is proof of our taking a bit more of a foray into "work" — but we still have our good life roots and habits.
GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM
In the 1993 romantic comedy, “Sleepless in Seattle,” Sam, a recent widower and insomniac, calls in to a Seattle-based late night radio talk show and tells the host how much he misses his late wife.
25 years later, what does the rom-com get right and wrong about Seattle? Click through to find out.
unknown/Film studios
Rom-coms are notorious for having a high-degree of suspending your disbelief, but how do you feel about a romantic comedy that ends with a couple meeting for the first time?
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That's exactly what "Sleepless in Seattle" demanded of its audience, 25 years ago. When it was released on June 25, 1993, the whole movie hinged on the idea that two people could be so drawn to each other that they would immediately fall in love the second they set eyes on each other, whether it was at the top of the Empire State Building, or across Westlake Avenue North.
Which brings us to the main star of "Sleepless in Seattle," the city.
It was one of the many '90s items -- "Frasier," Microsoft, and Starbucks -- that put Seattle on the map, increasing our public profile and giving our city a "face."
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They didn't get everything right — for every sight they visit that delights the Seattleite viewer, there's just as much that confounds and confuses (Meg Ryan! Why are you driving that way, while you stalk the man you're vaguely interested in?)
The movie reflected a lot of change for almost everyone involved: Star Tom Hanks was going from comic persona in the '80s to a more serious actor, Nora Ephron was getting her first chance at directing, the core idea of the film is mostly about a man who hasn't been on a date since the 1970s now dealing with a new wave of feminism shaping the dating market.
"Sleepless in Seattle" came out in 1993, a big year for Seattle. Grunge was still going and sports was fun to watch (Randy Johnson's pitching, Sonics in the playoffs). Those things ended, but the movie's legacy lives on, through the throngs of tourists who shout ... ("Sleepless in Seattle" 10th anniversary edition DVD)
"There's Tom Hanks' house!" Nineteen years after "Sleepless in Seattle," the famous Lake Union houseboat (left) has become one of Seattle's most famous icons. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer archive).
Houseboats looked charming then, but not everyone loves them since. The city proposed a ban on new houseboats in 2010, because they're believed to harm fish, and it wants to crack down on "houseboat-like boats." (Joshua Trujillo / seattlepi.com)
Seattle's newest floating homes (pictured) look nothing like Tom Hanks' 1978 shake-roof, Cape Cod-inspired house. (It went on the market, by the way, in 2008 with a listing price of $2.5 million). Here's a home at Wards Cove, a community where slips are billed as the last new floating-home spots on Lake Union. (JOSHUA TRUJILLO / seattlepi.com)
The Athenian in the Pike Place Market served as a colorful backdrop for Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner to talk about tiramisu and the anxieties of dating. ("Sleepless in Seattle" screenshot.)
Opened in 1909, the Athenian was once more of a locals' and old-timers' restaurant. Photo: Joey DeVilla, Creative Commons Flickr.
The Athenian is now also a crowded tourist destination, where people come for the great view and glimpse of the barstools where Hanks and Reiner sat. (Mike Urban / Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
The Dahlia Lounge also served as an atmospheric setting for Tom Hanks and his date. But that was when the restaurant was at its old location, at 1904 Fourth Avenue. Photo: angela n., Creative Commons Flickr.
Angela N. via Creative Commons Flickr.
After the movie, the Dahlia Lounge moved to its current location, at 2001 Fourth Avenue. But the remodeled interior (pictured) retains the old place's intimate vibe. (2012 Google Street View )
Here's what 1904 Fourth Avenue looks like today, according to this 2012 Google Street View photo. After Dahlia Lounge moved, it became Toi restaurant. But that closed.
"Sleepless in Seattle" was the eighth top-grossing movie in the country in 1993, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan ("Sam and Annie") as the year's big romantic movie couple.
Hanks and Ryan reprised their chemistry in 1998's "You've Got Mail." (Warner Bros. / Getty Images)
These days, Seattle-based romances look a bit...different (and the real estate is ritzier too).
Meg Ryan was also "America's sweetheart" in movies in the '90s, especially romantic comedies. ("Sleepless in Seattle" screenshot).
Here's Meg Ryan today. She's appearing in "Half the Sky," a new PBS documentary on gender violence the began airing Monday, Oct. 2. (Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images)
"Sleepless" also captured a more innocent time when you could say goodbye to your loved one at the airport gate. Or, in Tom Hanks' case, catch your first glimpse of your love to be. ("Sleepless in Seattle" screenshot.)
The days of romantic hellos and goodbyes at the gate have long been over, replaced with TSA screeners and machines. (Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
Remember adorable kid Jonah, Tom Hanks' son? What happened to the actor? ("Sleepless in Seattle" screenshot.)
Ross Malinger played precocious Jonah. His IMDb page ends in 2006, with a listing of his appearance in TV show "Without a Trace." Before that, he was "Touched by an Angel" and "Party of Five," in which he's pictured with actress Lacey Chabert in 1998. (FOX)
"Sleepless" was the first of many big roles in the 90s for Tom Hanks, who went on to star in "Philadelphia," "Forrest Gump" and "Apollo 13." He's pictured in 1995 with Jessica Lange after winning a Golden Globe for "Forrest Gump." (AFP/Getty Images)
Tom Hanks today. He's still an A-list actor who's coming off Oscar season with "The Post" where he played Ben Bradlee. (Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)
"Sleepless in Seattle" will always be remembered as one of Nora Ephron's most beloved movies. Ephron, who visited Seattle in 2006 and toured the Central Library (pictured), died in 2012 at age 71. (Scott Eklund / Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
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And at the time the city was about to undergo a pretty big change itself: Amazon's takeover was waiting at the end of the '90s. When the film was filming in Seattle, the official population was a little more than 525,000. These days it's closer to 700,000, and for many city residents that difference feels like it happened in the last few years alone.
Is any of that creditable to "Sleepless in Seattle," whose title gave people something to hang the idea of Seattle on, and plaster all over novelty t-shirts at the airport? Probably not. But it still feels like a pretty big moment in Seattle's history as an up-and-coming city.
So in honor of "Sleepless in Seattle" being of age to rent a car, pop it in, and try to spot how many changes you can see between the city's skyline then and now.
