1.
Westin Hotels & Resorts
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Westin Hotels & Resorts is an American upscale hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of 2013, Westin operated over 192 hotels in multiple countries across the globe, in 1930, Severt W. Thurston and Frank Dupar of Seattle, Washington met unexpectedly during breakfast at a diner in Yakima, Washington. The competing hotel owners decided to form a management company to all their properties. The men invited Peter and Adolph Schmidt, who operated five hotels in the Puget Sound area, to join them, the chain consisted of 17 properties,16 in Washington and one in Boise, Idaho. Western expanded to Vancouver, British Columbia and Portland, Oregon in 1931, by the early 1950s, Western also had properties in Montana and Utah. Early management developed each property individually, after more than two decades of rapid growth, many of its properties were merged into a single corporate structure in 1958, focusing on bringing the hotels together under a common chain identity. Western Hotels managed a floating hotel aboard the ocean liner QSMV Dominion Monarch, the chain also managed the restaurant atop the Space Needle, which they continued to manage until 1982. The company was renamed Western International Hotels in 1963, to reflect its growth overseas and that same year, the company went public. On November 1,1965, Western International announced an agreement with Hotel Corporation of America. In 1970, Western International was acquired by UAL Corporation, at the end of its 50th anniversary on January 5,1981, the company changed its name again to Westin Hotels. In 1987, UAL Chairman Richard Ferris announced a plan to make UAL into Allegis, a conglomerate based around United Airlines, Hertz Rent a Car, Hilton Hotels. This strategy failed, however, and Westin was sold in 1988 to Aoki Corporation of Japan, in 1994 Aoki sold it to Starwood Capital, real estate investment firm and parent of Starwood Lodging, and Goldman Sachs, an investment bank. In 1998 Starwood assumed full ownership of the company, Westin claims to have been the first hotel chain to introduce guest credit cards, 24-hour room service, and personal voice mail in each room. Westin markets certain amenities available in its properties to the public under the brand name Heavenly, in 2005, Westin became the first hotel company to gain a national retail store presence when Nordstrom started carrying the Heavenly Bed line in more than 60 stores. Westin refreshed its partnership with United Airlines in 2008 and these amenities were stopped following the merger with Continental Airlines. Especially in the last decade, Westin has focused on expanding globally, since 2005, the number of hotels has grown from 120 locations in 24 countries to over 192 locations in 37 countries as of 2013. In 2016, Marriott International acquired Starwood, becoming the worlds largest hotel company, the Westin Palace Madrid - historic 1912 luxury hotel in Madrid The Westin San Jose - Formerly the Saint Claire and Hyatt Saint Claire. Westin Hamburg - opened in 2016 and located in Hamburgs iconic Elbphilharmonie concert hall The Westin Sydney Westin Alumni Association, www. westinalumni. org Westin Hotels & Resorts Westin Hotel Store
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Seattle
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Seattle is a seaport city on the west coast of the United States and the seat of King County, Washington. With an estimated 684,451 residents as of 2015, Seattle is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In July 2013, it was the major city in the United States. The city is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 100 miles south of the Canada–United States border, a major gateway for trade with Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, the settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named Seattle in 1852, after Chief Siahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Logging was Seattles first major industry, but by the late-19th century, growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle area developed as a technology center beginning in the 1980s, in 1994, Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, Seattle has a noteworthy musical history. From 1918 to 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District, to the Central District, the jazz scene developed the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix and the alternative rock subgenre grunge, archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay, the first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest. In 1851, a party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party, members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28,1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland, Oregon, after a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement Duwamps. For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, david Swinson Doc Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement after Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The name Seattle appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23,1853, in 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14,1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of managing the city
4.
Starwood
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Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is an American hotel and leisure company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. One of the worlds largest hotel companies, it owns, operates, franchises and manages hotels, resorts, spas, residences, and vacation ownership properties under its 11 owned brands. As of 1 December 2014, Starwood Hotels and Resorts owned, managed, or franchised over 1,200 properties employing over 180,400 people, of whom approximately 26% were employed in the United States. On November 16,2015, Marriott International announced it would purchase Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide for $13.6 billion, the merger was finalized on September 23,2016 after gaining the final approval from the American authorities. After the acquisition by Marriott was approved, the Starwood Preferred Guest program announced it would provide reciprocal benefits with Marriotts guest reward program, the two programs will be merged under a single brand in the future. The Westin Hotels and Resorts brand is Starwoods largest upscale hotels and it was bought by Starwood in 1994 and is also the oldest brand within Starwood, dating back to 1930 and still continuing with it. Sheraton is Starwoods flagship brand, providing hotel and resort accommodation. It began operating in 1937 and was sold to Starwood in 1998 by ITT, also under the Sheraton brand are 7 Vacation Ownership properties. The flagship of the division was The St Regis in New York City, the majority of the CIGA hotels were folded into the ITT Sheraton Luxury Collection. Both ITT Sheraton and later Starwood kept CIGAs original logo for The Luxury Collection brand logo until 2010, after Starwood bought Sheraton, they established a separate brand identity for The Luxury Collection and expanded it. Many hotels in The Luxury Collection are smaller establishments in converted palaces or other significant buildings, launched in 1995 under the Sheraton Groups brand, this brand is a set of mid-range hotels that replaced the Sheraton Inn sub-brand of Sheraton. W Hotels is Starwoods luxury boutique hotel brand, generally marketed towards a younger crowd, for example, the lobbies of all the hotels are known as the Living Room. W Hotels attempt to include the letter W wherever possible - the swimming pool is known as Wet, the concierge is known as Whatever Whenever, the bag in every room is known as Wash. St. Regis is Starwoods main luxury brand, launched in 1999, in the 1930s, head bartender Fernand Petiot, introduced the Bloody Mary cocktail. It has a total of 137 properties operating or in the worldwide, with its first property being Le Méridien Etoile in Paris. Certain locations offer guests complimentary access to art galleries and museums through collaborations, Le Méridien has a partnership with the Italian coffee roasting company Illy, serving and promoting Illy-branded coffee and products throughout its hotels around the world. Aloft, was launched in 2005 as Aloft, a Vision of W Hotels, in a relationship with W similar to Four Points by Sheraton and its brand parent, Aloft is a mid-scale, urban-style business/boutique hotel brand. Announced in 2006, and originally known as Element by Westin, the designs include energy and water efficient features
5.
Space Needle
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The Space Needle is an observation tower in Seattle, Washington, a landmark of the Pacific Northwest, and an icon of Seattle. It was built in the Seattle Center for the 1962 Worlds Fair, which drew over 2.3 million visitors, once the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River, it is 605 ft high,138 ft wide, and weighs 9,550 tons. It is built to withstand winds of up to 200 miles per hour and earthquakes of up to 9.1 magnitude and it also has 25 lightning rods. It has a deck at 520 ft and the rotating SkyCity restaurant at 500 ft. The downtown Seattle skyline, as well as the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, Elliott Bay, photographs of the Seattle skyline often show the Space Needle prominently, above skyscrapers and Mount Rainier. Visitors can reach the top of the Space Needle by elevators that travel at 10 miles per hour, on windy days, the elevators slow to 5 miles per hour. On April 19,1999, the citys Landmarks Preservation Board designated it a historic landmark, the architecture of the Space Needle is the result of a compromise between the designs of two men, Edward E. Carlson and John Graham, Jr. The two leading ideas for the World Fair involved businessman Edward E. Carlsons sketch of a giant balloon tethered to the ground, victor Steinbrueck introduced the hourglass profile of the tower. The Space Needle was built to withstand wind speeds of 200 mph, the Mw 6.8 Nisqually earthquake jolted the Needle enough in 2001 for water to slosh out of the toilets in the restrooms. The Space Needle will not sustain structural damage during earthquakes of magnitudes below 9. Also made to withstand Category 5 hurricane-force winds, the Space Needle sways only 1 inch per 10 mph of wind speed. For decades, the disk of the Space Needle was home to two restaurants 500 ft above the ground, the Space Needle Restaurant, which was originally named Eye of the Needle. These were closed in 2000 to make way for SkyCity, a restaurant that features Pacific Northwest cuisine. It rotates 360 degrees in exactly forty-seven minutes, in 1993, the elevators were replaced with new computerized versions. The new elevators descend at a rate of 10 miles per hour, on December 31,1999, a powerful beam of light was unveiled for the first time. Called the Legacy Light or Skybeam, it is powered by lamps that total 85 million candela shining skyward from the top of the Space Needle to honor national holidays and special occasions in Seattle. The concept of this beam was derived from the official 1962 Worlds Fair poster and it is somewhat controversial because of the light pollution it creates. Originally planned to be turned on 75 nights per year, it has generally been used fewer than a dozen times per year
6.
Melbourne
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Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name Melbourne refers to an urban agglomeration spanning 9,900 km2, the metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 4,641,636 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemens Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named Melbourne by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the worlds largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the interim seat of government until 1927. It is a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a centre for street art, music. It was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the main passenger airport serving the metropolis and the state is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia. The Port of Melbourne is Australias busiest seaport for containerised and general cargo, Melbourne has an extensive transport network. The main metropolitan train terminus is Flinders Street Station, and the regional train. Melbourne is also home to Australias most extensive network and has the worlds largest urban tram network. Before the arrival of settlers, humans had occupied the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement, it was inhabited by under 2000 hunter-gatherers from three indigenous tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and it would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. Batman selected a site on the bank of the Yarra River. Batman then returned to Launceston in Tasmania, in early August 1835 a different group of settlers, including John Pascoe Fawkner, left Launceston on the ship Enterprize
7.
Columbia Center
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Columbia Center is the tallest skyscraper in the downtown Seattle skyline and the tallest building in the State of Washington. At 937 ft, it is currently the third tallest structure on the West Coast after Los Angeless 73-story 1, Bank Tower, and the 1, 099-foot Wilshire Grand Center. The tower has the tallest public viewing area on the West Coast and west of the Mississippi and it occupies most of the block bounded by Fourth and Fifth Avenues and Cherry and Columbia Streets. It contains 76 stories of office space above ground and seven stories of various use below ground. Construction of this began in 1982 and finished in 1985. It was designed by Chester L. Lindsey Architects who also designed the Fourth and Blanchard Building in the Belltown neighborhood, Columbia Center was designed by Washington architect Chester L. Lindsey. The base of the building is clad in Rosa Purino Carnelian granite, the buildings structure is composed of three geometric concave facades with two setbacks, causing the building to appear like three towers standing side by side. 1%. The tower was designed to be about 306.5 m. There is a deck on the 73rd floor which offers views of Seattle. The top two floors of the building are occupied by the private Columbia Tower Club, which houses a restaurant, bar, library, the 40th floor is accessible to the public and features a Starbucks cafe. An underground concourse connects the building to the nearby Seattle Municipal Tower and that name gave it the nickname BOAT. In November 2005, the name was changed back to Columbia Center after the bank reduced its presence in the building. Bank of America still maintains office space within the building, but has closed the bank branch at the base of the tower. Two years before the start of construction, in 1980, Howard S. Wright construction company began to become involved with the phases of the Columbia Center. Martin Selig, a prominent Seattle developer, borrowed $205 million in 1981 to develop the property and this was among one of the largest foundations for a building in Seattle along with concrete footings extending 134 feet below street level. However, the steel of the building was built at a rate of 2 floors per week. Then, the building itself was completed on January 12,1985, U. S. Steel Corporation was contracted to provide 16,000 short tons of steel for construction. It was approximately 50% taller than the previous tallest skyscraper in Seattle, Selig continued to own and manage the building until 1989, when financial problems forced him to sell it to Seafirst Corporation for $354 million
8.
Storey
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A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people. The plurals are storeys and stories respectively, the terms floor, level, or deck can also be used in this sense, except that one may use ground floor and ground level for the floor closer to what is considered the ground or street level. The words storey and floor also generally exclude levels of the building that have no roof, houses commonly have only one or two floors. Buildings are often classified as low-rise, mid-rise and high-rise according to how many levels they contain, the tallest skyscraper in the world, Burj Khalifa, has 163 floors. As of 2013, the tallest planned skyscraper, Sky City, is planned to have 202 floors, the height of each storey is based on the ceiling height of the rooms plus the thickness of the floors between each pane. Generally this is around 10 feet total, however, it varies widely from just under this figure to well over it, storeys within a building need not be all the same height — often the lobby is more spacious, for example. Additionally, higher levels may be smaller in volume than the ones beneath them, in English, the principal floor or main floor of a house is the floor that contains the chief apartments, it is usually the ground floor, or the floor above. In Italy the main floor of a home is usually above the ground level, the attic or loft is a storey just below the buildings roof, its ceiling is often pitched and/or at a different height than that of other floors. A penthouse is an apartment on the topmost storey of a building. A basement is a storey below the main or ground floor, split-level homes have floors that offset from each other by less than the height of a full storey. A mezzanine, in particular, is typically a floor halfway between the floor and the next higher floor. Homes with a split-level entry have the main floor raised half a storey height above the street entrance level. In Macys Herald Square, there is a one and a floor between the first and second, this can be considered a split level floor. There are also car parks, also known as parking garages. Floor numbering is the scheme used for a buildings floors. There are two major schemes in use across the world, in one system, used in the majority of European countries, the ground floor is the floor literally on the ground and often has no number or is assigned the number 0. Therefore, the floor up is assigned the number 1 and is the first floor. The other system, used primarily in the United States and Canada, counts the bottom floor as the first floor, the existence of two incompatible conventions is a common source of confusion in international communication, sometimes even between communities who speak the same language
9.
John Graham & Company
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The firm was responsible for many Seattle landmarks and a number of significant structures nationwide, including the Space Needle, the Chase Tower of Rochester, New York, and the Westin Seattle. The firm was merged into the DLR Group on May 19,1986, John Graham was born in Liverpool, England in 1873. He apprenticed as an architect in England as a young man, first visiting Seattle, Washington, in 1896, he immigrated to the United States in 1900, starting a one-man architectural practice in Seattle. He started off modestly, designing mainly industrial-related buildings and private residences and his first notable project was designing the reconstruction of the Trinity Parish Church at Eight Avenue and James Street in 1902 after it had been damaged by fire. After a brief partnership with Alfred Bodley in 1904, Graham founded the firm of Graham & Myers with David J. Myers in 1906 and he would work with Myers until 1910. As architect for the Ford Motor Company, he designed more than 30 of Fords assembly plants between 1912 and 1940, throughout the 1920s and 30s, he would design hundreds of commercial and public buildings in the Seattle area including the Frederick & Nelson store in 1916. He also helped found the Seattle Yacht Club and he retired from architecture in 1945 and died on March 20,1955, while on tour in Hong Kong. John Graham Jr. graduated from Yale University, established a satellite office of his fathers firm in New York City in 1937. Renaming the firm to John Graham & Company, the firm expanded a relatively modest regional practice to an office with national presence and it was ultimately responsible for over a thousand commissions. Their primary focus was commercial projects, many were straightforward mid-century modernist office towers, such as San Franciscos 196744 Montgomery tower. The firm would go on to design seventy malls nationwide, the authorship of Grahams single most prominent work, the Space Needle, is disputed. Clearly the revolving restaurant, the Eye of the Needle, was Grahams conception, hed already devised La Ronde for the Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu in 1961, and was awarded a patent for the idea in 1964
