Seattle: A City of Neighborhoods

Shirley J. Yee

Seattle may be known for its big enterprises—Starbucks Coffee and Microsoft to name just two. But one of its most distinctive characteristics is its unique cluster of neighborhoods—many of which border bodies of water, large and small (Lake Union, Puget Sound, Lake Washington, Green Lake). These bodies of water border residential areas, industrial sectors, and parks with Pacific Northwest birds, fish, and other wildlife in rain or shine. One can also take signed walking tours along Lake Union or bicycle, walk, or run the Burke-Gilman trail—wonderful ways to move through neighborhoods encircling the lake. All of the neighborhoods boast trendy and not-so-trendy restaurants, coffeehouses, and pubs that cater to tourists and locals alike.

When white settlers came to Seattle in the nineteenth century, local Native Americans—the Duwamish, Shilsholes, Tlingits, and Suquamish—fished and farmed in what is now Seattle. Each neighborhood boasts a unique social, political, and economic history. Although diverse ethnic populations have settled in many of Seattle’s neighborhoods, clusters of immigrant people from Europe, Asia, and Africa have settled in particular locales at specific historical moments. In recent years, immigrants and refugees from north Africa, eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have settled in the so-called northwest corridor from Everett to Tacoma.

Ballard/Broadview

Bordering Puget Sound and Salmon Bay, the Ballard neighborhood was a thriving center for the lumber and fishing industries. Known as the “shingle capital of the world,” Ballard’s millworks produced the most shingles in the entire state by the late nineteenth century and assisted in rebuilding Seattle after the Great Fire of 1889, which nearly decimated much of downtown.

▪ Carkeek Park. This park and beach at Golden Gardens was the second park donated to Seattle by Morgan James Carkeek and his wife, Emily Gaskill Carkeek. Born in Cornwall, England, in 1847, Morgan Carkeek was the son of a master stonemason. After immigrating to Seattle in the 1870s, Carkeek began work as a marble mason. He eventually became a prominent building contractor in Seattle, Oregon and Victoria, B.C. The original park was located on Pontiac Bay on Lake Washington, now Sand Point-Magnusson Park in the Sand Point neighborhood. In the 1920s, the Naval Air Station displaced the park. Morgan Carkeek offered the proceeds from the sale of the property to the city of Seattle for another park.

The park and beach at Golden Gardens offer the rare opportunity to peer at a variety of sea creatures on minus-tide days and beautiful views of the Olympic mountains.

▪ Hiram Chittenden (“Ballard”) Locks. Named for Gen. Hiram M. Chittenden of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the locks officially opened in 1917, although the completion of the canal did not occur until 1934. Construction of the ship canal began in November 1911 in a large-scale project to connect Puget Sound to Salmon Bay and Lake Union at Fremont and between Lake Washington at Montlake. The purpose of the locks is to maintain the water level of the fresh water in Lake Washington and Lake Union at twenty to twenty-two feet, prevent sea and fresh water from mixing, and move boats from the water level of the lakes to the water level of Puget Sound and vice versa. The area around the locks also features a visitor’s center and the Carl S. English botanical gardens.

▪ Nordic Heritage Museum (3014 NW 67th St. Hours: 10-4:00 Tuesday-Saturday; take Metro Bus #17 to 32nd Ave.; $6 Adults, $5 Seniors & college students, $4 children over 5yrs., free for children under 5 yrs.)

View the exhibits devoted to Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish history in the 1907 red brick building that was once the Daniel Webster Elementary School. The school educated generations of Scandinavian and other immigrant children who settled in the area. The school closed in 1979 and the museum opened the following year.

Magnolia/Shilshole

Incorporated in the city of Seattle in 1891, the Magnolia neighborhood is located on a peninsula and got its name from George Vancouver. The nineteenth-century English sea captain named the area after the then abundant madrona trees on the bluffs, which he mistook for magnolias. Like many Seattle neighborhoods, Magnolia is partially bound by water—Salmon Bay and Shilshole Bay to the north, Puget Sound to the west, and Elliott Bay and Smith Cove to the south. Much of the peninsula is taken up by Discovery Park.

▪ Daybreak Star Cultural Center. Located on twenty acres in Discovery Park, this Native American cultural center was established in 1977 as a result of protest by Native American activists and occupation of the land in 1970. The area was part of Fort Lawton. In 1970, the U.S. Department of Defense declared the land as surplus. Bernie Whitebear led the movement to claim the land for Indian people, based upon the 1865 U.S.-Indian treaties, which promised the reversion of surplus military lands to their original owners.

▪ West Point Lighthouse. Built in 1881, it is the oldest lighthouse in the Puget Sound area. To get to the lighthouse, take the Discovery Park trails down to the beach and hike toward the lighthouse.

Fremont

Often described as eclectic, funky, and offbeat, this neighborhood is located in the north-central section of Seattle and overlooks Salmon Bay. It is bordered to the west by Ballard and east by the Wallingford neighborhood. Take a walking tour through this neighborhood of shops, restaurants, cafes, microbreweries, and famous landmarks such as The Troll and the statue of Lenin. Fremont is also famous for its annual Solstice Parade, featuring the nude cyclists.

▪ The Troll. This Fremont landmark was sculpted in 1990 by four local artists and is located under a bridge at N. 36th Street. The statue, shown crushing a Volkswagon Beetle, is 5.5 meters high and weighs two tons. The idea of the troll living under the bridge is based upon the Scandinavian tale, “Three Billy Goats Gruff.”

▪ Lenin Statue. The seven-ton statue of Vladimir Lenin was completed by Bulgarian sculptor Emil Venkov in 1988. Originally commissioned by the Soviet and Czech governments, the statue was removed from its location in front of a hospital in Poprad, Czechoslovakia, several months after the fall of the communism in 1989. Lewis E. Carpenter, a resident of Issaquah, Washington, found the statue in a scrap yard while he was teaching English in Proprad. He purchased the statue for $13,000 and shipped it in three pieces to the U.S. After Carpenter’s death in 1994, his family moved the statue from Carpenter’s backyard to Fremont.

▪ Wallingford. This neighborhood is named for John Noble Wallingford, a New England-born farmer who made his way to the west coast via Minnesota. He and his first wife, Arabella J. Degroot Wallingford, moved up and down the coast, where J.N. worked first as a lumber merchant and then turned his sights to the Seattle area, where he became a wealthy landowner and real estate speculator. By 1900, the Wallingford family resided on Woodlawn Ave. and 1st Ave. North near Green Lake. J.N. Wallingford owned much of the land south of the lake. Wallingford is known for Dick’s Drive-In Hamburger, the Guild 45th movie theater, and many small shops, taverns, and restaurants that line the main thoroughfare on N. 45th Street. Wallingford Center, the former Interlake Elementary School, now houses numerous shops, a restaurant, and apartments. Gas Works Park on Lake Union lies several blocks south of the business district and holds one of several annual Fourth of July fireworks displays in the city.

Beacon Hill

The Beacon Hill neighborhood in southeast Seattle has been known by many names over its long history. The area was originally called “Greenish-Yellow Spine” by the Duwamish. During the nineteenth century, early white settlers named the area Holgate Hill and Hanford Hill after John Holgate and Edward Hanford settled there in the 1850s. The name “Beacon Hill” stuck after another white settler, M. Harwood Young, a Union Army veteran and general manager of the New England Northwestern Investment Company, named the area after the Beacon Hill in his home city of Boston. Today, the Beacon Hill neighborhood in southeast Seattle is home to a diverse population of whites, Asians, and Latinos, whose businesses line Beacon Avenue South. Sights worth noting include: Jefferson Park golf course, Dr. Jose Rizal Park, which overlooks downtown, Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains, El Centro de la Raza, a civil rights and community service organization in the former Beacon Hill High School, and the Beacon Hill Baptist Church, a designated historic landmark Tudor Revival building constructed in 1910.

International District

The International District (know by locals as “The I.D.”), is featured in the tour led by Ron Chew, former director of the Wing Luke Museum (See OAH Program).

▪ Panama Hotel. Built in 1910 by Japanese architect and University of Washington graduate Sabro Ozasa, this historic building has housed Japanese immigrants, Alaska fishermen, and international travelers. The building still functions as a hotel, but has preserved important features of its historical connection to the Japanese community in Seattle, including a bathhouse (sento), which closed in 1950. Today, the hotel features a tea house and provides tours of the building.

▪ Wing Luke Asian Museum (719 South King Street; open Tuesday-Sunday, 10-5:00; $8 Adults, $6 Seniors & students grades six and above, $5 grades K-five and ages 5-12; free children under 5 yrs. The first Thursday and third Saturday of the month are free admission days and the museum is open until 8:00. Take the #7, 14, 36 or 99 Waterfront streetcar line). Now located in the historic East Kong Yick Building, the Wing Luke museum was named for Wing Luke, a Chinese civil rights activist who immigrated to Seattle as a child in 1930. A University of Washington alumnus, Wing earned a law degree and later served as the state’s assistant attorney general. The museum collects and preserves material artifacts and oral histories of the Asian Pacific Northwest community. A new exhibit on native Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest runs through August 2009.

▪ Uwajiamaya. Located in the heart of the International District, this beloved Seattle emporium completed extensive renovation in 2000 and is now known as Uwajimaya Village. The original store opened in 1970 at 6th Ave. South and South King St., the largest Japanese supermarket in the Pacific Northwest. Fujimatsu Moriguchi founded the enterprise in 1928 in Tacoma, where he sold homemade fish cakes and other food items from the back of his truck to Japanese laborers working in the logging and fishing camps along Puget Sound. He named the store after the town of Uwajima in Japan. The Moriguchi family operated the store until the signing of Executive Order 9066 in 1942. The Moriguchis were sent to the Tule Lake Internment Camp in California. After the war, they relocated to Seattle, where they reopened Uwajimaya on South Main St. The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair facilitated the development of the business, which now included food and wares from throughout east Asia. Seven family members remain active in the daily management of Uwajimaya, which now includes a food court, book store, and cosmetics shop.

Central Area

Located south of Capitol Hill and north of Rainier Valley, this mostly residential district is historically home to the highest concentration of African Americans in the Pacific Northwest. Historical studies on the area include University of Washington historian Quintard Taylor’s book, The Forging of the Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era (1994) and Esther Hall Mumford’s book, Seattle’s Black Victorians (1980).

▪ Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) (2300 S. Massachusetts St.). Thirty years in the making, the Northwest African American Museum opened its doors in May 2008, in the historic Colman School. Hours: Wednesday-Saturday 11-4:00, Sunday 12-4:00. Admission: $6 Adults, $4 Students/ Seniors, free for children 5 yrs. & younger.

▪ Douglass-Truth branch of the Seattle Public Library. Originally named the Henry L. Yesler Memorial Library, this branch of the Seattle Public Library system has been serving the Central District since 1914. It was the first of the city’s branch libraries not to be financed by Andrew Carnegie, although the building’s design resembled the traditional Carnegie floor plan. In 1975, the branch was renamed in honor of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, a reflection of the demographic changes of the area and the settlement of a vibrant African American community.

▪ Immaculate Conception Church (820 18th Ave at Columbia St.) Jesuit priests founded the church and the School of Immaculate Conception in 1891. The church structure was completed in 1904 and is the oldest standing Roman Catholic Church in Seattle. The building gained landmark status in 1977. The school later became Seattle University.

▪ Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center (formerly the Bikur Cholim Synagogue) (104 17th Ave. South) The center has been housed in a beautiful historical building in the heart of the Central Area since 1972. It is operated by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation and hosts performances, classes, and events that celebrate and preserve African American artistic and cultural expressions.

▪ Ezell’s Chicken (23rd avenue and E. Jefferson St.) This Central Area landmark began as a family business. The original store opened across from Garfield High School in 1984 and has been the favorite of such celebrities as Oprah Winfrey. The business has expanded to include a total of five locations in the Seattle area.

Georgetown

Also referred to as SODO (“South of the old King Dome”), this neighborhood mixes residential and industrial spaces. Bordered by the Duwamish River and the BNSF Railway, Georgetown was settled by whites in 1851 when Luther Collins staked his land claim. It was incorporated in 1904 and then consolidated with Seattle in 1910. It is the site of the old Rainier Brewery, as well as the Georgetown Steam Plant. The neighborhood has become a haven for local artists, antique aficionados, and pubgoers. Stop by for a beer and pizza at Stellars.

First Hill/Capitol Hill

Dubbed “Pill Hill” because of the busy, dense cluster of medical centers such as Virginia Mason Hospital, Swedish Hospital, and Harborview Medical Center, this area, located a few blocks southeast of downtown, was the site where some of Seattle’s first families resided.

North of First Hill is Capitol Hill. Bound by I-5 to the west, Capitol Hill contained some of the largest mansions in the city, including “Millionaire’s Row,” along 14th Avenue E. Registered historical sites include the Harvard-Belmont Landmark District, where the original building of the Cornish College of the Arts is located. Theaters, shops, and restaurants abound in this bustling neighborhood, where parking is always at a premium.

From the early 1970s through the 1990s, Capitol Hill was the center of the gay and lesbian communities, with Broadway tacitly acknowledged as the gay men’s domain and 15th Avenue E as the lesbian thoroughfare. Until 2008, the annual GLBTQ march wound down Broadway, ending at Volunteer Park. Although residential and business patterns in the Queer community did not break down so strictly, gay- and lesbian-owned businesses were long-standing landmarks. Some establishments have been replaced, but, other gay-owned businesses remain, such as Bailey Coy Books on Broadway.

Green Lake/Ravenna/University District

The Green Lake neighborhood takes its name from Green Lake, the body of water that was originally named “Lake Green” by surveyor David Phillips. When Phillips surveyed the lake in September 1855, he noted the algae blooms had given the lake a greenish hue. This neighborhood is a mix of residences and small businesses. Green Lake Park is one of the most popular in the city. On the grounds of this beautiful green space is the Bathhouse Theater, which stages plays and events on a regular basis. There is also an indoor pool and a place to rent watercraft. Rowers and anglers share space with diverse waterfowl, such as buffleheads and mergansers. The Woodland Park Zoo is also nearby.

▪ Woodland Park Zoo (Hours: 9:30-4:00 daily) The zoo is located on the grounds of the old Phinney estate between the Green Lake and Phinney neighborhoods, also known as “Upper” Woodland Park, north of the Fremont neighborhood. Guy C. Phinney, a wealthy immigrant from Nova Scotia, developed a traditional English garden on the shores of Green Lake, which also included a large house, pump house to bring water from Green Lake to his gardens, and a stone entrance on 50th Ave. By the late 1890s, he also developed a park for a small deer herd within the grounds.

University District

Located three miles north of downtown, the “U-District” is one of the city’s oldest communities. Many of the mansions along the tree-lined boulevards now house University of Washington students. The district caters to the needs of more than 50,000 “U-Dub” students, in addition to its base residential population of 35,000. University Avenue, known by locals as “the Ave,” contains the main branch of the University of Washington Bookstore, a post office, secondhand record and clothing stores, cafes, inexpensive restaurants, the Varsity and Neptune movie theaters, and Magus used bookstore. While visiting the University of Washington Seattle campus, make sure you also take time to visit the Burke Museum and the Henry Art Gallery.

Seward Park

Located in southeast Seattle, the Seward Park neighborhood lies just west of the recreational park of the same name. The park and much of the residential neighborhood borders Lake Washington. The indigenous people who lived on the lake by the time the Europeans settled in this area were xachua’bsh (hah-chu-AHMSH) or “lake people” and called the lake “xachu.” Among the earliest white settlers to the area were Edward A. Clark, a former clergyman from Pennsylvania, and John Harvey, an English immigrant, who staked claims along Lake Washington in 1852. Harvey worked at Henry Yesler’s sawmill. Today, the Seward Park neighborhood is ethnically diverse, home to African Americans, Asian Americans, and whites. The neighborhood has also served as the center of a vibrant Orthodox Jewish community, both Ashkenazi and Sephardic. Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath, the oldest synagogue in the state, is located in the Seward Park neighborhood.

Queen Anne

Home to the Space Needle and Seattle Center, the Queen Anne neighborhood sits atop a steep hill, rising 456 feet above Puget Sound. When white settlers arrived in the nineteenth century, the Duwamish lived in log long houses just south of the hill in what would later become downtown Seattle. The Shilsholes also lived in the area on the north side of Salmon Bay. Although white settlers who would eventually become prominent citizens, including Arthur Denny and Thomas Mercer, built homes on Queen Anne, the neighborhood gained national prominence as a result of the 1962 World’s Fair. The Seattle Center sits on seventy-four acres of land that once belonged to David Denny and features the Opera House, Pacific Science Center, and several theaters.

Belltown/Pioneer Square

Pioneer Square is one of Seattle’s oldest neighborhoods and boasts a bustling night life, which includes jazz clubs, cafes, and restaurants. Tourist sites include the now infamous Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour, a guided exploration in the subterranean passages beneath the city’s streets and sidewalks. The Great Fire of 1889 destroyed much of this downtown area. The city was rebuilt (with the assistance of Ballard millworks) on top of the original streets. The tour begins at Doc Maynard’s Public House, a restored saloon at 608 First Ave (between Cherry St. and Yesler Way) and winds its way through former streets and original first-floor store fronts of old downtown Seattle.

Pike Place Market

Perhaps the most familiar historic landmark and tourist destination besides the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, which opened in August 1907, serves both locals and visitors from all over the world. You cannot miss the large neon “Public Market” and the huge clock face as you head westward down the steep end of Pike Street. In the early decades of the twentieth century, more than 3,000 farmers, many of whom were recent Italian, German, Chinese, Japanese and Filipino immigrants, brought fresh fruit, vegetables, and flowers from farms in the Rainier Valley, and the bottomlands at the Duwamish, Black, and White rivers south of the city as well as at the Cascade foothills. Today, one can purchase everything from produce, fish, and Middle Eastern foods to trinkets, t-shirts, and other wares sold in the many shops within the public market building and across the street.

Shirley Yee is associate professor in the department of women’s studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, and is cochair of the 2009 OAH Convention Local Resource Committee.