Beacon Hill, Seattle | |
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![]() I-5 & Downtown Seattle from Beacon Hill | |
![]() Beacon Hill highlighted in pink | |
Coordinates: 47°33′08″N122°17′53″W / 47.55222°N 122.29806°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Washington |
County | King |
City | Seattle |
City Council | District 2 |
Time zone | UTC−8 (PST) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC−7 (PDT) |
Zip Code | 98108, 98118, 98144 |
Area Code | 206 |
Beacon Hill is a hill and neighborhood in southeastern Seattle, Washington. It is roughly bounded on the west by Interstate 5, on the north by Interstate 90, on the east by Rainier Avenue South, Cheasty Boulevard South, and Martin Luther King Junior Way South, and on the south by the Seattle city boundary. It is part of Seattle's South End.
The neighborhood has a major population of Asian Americans and African Americans and is among the most racially diverse in Seattle. It was formerly home to the world headquarters of Amazon (at the Pacific Tower) and present home to the Seattle Division of the Department of Veterans Affairs' Puget Sound Health Care System.
Beacon Hill offers views of downtown, the Industrial District, Elliott Bay, First Hill, Rainier Valley, and, when the weather is good, Mount Rainier and the Olympic Mountains. It is roughly bounded on the west by Interstate 5, on the north by Interstate 90, on the east by Rainier Avenue South, Cheasty Boulevard South, and Martin Luther King Junior Way South, and on the south by the Seattle city boundary. It is part of Seattle's South End.
The municipal government subdivides it into North Beacon Hill, Mid-Beacon Hill, Holly Park, and South Beacon Hill, [1] though most people who live there simply call it "Beacon Hill."
Homes on the northern part of the hill were mostly built in the early 1900s; thus, North Beacon Hill contains many examples of Craftsman bungalows and Seattle box houses, a local variant of the Foursquare style.
The Duwamish call the hill "Greenish-Yellow Spine" (Lushootseed: qWátSéécH, pronounced QWAH-tseech), probably referring to the color of the deciduous trees that once grew thickly on the hill. [2] Early settlers named it Holgate and Hanford Hill after two early settlers, John Holgate and Edward Hanford, who settled in the area in the 1850s [3] and are commemorated to this day by South Holgate and Hanford Streets on North Beacon Hill. A later arrival, M. Harwood Young, named the hill after the Beacon Hill in his hometown, Boston, Massachusetts. [4]
Beacon Hill was nicknamed "Boeing Hill" in the 1950s and 60s due to the number of residents who worked in the nearby Boeing airplane factory. The term fell out of use when many Boeing employees joined the general exodus to the suburbs, and Asian immigrants took their place. Today the neighborhood is majority Asian, as can be seen by the many Chinese, Vietnamese, and Filipino businesses along Beacon Avenue South. However, the area remains racially diverse, as shown by the 2000 United States census: 51% Asian, 20% white, 13% black, 9% Hispanic/Latino and 7% other. [5] The census also showed the total Beacon Hill population to be 22,300. Neighboring Rainier Valley also shows a similar diversity.
In 2012, the American Planning Association named Beacon Hill as one of the 30 Great Places in America. [10]
The Beacon Arts Guild is a community nonprofit arts organization that is based on Beacon Hill. They organize cultural events in the neighborhood and sponsor affordable housing and studio space for artists. [11] A summer music festival, named "Beacon Rocks", was organized in the 2010s by another organization to host monthly performances on the Roberto Maestas Festival Street. [12]
The neighborhood is home to the Beacon Food Forest, an urban food forest on 7 acres (2.8 ha) adjacent to Jefferson Park that was created in 2012. The project is part of the city's P-Patch network of shared neighborhood farms and is maintained year-round by volunteers. [13] It includes walnuts, chestnuts, berry shrubs and vegetables. [14]
Queen Anne is a neighborhood in northwestern Seattle, Washington. Queen Anne covers an area of 7.3 square kilometers (2.8 sq mi), and has a population of about 28,000. It is bordered by Belltown to the south, Lake Union to the east, the Lake Washington Ship Canal to the north and Interbay to the west.
Northgate is a neighborhood in north Seattle, Washington, named for and surrounding Northgate Mall, the first covered mall in the United States. Its north-south principal arterials are Roosevelt Way NE and Aurora Avenue N, and its east-west principal arterials are NE Northgate Way and 130th Street. Minor arterials are College Way-Meridian Avenue N, 1st, 5th, and 15th avenues NE. Interstate 5 runs through the district. Besides the eponymous mall, the most characteristic distinctions of the area are North Seattle College (NSC) and the south fork of the Thornton Creek watershed and Seattle Kraken Iceplex center.
The Industrial District is a neighborhood and the principal industrial area of Seattle, Washington. It is bounded on the west by the Duwamish River and Elliott Bay, beyond which lies Delridge of West Seattle; on the east by Interstate 5, beyond which lies Beacon Hill; on the north by S King and S Dearborn Streets, beyond which lie Pioneer Square and southwest International District of Downtown; and on the south by the main lines of the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad, or about S Lucille Street, beyond which is Georgetown. SoDo is the name of the northwest portion of the neighborhood, named for its being South of Downtown. SoDo is the location of T-Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners, and Lumen Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sounders FC. Lumen Field was also the site of the former Kingdome.
Lake City is a neighborhood and the northeast region of Seattle, centered along Lake City Way NE (SR-522), 7–8 miles (11–13 km) northeast of downtown Seattle. A broader definition of the Lake City area includes all the land between 15th Avenue NE and Lake Washington, and between NE 95th and 98th streets to the Seattle city limits at NE 145th Street. Lake City encompasses much of the Thornton Creek watershed, the focus of a long restoration campaign by citizens and Seattle Public Utilities staff to enhance the residential environment of Lake City.
Georgetown is a neighborhood in southern Seattle, Washington, United States. It is bounded on the north by the mainlines of the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad, beyond which is the Industrial District; on the west by the Duwamish River, across which is South Park; on the east by Interstate 5, beyond which is Beacon Hill; and on the south by Boeing Field.
Delridge is a district in Seattle, Washington, United States that stretches along Delridge Way, an arterial that follows the eastern slope of the valley of Longfellow Creek, from near its source just within the southern city limits north to the West Seattle Bridge over the Duwamish River. It is generally associated with the neighborhing district of West Seattle, or even considered a sub-district of West Seattle.
Licton Springs or North College Park is a neighborhood in the informal Northgate district of North Seattle. It is bounded by Interstate 5 to the east, beyond which is Maple Leaf neighborhood and the Northgate Mall; Aurora Avenue N to the west, beyond which is Greenwood; N 85th Street to the south, beyond which is Green Lake, and N Northgate Way to the north, beyond which is Haller Lake.
The Rainier Valley is a neighborhood in southeastern Seattle, Washington. It is located east of Beacon Hill; west of Mount Baker, Seward Park, and Leschi; south of the Central District and north of Rainier Beach. It is part of Seattle's South End.
Matthews Beach is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington; it and Meadowbrook are the southern neighborhoods of the annexed township of Lake City (1954). Matthews Beach lies about 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of the University of Washington, about 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Downtown.
Atlantic is a neighborhood in the Central District of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the northernmost neighborhood in the Rainier Valley area, located between Mount Baker Ridge and Beacon Hill, and may also be considered part of South Seattle. It is home to the Judkins Park neighborhood.
Jefferson Park is a 52.4 acres (0.212 km2) public park and golf course on top of Beacon Hill in Seattle, Washington, bounded on the east by 24th Avenue S. and 24th Place S., on the west by 15th Avenue S., on the north by S. Spokane Street, and on the south by Cheasty Boulevard S.
Rainier Beach is a set of neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington that are mostly residential. Also called Atlantic City, Rainier Beach can include Dunlap, Pritchard Island, and Rainier View neighborhoods.
South Park is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington. It is located just south of Georgetown across the Duwamish River, and just north of the city of Tukwila. Its main thoroughfares are West Marginal Way S., S. Cloverdale Street and 14th Ave. S (north-and-south). South Park connects to Georgetown by two bridges at 1st Ave S. at the northmost end of the neighborhood, and the South Park Bridge at the north end of 14th Ave. South.
In the history of Seattle before white settlement, thirteen prominent villages existed in what is now the city of Seattle. The people living near Elliott Bay, and along the Duwamish, Black and Cedar Rivers were collectively known as the doo-AHBSH, or People of the Doo ("Inside"). Four prominent villages existed near what is now Elliott Bay and the (then-estuarial) lower Duwamish River. Before civil engineers rechanneled the Duwamish, the area had extensive tidelands, and had an abundance of seafoods.
Reginald Heber Thomson was a self-taught American civil engineer. He worked in Washington state, mainly in Seattle, where he became city engineer in 1892 and held the position for two decades. Alan J. Stein wrote that Thomson "probably did more than any other individual to change the face of Seattle" and was responsible for "virtually all of Seattle's infrastructure".
Cheasty Boulevard South is a 1.3-mile (2.1 km) route along the eastern edge of Seattle, Washington's Beacon Hill neighborhood. It was declared a City of Seattle landmark on January 15, 2003. Designed in 1903 as part of Seattle's Olmsted parks system, the property was acquired in 1910. Originally named Jefferson Boulevard, it was renamed in 1914 after E.C. Cheasty of the Parks Board, a former commissioner of the Seattle Police Department and the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition.
The Lester Apartments was a building on the west side of Beacon Hill, Seattle, Washington, United States. It was constructed in 1910–1911, originally intended to be the world's largest brothel. After scandal forced Seattle mayor Hiram Gill from office, the building was converted to be an ordinary apartment house. It met a disastrous end when a B-50 Superfortress crashed into it in 1951, causing a fire that engulfed the building.