| Denny Park | |
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| Type | Urban Park |
| Location | Seattle, Washington |
| Coordinates | 47°37′09″N122°20′28″W / 47.61917°N 122.34111°W |
| Created | 1883 |
| Operated by | Seattle Parks and Recreation |
Denny Park is a park located in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It occupies the block bounded by John Street and Denny Way on the north and south and Dexter and 9th Avenues N. on the west and east.
Denny Park is Seattle's oldest park. In 1861 pioneer David Denny donated the land to the city as Seattle Cemetery. In 1883, the graves were removed and the cemetery was converted to a park, the city's first. By 1904, the surrounding area had become residential, and the park was improved with formally designed planting beds, swings and other play equipment, a sand lot and a play field. The Denny School, an elementary school, stood slightly southeast of the park from 1884 to 1928. [1] Children were, from the earliest, regular users of the park.
The park originally stood on the north slope of Denny Hill. Between 1900 and 1931, the landscape of central Seattle was reshaped by a series of regrading projects. Denny Regrade No. 1, around 1910, lowered the land to the south and west of the park by some 60 feet (18 m). Some surviving Seattle pioneers successfully demanded that the park remain unchanged. The result, however, was that access to the park from the downtown side was impossible by car due to the grade. In Denny Regrade No. 2, around 1930, the park was graded flat and was once again planted in a formal style; the old Denny School was destroyed in the regrade, and its cupola was placed in the park as an historical marker.
A bust of Mark A. Matthews, a minister and activist, was installed in 1941. [2] In 1948, over the objections of the Denny family, a Parks and Recreation building was built within the park to house this growing city department. For several years, before all of the space was required for Parks personnel, the lower level of the new building housed the Washington Society for Crippled Children. By 1964, Parks Department personnel had fully inhabited the building.
Phase 1 (Play area and lighting) opened on May 2, 2009. [3] Future phases include a new central water feature and a history element highlighting early Seattle (to join the existing statue of Mark A. Matthews).[ citation needed ]
A coalition of park supporters called Friends of Denny Park advocates to city government for safety in the park. This group is working, in partnership with city departments, to revitalize the park to serve its users and the nearby neighborhoods South Lake Union and Denny Triangle.[ citation needed ]
In 2020, a large homeless encampment grew in Denny Park, leading some local residents to avoid the park due to concerns over personal safety. [4] Following a park cleanup by volunteer group We Heart Seattle, the city swept the remaining residents and their belongings from the park. [5]
Pioneer Square is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of Downtown Seattle, Washington, US. It was once the heart of the city: Seattle's founders settled there in 1852, following a brief six-month settlement at Alki Point on the far side of Elliott Bay. The early structures in the neighborhood were mostly wooden, and nearly all burned in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. By the end of 1890, dozens of brick and stone buildings had been erected in their stead; to this day, the architectural character of the neighborhood derives from these late 19th century buildings, mostly examples of Richardsonian Romanesque.
The Chinatown–International District is a neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It is the center of the city's Asian American community. Within the district are the three neighborhoods known as Chinatown, Japantown and Little Saigon, named for the concentration of businesses owned by people of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese descent, respectively. The geographic area also once included Manilatown.
This is the main article of a series that covers the history of Seattle, Washington, a city in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America.
History of Seattle, Washington 1900–1940: Seattle experienced rapid growth and transformation in the early 20th century, establishing itself as a leader in the Pacific Northwest. The Klondike Gold Rush led to massive immigration, diversifying the city's ethnic mix with arrivals of Japanese, Filipinos, Europeans, and European-Americans. The city expanded geographically through annexations and ambitious regrade projects, most notably the Denny Regrade which leveled more than 120 feet of Denny Hill. Major infrastructure projects shaped the city, including the construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the development of an extensive park system designed by the Olmsted Brothers. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909 celebrated the city's rise, while the completion of Smith Tower in 1914 gave Seattle the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.
Belltown is the most densely populated neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States, located on the city's downtown waterfront on land that was artificially flattened as part of a regrading project. Formerly a low-rent, semi-industrial arts district, in recent decades it has transformed into a neighborhood of trendy restaurants, boutiques, nightclubs, and residential towers as well as warehouses and art galleries. The area is named after William Nathaniel Bell, on whose land claim the neighborhood was built.
Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared with other city centers on the U.S. West Coast due to its geographical situation, being hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by Elliott Bay, and on the south by reclaimed land that was once tidal flats. It is bounded on the north by Denny Way, beyond which are Lower Queen Anne, Seattle Center, and South Lake Union; on the east by Interstate 5, beyond which is Capitol Hill to the northeast and Central District to the east; on the south by S Dearborn Street, beyond which is Sodo; and on the west by Elliott Bay, a part of Puget Sound.
The Denny Triangle is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States, that stretches north of Downtown Seattle to the grounds of the Seattle Center. Its generally flat terrain was originally a steep hill, taken down as part of a mammoth construction project in the first decades of the 20th century known as the Denny Regrade, which is another name for the neighborhood on the regraded area. The name Denny Triangle, referring to the northeastern portion of this regrading project, is a term that has gained currency as this neighborhood has seen increasing development in the first decades of the 21st century.
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.
Jan Drago is an American politician and educator from Seattle who has served on both Seattle City Council and King County Council.
Cascade is an urban neighborhood abutting Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States, located adjacent to South Lake Union. It is bounded by: Fairview Avenue North on the west, beyond which is the rest of the Cascade Neighborhood; the Interstate 5 interchange for Mercer St to the north, beyond which is Eastlake; Interstate 5 on the east, beyond which is Capitol Hill; and Denny Way on the south, beyond which is Denny Triangle. It is surrounded by thoroughfares Mercer Street (eastbound), Fairview Avenue N. and Eastlake Avenue E., and Denny Way. The neighborhood, one of Seattle's oldest, originally extended much further: west to Terry Avenue, south to Denny Hill on the South, and east to Melrose Avenue E through the area now obliterated by Interstate 5. Some recent writers consider Cascade to omit the northern "arm", while others extend it westward to cover most of South Lake Union.
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.
South Lake Union is a neighborhood in central Seattle, Washington, so named because it is at the southern tip of Lake Union.
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.
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".
The topography of central Seattle was radically altered by a series of regrades in the city's first century of urban settlement, in what might have been the largest such alteration of urban terrain at the time.
David Thomas Denny was a member of the Denny Party, who are generally collectively credited as the founders of Seattle, Washington, United States. Though he ultimately underwent bankruptcy, he was a significant contributor to the shape of the city. Roger Sale, in his book Seattle, Past to Present, described him as having been "the pioneer to turn to if one had a plan that would be 'good for Seattle', and one needed a respectable tone and a willing investor."
Denny Way is an east–west arterial street in downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. It forms the northern end of the Belltown street grid as well as the boundaries of Belltown, Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, Denny Triangle, and Cascade. The street continues east through Capitol Hill to Madrona as a minor neighborhood street, ending near Madrona Park on Lake Washington.
Westlake Avenue is a major street in Seattle, Washington, connecting Downtown Seattle to the neighborhoods of South Lake Union, Westlake and northeastern Queen Anne. The street runs north–south along the west side of Lake Union for 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from McGraw Square to the Fremont Bridge.
We Heart Seattle (WHS), formerly We Heart Downtown Seattle and incorporated as I Heart Downtown Seattle in October 2020, is a volunteer organization responding to trash and homelessness in Seattle. Its founder and executive director is Andrea Suarez, a resident of Seattle's Belltown neighborhood. The group organizes volunteer trash cleanups in public parks in which homeless people have established camps, primarily through a public Facebook group and Facebook events. The group had a short-lived affiliate, We Heart Portland, which performed similar work in Portland, Oregon.
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