Density on Wedgwood’s Western Edge

Posted on October 7, 2017 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

The Seattle City Clerk’s on-line map:  the northwest corner of Wedgwood adjoins Lake City Way NE between NE 85th to 95th Streets.  Wedgwood extends from NE 75th to 95th Streets and is bounded on the east by 45th Ave NE.

In the 1980s the City of Seattle began to set neighborhood “boundaries” to give Seattle residents a sense of place and of civic involvement.  Today the Seattle City Clerk’s maps of neighborhoods as listed, are still given for that purpose.

Some Wedgwood residents may not feel that the City-defined boundaries match their mental map of their neighborhood.  For that reason, few people realized that the western edge of the Wedgwood neighborhood reaches all the way over to Lake City Way NE between NE 85th to 95th Streets.  And few people were aware that until recently, there was a trailer park at the western edge of Wedgwood at 2101 NE 88th Street, adjoining Lake City Way NE.

A new townhouse development is being built on the former trailer park site in western Wedgwood, to be completed in the year 2020.  The evolution of this site from auto camp to trailer park to townhouse development, shows the changes in northeast Seattle as it is gradually becoming more urbanized over many years’ time.

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Density and Proposed Zoning Changes in Wedgwood

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

More than 150 people filled a meeting room in Wedgwood on June 24, 2015, to hear a presentation about how changes in zoning could help to develop more businesses and a more pedestrian-friendly walking environment along 35th Ave NE.  The meeting marked the completion of five years of advocacy by neighborhood activists to seek preservation of Wedgwood’s business district.  But due to complete lack of action by Seattle City Council, as of the year 2017 Wedgwood’s business district is being destroyed, building by building.

Wedgwoodians want their commercial district to have a variety of locally-owned shops.

Changes in zoning could have helped to protect the business environment along 35th Ave NE in the face of oncoming developments, including replacement of any current buildings when that occurs, at the “nodes” (intersections) of NE 75th and 85th Streets along 35th Ave NE in Wedgwood.  The Neighborhood Commercial Zone which was proposed by the Future of 35th recommendations, would apply to future development in the event that any of the buildings at these corners are torn down and rebuilt.

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Redevelopment in Wedgwood’s Commercial District

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Evans Thriftway was in a 1946 grocery building which was remodelled and expanded in 1956-1957 and renamed for owner Russ Evans. The Jasper Apartments are now on this site. Photo courtesy of Puget Sound Regional Archives. The writing on the photo is the legal description with block number and address.

The commercial district of the Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle is arranged along the arterial 35th Avenue NE with clusters of stores at the NE 75th and NE 85th Street intersections.  The majority of the storefronts and office buildings were built during an intense period of development after World War Two ended in 1945.

Soldiers returning from the war married and started families, and in the 1940s and 1950s the vast areas of vacant land in northeast Seattle filled up with single-family housing.  During those years with a growing customer base in the new Wedgwood neighborhood, the Wedgwood business district took form with various kinds of stores and services.  The business district is primarily aligned along the linear arterial of 35th Ave NE and has a 1950s aspect because that decade was the peak period of small businesses.

Today we are beginning to see the tear-down and replacement of commercial buildings in Wedgwood along 35th Ave NE.  Due to the lack of action from Seattle City Council on zoning issues, townhouses with blank walls are being built in the commercial district instead of the storefronts which are wanted by the Wedgwood community.

This blog article will primarily address what happened from 2012 to 2017 with the Jasper Apartments, 8606 35th Ave NE, which marked a major change in the type of commercial building in Wedgwood.  As of 2022 another major change in the neighborhood is pending, the redevelopment of the shopping center at the southeast corner of NE 85th Street.  That project was just announced in 2022 and will be discussed in another article on this blog as plans for the project are firmed up.

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Finding House Histories in Wedgwood

Posted on September 1, 2017 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Do you know the history of your house?   Information about your house, including its age and its setting in the Wedgwood neighborhood of northeast Seattle, can tell you about the house itself and about the people who have lived on your street.  In learning about your house and neighborhood, you can share the info with neighbors to help build camaraderie on your block.

Many house-history resources are now on-line, while other materials are best accessed by an in-person trip to City and County archives.

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Seattle’s Waterway to the World

Posted on August 31, 2017 by Wedgwood in Seattle History
In 2016-2017 we have observed the hundredth anniversary of Seattle’s ship canal which spans the city and joins its freshwater Lakes Union and Washington to the saltwater Puget Sound.  This year as part of the Making the Cut 100 centennial project, a wonderful series of documentary films was produced.  You are cordially invited to join filmmaker Vaun Raymond and Waterway book authors Jennifer Ott and David B. Williams for the public premiere of the documentary film “Seattle’s Waterway to the World.”

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Waterway: The Story of Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Where do you take your visitors from out of town, when they come to Seattle?

For both locals and out-of-town visitors, one of the favorite destinations in Seattle is the Ballard Locks.  Located in north Seattle just west of the Ballard neighborhood’s commercial center, the locks are a site of never-ending interest, seeing boats of all sizes, both recreational and commercial, pass through.

The ship canal extends eight miles from the saltwater Puget Sound, through the Ballard Locks to freshwater Lakes Union and Washington.  The ship canal is both a channel for recreational boating and a working waterway of fishing vessels heading out to sea.

Incredibly, it took more than sixty years from the time Seattle settlers first envisioned a ship canal in 1854, until its construction and completion in 1911-1917.  In commemoration of the centennial of the locks and the ship canal, authors David B. Williams and Jennifer Ott have co-written a new book:  Waterway:  The Story of Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal.

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Ship Canal Centennial Boat Parade

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Boat parade on July 9, 2017 in the Lake Washington Ship Canal

July 4, 1917 was the official opening day of the Ballard Locks in Seattle.  On that day one hundred years ago, the SS Roosevelt led a marine parade of commercial and pleasure craft through the ship canal into Lake Union.

On Sunday, July 9, 2017, we will commemorate this historic event by re-creating Opening Day.  The historic schooner Adventuress will lead a marine parade of historic vessels from Salmon Bay, through the locks eastward into Lake Union.

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Balch and Beyond: New Architecture in Wedgwood

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

The Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle acquired its name and identity in the 1940s with the work of developer Albert Balch.  Balch filed a plat plan on July 31, 1941 for a forty-acre tract of land (five square blocks) on the west side of 35th Ave NE from NE 80th to 85th Streets, which Balch named Wedgwood.

Balch offices in 1962, with the Crawford & Conover real estate sign at 8044 35th Ave NE. Photo 76719 Seattle Municipal Archives.

Balch did not deliberately set out to name the whole neighborhood, but his new housing development gave such a “sense of place” that the Wedgwood name was soon adopted by local businesses, the community club and a new elementary school.  Wedgwood became the epicenter of the Balch construction and real estate businesses when he built his own offices at 8050 and 8044 35th Ave NE, which he used for the rest of his life.

The first group of Wedgwood houses had a unified appearance with all of the houses in consistent scale (size) and setback (distance from the curb).  Balch asked Clyde Grainger and Harlan Thomas, architects of the original Wedgwood, to design houses with New England/Early American motifs including Colonial and Cape Cod styles.  The house styles were all similar, and Wedgwood was a completely finished development with curbs and sidewalks.

Gateposts as entrance markers to the original Wedgwood plat

As an allusion to English estate properties, Balch put in gateposts as entrance markers on 35th Ave NE at NE 81st Street.  The gateposts, reminiscent of an estate entrance, are ornamental-only but they do give a sense of arrival.

Now more than eighty years since the beginning of Wedgwood in Seattle, we are seeing tear-downs of small, 1940s and 1950s Balch houses all around the Wedgwood neighborhood, with new kinds of designs, materials and house forms coming in.  It can be visually jarring to see the contrast between old, traditional architecture and the new styles.

What are houses in Wedgwood “supposed” to look like?  Do new kinds of house forms and materials “fit in” with Wedgwoodian house culture?

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Early Architecture in Wedgwood

Posted on June 14, 2017 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

7714 37th Ave NE, built in 1911 by Dutch immigrant Ryk Spoor.

The history of the Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle goes back only a little more than one hundred years.  Wedgwood was slow to be settled because northeast Seattle was inland, not located on a water resource such as a river or lake, and not close to downtown Seattle for the convenience of commuting to places of employment.

The first families in the (future) Wedgwood area built small houses for ease of heating.  They used wood or coal stoves until electricity came to Wedgwood in about 1923.

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Wedgwood’s Nathan Eckstein Middle School

Posted on May 13, 2017 by Wedgwood in Seattle History
Wedgwood courtesy of HistoryLink

Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle. Map courtesy of HistoryLink.

In 1919 the Seattle School Board established a new program of “intermediate education” for grades 7, 8 and 9.  Up until that time, elementary schools went through the eighth grade and high school was four years.  One of the main reasons for creation of intermediate schools was to relieve crowding in the elementary schools.

In the 1920s there was strong population growth in the north Seattle neighborhoods of Green Lake and Wallingford, and these were the first in north Seattle to get separate intermediate schools.  After the 1920s there were no more intermediate or high schools built in north Seattle until the 1950s, including Nathan Eckstein School at 3003 NE 75th Street in the Wedgwood neighborhood.

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