A fun family holiday event in northeast Seattle is the annual Candy Cane Lane, a cluster of houses all decked out in lights and themed decorations, located on NE Ravenna Blvd/NE Park Road at 21st Ave NE (see map below).
The opening day of 2024 Christmas tree sales at Hunter Tree Farm, 7744 35th Ave NE, signals the beginning of the holiday season in the Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle. Open this year November 22 to December 24, the Christmas tree lot becomes a gathering place for holiday cheer with lights, music and evergreen smells.
The autumn season brings vibrant color to the flame ash street trees along the arterial 35th Avenue NE in the Wedgwood neighborhood of northeast Seattle.
A stroll to enjoy the colors of the season can be taken along with stops at local businesses and at outdoor seating. The variety of resting places includes bus shelters, benches outside of businesses, and outdoor tables at local cafe and coffee shops.
The Morningside Market in Wedgwood, 9118 35th Ave NE, which opened in 1926, has a friendly bench. Photo by Valarie.
In Autumn we observe the seasonal activities of birds. Like people, some birds fly out, migrating to a warmer climate for the winter. Some birds, and some people, stay in Seattle and make preparations for surviving winter conditions.
Around Seattle we see Bonaparte’s Gulls which may stay for the winter.
Heermann’s Gulls are seen gliding and gulping fish while on their way to Mexico for the winter.
Local birder Joe Sweeney writes that it has become commonplace to see Anna’s Hummingbirds in Seattle even in winter, undoubtedly supported by hummingbird feeders.
In preparation for winter, Steller’s Jays seem to be frantically begging for peanuts which they cache for later consumption.
A Steller’s Jay collects peanuts for winter.
A car in the ditch…. and then another and another.
Car in the ditch along NE 110th Street nearest to the corner of 31st Ave NE. Photo courtesy of the Thornton Creek Watershed Restoration Project.
Over the past three years, residents of the Meadowbrook neighborhood in Seattle often noticed cars in the ditch on the north side of NE 110th Street nearest to the corner of 31st Ave NE.
With school athletic fields on both sides of NE 110th, it was apparent that cars were parking along there when spectators came to watch football or soccer games at the schools.
Since they first began keeping a tally in 2021, neighbors have counted seventeen cars in the ditch.
In 2021 a volunteer group formed to do something about this, based upon environmental concerns. It’s not just a ditch along NE 110th Street — the water flowing there is actually part of a creek system. Steps needed to be taken to prevent illegal parking, restore the landscaping and restore the ability of the soil to filter contaminants out of the water entering the creek, such as rain and roadway runoff.
The Thornton Creek Watershed of northeast Seattle has two main branches, North and South. These branches converge at The Confluence in the Meadowbrook neighborhood at NE 107th Street, on the east side of 35th Ave NE across from Nathan Hale High School.
Now called Meadowbrook Pond Natural Area, the site serves to hold and filter the water before the converged Thornton Creek mainstream flows out to Lake Washington at Matthews Beach on NE 93rd Street.
Meadowbrook Pond in autumn. Photo by Valarie.
The autumn season in Wedgwood begins with the Pumpkin Patch at the Hunter Tree Farm site, 7744 35th Ave NE next door to the Wedgwood Post Office.
The Hunter family use the property in Wedgwood for their annual Christmas Tree sales in December. The Hunter family gives permission for public use of the site for many other events during the year, including the pumpkin sales sponsored by Scout Troop 151.
This year’s Troop 151 Pumpkin Patch is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 AM to 6 PM, every weekend in October 2024. The last day is Sunday, October 27.
Tree-advocates of the Wedgwood neighborhood in northeast Seattle are working to prevent the unnecessary destruction of trees.
This site, 8314 28th Ave NE, is two houses south of Wedgwood School/NE 85th Street, where a stand of Western Red Cedar trees is threatened by development. The City of Seattle construction department has approved that all these trees will be cut down on October 22, 2024. More information is available from: TreeActionSeattle.org
Endangered Western Red Cedar trees at 8314 28th Ave NE, October 2024. Photo by Valarie.
Ervin S. Goodwin, developer of Hawthorne Hills and Victory Heights.
In the 1920s, as developers began to build plats of houses in northeast Seattle, some attached property covenants specifying that no person of a race other than White, could own property in that neighborhood. One of the first to do this was Ervin S. Goodwin who bought and developed large tracts of land including Hawthorne Hills and Victory Heights.
On the east side of 35th Ave NE between NE 55th to 65th Streets, in the 1920s the Crawford & Conover Real Estate Company filed restrictive covenants on their plats called University Home Tracts and University Gardens, in what today is referred to as the Bryant neighborhood.
Like Crawford & Conover who had been active in real estate since the 1880s, there were other companies who held vacant land in northeast Seattle until such time as the population increased and more infrastructure (roads, electricity, etc.) was available. During the housing demand in Seattle during World War Two, the Mylroie family built houses on a section of land from NE 88th to 90th Streets. These traditional-style houses may have inspired developer Albert Balch who later built the original Wedgwood tract of houses.
In the 1930s two young men quit their jobs as radio advertising salesmen and went into real estate. Ralph Jones and Albert Balch started with just one lot, built a house and sold it. They kept expanding and named their development View Ridge. Ralph Jones went on to build houses in the Sand Point Country Club & Golf Course.
In 1941 Albert Balch bought a forty-acre tract of land on the west side of 35th Ave NE between NE 80th to 85th Streets. He named it the Wedgwood Addition. The name “caught on” in popularity as businesses began to use it, until Wedgwood became the name of the neighborhood.
All of the above plats of land have restrictive covenants. Developers likely knew one another and kept track of how their developments were planned.
Although the restrictive covenants are now illegal, you can also apply to have a covenant completely removed from your deed records. Read on for more info.
Magnuson Park in Seattle with its entrance gate at 7400 Sand Point Way NE, is the former site of an airfield which first began to be developed in the 1920s.
In September 2024 we are celebrating the First World Flight, the planes which took off from Sand Point in April 1924 and returned in September that year. Visit the First World Flight Centennial Celebration page for news of the commemorative events.
The story of how Sand Point on Lake Washington became the site of an airfield is that of citizen activists in Seattle.
Wedgwood in Seattle History 