Morningside Heights in Wedgwood: Prohibition, the Great Depression, and Walter S. Wood

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

This is the second article about the life of Walter S. Wood, an early resident of Morningside Heights in Wedgwood.

In 1927 Walter Wood turned forty years old and he was going full-steam ahead with all of his varied businesses in the Morningside Heights plat of what is now part of Wedgwood in northeast Seattle.

Walter Wood’s city directory listing for 1928 gave his occupation as “real estate, fuel, building materials.”  The Wood’s house number was 9428 25th Ave NE,  so Walter had given his store/gas station the same number, 9428 Victory Way (Lake City Way.)   In 1930 his store’s name was in the city directory for the first time, Morningside Service Station, listed as selling oil, gas and groceries, plus wood and coal for home heating.   Since we know that Walter was also serving as Justice of the Peace of Morningside Precinct and he held court right there in his store, it would be fair to say that Walter Wood was doing a real juggling act and trying to keep a lot of balls in the air.

Walter Wood coal shovel

A coal shovel with advertisement of Walter Wood’s place of business at 95th & Victory Way, courtesy of the current owners of the Wood’s house.

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Life in Morningside Heights, Wedgwood: Walter S. Wood

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

In the early 1900s the Wedgwood neighborhood did not yet have a name and the area was quite rural.  The Morningside Heights plat from NE 90th to 95th Streets, 25th to 35th Avenues NE, was one of the early sections of Wedgwood to be divided up with lots for houses and promoted by a real estate company, and Morningside Heights attracted young couples who wanted to achieve the dream of having their own home.   Walter & Verda Wood were 25-year-old newlyweds when they built their new house in Morningside Heights in 1913.

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The Morningside Heights plat in Wedgwood

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Prior to the 1940s, the future Wedgwood neighborhood had been known as Morningside.  The name came from the promotion of the Morningside Heights development close to NE 95th Street.

The Morningside Heights Apartments at 9425 35th Ave NE.

The neighborhood name “Wedgwood” is the legacy of 1940s developer Albert Balch.   As more houses were built and the neighborhood grew in the busy post-World-War-Two period, businesses began naming themselves Wedgwood.   Soon Wedgwood became the accepted name for the entire area, not just the sections of houses that Balch had built.

Today the only Morningside references are an apartment building at NE 95th Street, and the Morningside Market at 9118 35th Ave NE. Continue reading →

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Dahl Playfield in Wedgwood

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Many aspects of Wedgwood as we know it today have been shaped by the processes of community action.   Dahl Playfield at 7700 25th Ave NE is a good example.

Dahl Field entrance from the parking lot. Photo by Valarie, October 2019.

The story of Dahl Playfield began in 1947, when eighty parents of Cub Scout Pack 165 petitioned the city for recreational facilities.   They were joined in their effort by the Ravenna Elementary School PTA.   They realized that in an era of rapid growth, space for parks and playgrounds had to be set aside before all the land was gone.

The Picardo Farm (now known as the P-Patch) was the original site of interest for a park, but due to a fortuitous engineering error, attention shifted to the land south of the farm, known as Big Pond (or) Ravenna Swamp, between NE 75th to 80th Streets.

The text of this article is under a Creative Commons Copyright.  If you choose to cite the article then please include the source, and that goes for photos as well.

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Northwest Modern Architecture in Wedgwood

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Modernist architecture is defined partly by its time period, from the 1930s to about 1970, and modern style also means buildings which are without historical reference to European traditions.   For example, the original Wedgwood group of houses, built by developer Albert Balch 1941-1945, were designed by architects Harlan Thomas and Clyde Grainger in Cape Cod and Colonial styles.   Those are traditional styles which “referenced” New England coastal villages and even reached back to English cottages.

A modernist house in volumetric forms at 9102 32nd Ave NE, built 2016.

Modern architecture is without those traditions and historical references, and instead uses elements of geometric forms and spaces.  In modernist architecture, houses may appear as a collection of volumetric forms, like boxes stacked up on one another.

Rooflines of a modernist house may be a single-slope or reverse-pitch, instead of the traditional gabled roof form.

In the Pacific Northwest School of Modernism, often Japanese influences appear in roof lines, pagoda-like gates and entry courtyards, and rock gardens rather than lawns.

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Earl G. Park, Architect in Wedgwood

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

On the census of the year 1900 in Galesburg, Knox County, Illinois, seventeen-year-old Earl G. Park listed his occupation as “architect.”   Two years later, Earl Park was in Seattle in the employ of a busy and successful architectural firm, Bebb & Mendel.    The story of Earl Park’s arrival in Seattle and his architectural career parallels the exciting years of the growth of Seattle in the early 1900s.

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John R. Nevins, architect in Wedgwood

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

John R. Nevins was an architect and civil engineer who worked in Seattle from 1902 to 1932.   With business partner Earl G. Park, he platted the Nevins & Park Addition in Wedgwood, and Nevins lived on that block from 1916 to 1932.   The Nevins & Park plat is five acres of land which was developed as one long block from NE 82nd to 85th Streets, 28th to 30th Avenues NE.

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The Nevins and Park Plat in Wedgwood

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

The little house at 8255 30th Ave NE was built by John R. Nevins.

The Nevins & Park plat in Wedgwood is five acres of land, one long block from NE 82nd to 85th Streets, 28th to 30th Avenues NE.     To file a “plat” means to register the land with King County and give it a name, and have the plat surveyed and marked out with streets and house lots.

The plat was filed in 1918 by John R. Nevins and Earl G. Park, architects, who built houses on that block for their families.  This blog article will tell how they acquired the property, and the houses they built on the block which are still there.

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The Picardo Farm in Wedgwood

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

The P-Patch community garden is on the site of the former Picardo Farm. Photo courtesy of Joe Mabel.

The Wedgwood neighborhood did not come completely into the Seattle city limits until 1954.  The area retained some of its semi-rural character into the 1960s, such as the Picardo Farm which operated at 8040 25th Ave NE.

The Picardo family’s long legacy of farming would, in the 1970s, be shared with others to create a P-Patch program all over the City of Seattle, and the p-patch idea spread nation-wide.

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A Farm Life in Wedgwood

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Wedgwood in Seattle History

Wedgwood didn’t acquire its identity until the 1940s when developer Albert Balch’s name for his housing development caught on as the name for the whole neighborhood.   In the early 1900s when the future Wedgwood area was still outside the Seattle city limits, the area was quite rural and it attracted young couples seeking inexpensive homes on large lots.   Many people thought that a rural lifestyle away from the city would be more healthful for their children, and they also hoped to live as inexpensively as possible by growing some of their own food.

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