Capitol Hill:
Is the second most densely populated neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States, after Belltown (in northern downtown). It is the center of gay life in Seattle and also a center of the city's counterculture, while also home to some of the city's grandest mansions and many attractions.
The origin of the neighborhood's name is disputed. According to one story, James A. Moore, the real estate developer who platted much of the area, named it thus in the hope that the Washington government would move to Seattle from Olympia. According to another, Moore named it after the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver, Colorado, his wife's hometown. It is thought by the editors of HistoryLink that the true story is a combination of the two.
Prior to Moore's naming it so in 1901, Capitol Hill was known as Broadway Hill.
Due to its one-time large Roman Catholic population, Capitol Hill was frequently referred to as Catholic Hill up until the 1950s
Always an eclectic neighborhood, since about 1980 Capitol Hill has also had a reputation as the center of gay life in Seattle, although it has never been as exclusively gay as The Castro in San Francisco.
It also has a reputation as the heart of trendy Seattle, and was the neighborhood most closely associated with the grunge scene, although most of the best-known music venues of that era were actually located slightly outside the neighborhood. Further, Capitol Hill is heavily associated with drugs and street life by area residents. In this sense, the neighborhood more closely resembles San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood than The Castro.
A stroll down Broadway or through Cal Anderson Park reveals a wide diversity of people, with couples walking dogs, punks hanging out on street corners, technology workers who commute to work across Lake Washington buying groceries and, in the evenings, club-goers from all over Seattle and Bellevue visiting the scene for a night out. Shopping in the numerous retail stores and boutiques offers everything from African art to Hot Topic and there are many used and vintage clothing stores on Broadway, a few art galleries along East Pike and Pine Streets, and music stores specializing in hip-hop, dance and electronica, gothic and industrial, or rare used records.
Most of the Hill's major thoroughfares are dotted with coffeehouses, taverns and bars, and residences cover the gamut from modest motel-like studio apartment buildings to some of the city's grandest and most venerable mansions, with the two extremes sometimes cheek-by-jowl.
The neighborhood figures prominently in nightlife and entertainment, with many bars hosting live music and with numerous fringe theatres. Capitol Hill is also home to two of the city's best-known movie theaters, two of them part of the Landmark Theatres chain both of which are architectural conversions of private meeting halls: the Harvard Exit, in the former home of the Women's Century Club (converted in the early 1970s) and the Egyptian Theatre, in a former Masonic lodge (converted in the mid-1980s). There is also Seattle's only cinematheque, Northwest Film Forum, which in addition to screening films, teaches classes on filmmaking, and produces film alongside Seattle's burgeoning filmmaking community. The Broadway Performance Hall, located on the campus of Seattle Central Community College (SCCC), also hosts a variety of lectures, performances, and films.
Bars and clubs
A club from a much earlier era: a sign over the rear door of the Harvard Exit Theater preserves the memory of the Women's Century Club.
At least since the 1970s, Capitol Hill has played a prominent role in Seattle's nightlife. Prominent bars in the 1970s, inevitably also full-scale restaurants, were the upmarket, elegant Henry's Off Broadway, owned by The Schwartz Brothers, local Restaurant and Business Entrepreneurs Bill and John Schwartz, and two Broadway "fern bars" owned by Gerry Kingen. (Kingen also turned the Red Robin from a single tavern at the southern end of the University Bridge into a restaurant chain.) The bars at his Boondocker's, Sundecker's, & Greenthumb's and Lion O'Reilly's & BJ Monkeyshines were both popular with a young crowd, mostly heterosexual and single. Lion O'Reilly's had a last hurrah as "Lion O's Rock Hard Cafe", which resulted in legal action by the Hard Rock Cafe chain. Surviving from that era, with a rougher-hewn version of the same style, is Canterbury Ales and Eats on 15th Avenue E.
With a similar look, but far more emblematic of what was to come, was the Brass Door (later known as Brass Connection when they secured a hard alcohol license) a bar and disco with a predominantly gay male crowd and occasional drag shows. It played a key role in moving the heart of Seattle's gay nightlife scene from relative hidey-holes, mainly in the Pioneer Square and Belltown neighborhoods, to higher-profile venues, mainly on Capitol Hill and especially in the Pike-Pine corridor.
In the late 1980s, another gay bar, Tugs Belltown, moved up to the Hill (corner of Pine and Belmont) and became Tugs Belmont. In this new venue, it played a key role in Seattle's burgeoning fringe theater scene. Possibly the first bar in Seattle since before the Prohibition era to regularly host theater performances, in the early 1990s it was the primary home of the Greek Active Theater, founded by Dan Savage (working pseudonymously as Keenan Hollohan).
Under Washington State's liquor laws, until the 1990s it was virtually impossible to have a bar that served hard liquor without having a full restaurant: at least 40% of revenues had to come from food. Drinking establishments were (and still are) divided into bars with full licenses and taverns that could sell only beer, wine, and hard cider.
The scene along the Pike-Pine corridor was never exclusively gay. In the 1990s Moe's, on Pike just east of Broadway (now named Neumo's) transformed a former Salvation Army facility into a combination bar, restaurant, and performance venue, with local and national acts as well as dance nights, and became for several years one of Seattle's most prominent musical performance venues. Now Neumo's and nearby Chop Suey continue that live music tradition and dozens of trendy (and friendly-but-divey) bars and clubs cater to gay- and straight-themed nightlife.
Sign on the tower of All Pilgrims Church on Broadway makes it clear that gay people are welcome. 
St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral dominates the North Capitol Hill skyline.
South Lake Union:
is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, so named because it is at the south tip of Lake Union. Like most Seattle neighorhoods, its precise boundaries are indeterminate, but it is bounded roughly by Denny Way on the south, beyond which is Downtown, by Interstate 5 on the east, beyond which is Capitol Hill, by Aurora Avenue N. (State Route 99) on the west, beyond which is Lower Queen Anne, and by Aloha Street, Lake Union, and E. Garfield Street on the north, beyond which are Westlake and Eastlake. The portion of South Lake Union east of Fairview Avenue N. was historically known as Cascade, though the distinction is less often made today.
Its main thoroughfares are Valley, Mercer, and Broad Streets (east- and westbound) and Dexter, 9th, Westlake, and Fairview Avenues N. and Eastlake Avenue E. (north- and southbound). The city is currently addressing transportation issues and considering changing Mercer Street into a two-way, six-lane, tree-lined boulevard. Valley Street would become a two-way, pedestrian friendly road.
Future as a hub for life sciences
Due to recent development plans by Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc., as well as other prominent developers, South Lake Union is becoming a hub for life science organizations. Some in the area include: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Zymogenetics, Battelle, Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Seattle Children's Hospital, Rosetta (now part of Merck & Co.), Bio-Rad, and University of Washington Medicine.
The South Lake Union Campus of the University of Washington School of Medicine now includes 1250 people (researchers and staff) in four buildings.[19] The oldest is the "Blue Flame" building (the former home of Washington Natural Gas) at 815 Mercer St, which houses 4 floors of biotechnology and medical research laboratories. Among the varied research areas are four Centers, focused on Allergy & Inflammation, Cardiovascular Biology & Regenerative Medicine, Lung Biology and Translational Medicine in Women's Health.
Plans for development of a biotechnology hub in South Lake Union has been somewhat controversial, as it is seen by some as an example of influential private companies receiving benefits from the city. There were early worries that formerly affordable housing would be destroyed and not replaced. The non-profit Low-Income Housing Institute (LIHI) now has 5 buildings in South Lake Union and Denny Triangle.[20] Vulcan Real Estate opened the low-income Borealis Apartments on May 20, 2008.[21] Alley24 has 20% of its units set aside for those earning less than 60% of the median income. Additionally, Seattle’s Office of Housing began construction of the affordable Cascade Senior Housing in July 2008.[22]
In 2007, the South Lake Union Streetcar began operation, connecting Westlake Center to the south end of Lake Union at Yale Avenue N., near the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Living South Lake Union
Kayaks in storage in South Lake Union
Historically, Cascade was the only district in South Lake Union with many residential options, with housing options ranging from single-family houses and houseboats to apartments and condominiums, while the rest of the neighborhood's housing restricted to apartments and condominiums, most of recent vintage. As early as 1972, the mayor's "In-City Living Task Force" proposed the creation of 50,000 housing units in high-rise apartments in South Lake Union and Belltown.[23] Since an economic redevelopment was initiated by the City Council in 2003, South Lake Union has seen a marked increase in housing with 1,850 new units, or 2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m2) of housing, either completed or scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008.[24]
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |