Archives for February 2011

Community meetings of note this week

February 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Lots of community meetings this week which you may have interest/be a stakeholder in:

Roosevelt Neighborhood Association Land Use Committee Meeting
Monday, February 28, 7 PM
Calvary Christian Assembly, 6801 Roosevelt Way NE

Topics include the latest developments on the Roosevelt Development Group/Sisley project (which people particularly in northwest Ravenna should be paying attention to), and the Roosevelt neighborhood rezone.

Ravenna Bryant Community Association Board Meeting
Tuesday, March 1, 7 PM
Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center, 6535 Ravenna Avenue NE

Monthly RBCA board meetings (first Tuesdays) are always open for residents to attend. No official agenda out yet, but there will likely be a recap of the previous evening’s RNA Land Use meeting.

Northeast District Council Meeting
(Tentatively) Thursday, March 3, 7 PM
Wedgwood Presbyterian Church, 8008 35th Avenue NE

The NEDC generally meets on the first Thursday of the month, and the agenda often includes a speaker from city or county government (last month’s was City Council President Richard Conlin). Each active neighborhood council in the Northeast district of Seattle sends a representative to this meeting.

For a map of the Northeast District and the neighborhood associations that cover the area (the ones I’ve been able to find the geographical areas of, anyway), check out this map on the Ravenna Bryant Community Association’s website.

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History Friday, Part 4: Original Beauty and Natural Wonders

February 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This is part of the essay “Ravenna Park (Seattle)“, appearing here thanks to HistoryLink.org and author Peter Blecha, under a Creative Commons license.

[If you’re new to the series, you can start with Part 1 here.]

Original Beauty and Natural Wonders

In the wake of the great economic crash of 1893, the Becks’ Seattle Female College was shuttered, but they remained committed to their 60-acre park. Beck fenced it in between 15th Avenue NE eastward to 20th Avenue NE, and over the ensuing years he improved the property by carving out better trails. One was a path to the largest sulfur spring (sometimes known as the “Petroleum Spring,” located at the center of the park, below and just east of today’s 20th Avenue NE bridge), which he had wisely recast as the “Wood Nymphs’ Well.” He also built a teahouse, a 40- by 90-foot pavilion (“Ye Merrie Makers’ Inn”), picnic shelters, wading ponds, and an area called Rhododendron Way where rows of shrubs featuring the state flower were planted.

The park was touted as “a safe, clean, and beautiful place for women and children — a deputy sheriff in charge” (Beck, booklet, 1903). By 1902 it had become so popular that 10,000 visitors reportedly paid the 25-cent admission fee. Beck soon published a booklet that grandly sang the charms of his little piece of paradise: “Ravenna Park, with its standing or fallen giant trees; moss and fern covered canyons; dashing trout streams, preserves in quaint uniqueness every beauty of the wonderful Puget Sound forest, and is Seattle’s only forest unshorn by axe and fire of original beauty and noblest and grandest characteristics” (Beck, booklet, 1903).

For her part, Louise maintained a keen interest in music. Indeed, it would seem that during her earlier musical activities back east she made the acquaintance of more than a few major talents of the day, because when touring stars — including the famed Polish composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the Austrian violinist Fritz Kreisler, and British pianist Harold Bauer — came through town they invariably visited the park and were treated to the “hospitality of her Ravenna Park home” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1928).

Although prominent Seattle historian Clarence Bagley (1843-1932) snarked in 1929 that the park was merely a “dark, dank, dismal hole in the ground” (Manning), many other visitors were awestruck by the outsized flora and the fish-rich Ravenna Creek that flowed through the park (and the adjacent Cowen Park). Some considered it one of Seattle’s prime attractions, on a par with others of America’s treasures: “Like natural wonders such as Niagara Falls, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon, Ravenna Park offered a pilgrimage to the sublime, the contemplative, the spiritual, the terrifying” (Duncan).

Next week: Big Tree Park and Cowen Park

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Sources:
W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park — ‘Im Walde,’ (1903), Peter Blecha collection, Seattle; W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park — ‘Im Walde,’ 16-page postcard booklet, undated, in Peter Blecha collection; W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park (ca. 1909), Peter Blecha collection; “Ravenna Park Guide,” brochure, 1909, Peter Blecha collection; “Ravenna Or Big Tree Park: It is Famous = “Nature’s Exposition,” postcard, 1909, Peter Blecha collection; Harvey Manning, Winter Walks and Hikes (Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2002), 42; Betty McDonald, Anybody Can Do Anything (Philadelphia / New York: J. B. Lippincott Co, 1950), 129-130; Paula Becker, “Time Traveling The Roosevelt District With Betty Macdonald,” Seattlepress.com website accessed July 13, 2010 (http://seattlepress.com/article-9455.html); “One of Ravenna’s Giant Trees Christened ‘Paderewski,'” Interlaken, February 8, 1908, p. 1; Sophie Frye Bass, When Seattle Was A Village (Seattle: Lowman & Hanford Co., 1947), 106-108:  David Buerge, “Indian Lake Washington,” Seattle Weekly, August 1-7, 1984; Seattle Polk City Directory (1901-1934); Directory of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Washington D.C.: Memorial Continental Hall, 1911), 1340; “Mrs. L. C. Beck Funeral To Be Held Today: Woman Widely Known In Musical and Club Circles Is Mourned By Seattle Friends,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 9, 1928, p. 13; Kate C. Duncan 1001 Curious Things: Tales from Ye Olde Curiosity Shop (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 73-78; Andrea Casadio, email to Peter Blecha, January 30, 2008; “No Finer Site: The University of Washington’s Early Years On Union Bay,” Web exhibition, University of Washington Libraries website accessed August 19, 2010 (http://lib.washington.edu/exhibits/site/); HistoryLink.org Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, “Seattle’s Ravenna Park Bridge is constructed in 1913” (by Priscilla Long), and “WPA builds Cowen Park Bridge in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood in 1936” (by Priscilla Long), and “John Olmsted arrives in Seattle to design city parks on April 30, 1903” (by David Williams and Walt Crowley), and “David Thomas Denny (1832-1903)” (by David Wilma), http://www.historylink.org/ (accessed August 1, 2010); Esther Campbell, Bagpipes in the Woodwind Section (Seattle: Seattle Symphony Women’s Association, 1978), 9; William Arnold, “The Great Mystery of Ravenna Park,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Northwest Today section, December 17, 1972, pp. 8-9; Steve Cronin, “Ravenna Park’s Famous Trees Vanished Furtively,” UW Daily, May 25, 1977, p. 3;  James Bush, “Remembering William W. Beck: The Father of Ravenna Park,” The Seattle Sun, August 2003, The Seattle Sun website accessed August 25, 2010 (http://parkprojects.com/2003news/0308aug/hisbeck.html); Mary R. Watson, travel diary (handwritten), 1910, portion accessed on eBay, December 2006, copy in possession of Peter Blecha; Russ Hanbey, “1916 Seattle was a Hotbed of Sin When 2 Officers Were Killed,” The Seattle Times, February 6, 2010 (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com); and Peter Blecha archives.

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History Friday, Part 3: Rainier Power and Railway Company

February 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This is part of the essay “Ravenna Park (Seattle)“, appearing here thanks to HistoryLink.org and author Peter Blecha, under a Creative Commons license.

[If you missed Part 1, you can find it here.]

Rainier Power and Railway Company

The townsite of Ravenna became even more attractive to would-be home buyers a couple years later with the arrival of streetcar service via a route that would skirt the entire length of the park (along its southern border). Seattle pioneer David Denny (1832-1903) was behind the project. Denny had gotten into real estate. After platting the neighborhoods bordering the park — an area still so distant from downtown that the Denny family soon built and then maintained a country “summer home” (6315? NE 63rd Street) there — he helped found the Rainier Power and Railway Company in order to facilitate easy transportation to the nearby Brooklyn neighborhood (today’s University District).

That line was extended to Ravenna Park around 1892 and three years later was reorganized as the Third Street and Suburban Railway, which included a Ravenna Station (near today’s NE 58th Street and 20th Avenue NE). After departing its terminus downtown, the line passed through logged and largely uninhabited terrain until it turned back southward at Ravenna. One writer noted that “Most of the area through the northern part of this system’s route was inhabited only by squirrels and gophers” (Leslie Blanchard quoted in “No Finer Site”).

But it was the sight of critters and the unspoiled nature of the ravine that made it such an attraction. The granddaughter of Denny’s brother Arthur (1822-1899), Sophie Frye Bass (1866-1947), wrote that:

“My first recollection of Ravenna Park was a moonlight excursion in midsummer, when the moon failed to appear, a cool breeze came up, and a chill was in the air. Even so, the large coal-oil lamps shining through the trees lighting the path that ran through the park, and the bobbing and swaying Chinese lanterns made it seem like a land fit for fairies. It was quite a trip to Ravenna in those days, for we took the train at the funny little station at the foot of Columbia Street on the waterfront and rode nine and a half miles to the park … it became a favorite spot for picnickers and a show place for out-of-town visitors (Bass).

Next week: Original Beauty and Natural Wonders

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Sources:
W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park — ‘Im Walde,’ (1903), Peter Blecha collection, Seattle; W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park — ‘Im Walde,’ 16-page postcard booklet, undated, in Peter Blecha collection; W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park (ca. 1909), Peter Blecha collection; “Ravenna Park Guide,” brochure, 1909, Peter Blecha collection; “Ravenna Or Big Tree Park: It is Famous = “Nature’s Exposition,” postcard, 1909, Peter Blecha collection; Harvey Manning, Winter Walks and Hikes (Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2002), 42; Betty McDonald, Anybody Can Do Anything (Philadelphia / New York: J. B. Lippincott Co, 1950), 129-130; Paula Becker, “Time Traveling The Roosevelt District With Betty Macdonald,” Seattlepress.com website accessed July 13, 2010 (http://seattlepress.com/article-9455.html); “One of Ravenna’s Giant Trees Christened ‘Paderewski,'” Interlaken, February 8, 1908, p. 1; Sophie Frye Bass, When Seattle Was A Village (Seattle: Lowman & Hanford Co., 1947), 106-108:  David Buerge, “Indian Lake Washington,” Seattle Weekly, August 1-7, 1984; Seattle Polk City Directory (1901-1934); Directory of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Washington D.C.: Memorial Continental Hall, 1911), 1340; “Mrs. L. C. Beck Funeral To Be Held Today: Woman Widely Known In Musical and Club Circles Is Mourned By Seattle Friends,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 9, 1928, p. 13; Kate C. Duncan 1001 Curious Things: Tales from Ye Olde Curiosity Shop (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 73-78; Andrea Casadio, email to Peter Blecha, January 30, 2008; “No Finer Site: The University of Washington’s Early Years On Union Bay,” Web exhibition, University of Washington Libraries website accessed August 19, 2010 (http://lib.washington.edu/exhibits/site/); HistoryLink.org Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, “Seattle’s Ravenna Park Bridge is constructed in 1913” (by Priscilla Long), and “WPA builds Cowen Park Bridge in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood in 1936” (by Priscilla Long), and “John Olmsted arrives in Seattle to design city parks on April 30, 1903” (by David Williams and Walt Crowley), and “David Thomas Denny (1832-1903)” (by David Wilma), http://www.historylink.org/ (accessed August 1, 2010); Esther Campbell, Bagpipes in the Woodwind Section (Seattle: Seattle Symphony Women’s Association, 1978), 9; William Arnold, “The Great Mystery of Ravenna Park,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Northwest Today section, December 17, 1972, pp. 8-9; Steve Cronin, “Ravenna Park’s Famous Trees Vanished Furtively,” UW Daily, May 25, 1977, p. 3;  James Bush, “Remembering William W. Beck: The Father of Ravenna Park,” The Seattle Sun, August 2003, The Seattle Sun website accessed August 25, 2010 (http://parkprojects.com/2003news/0308aug/hisbeck.html); Mary R. Watson, travel diary (handwritten), 1910, portion accessed on eBay, December 2006, copy in possession of Peter Blecha; Russ Hanbey, “1916 Seattle was a Hotbed of Sin When 2 Officers Were Killed,” The Seattle Times, February 6, 2010 (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com); and Peter Blecha archives.

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Upcoming events at the Northeast Library (with PJ Story Time tonight!)

February 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Some events of note happening in the next couple weeks at the Northeast Library (6801 35th Avenue NE):

Pajama Story Time TONIGHT

Weekly Story Times for toddlers and preschoolers at the Northeast Library are on break until March 1st while Children’s Librarian Erica Delavan is out visiting area schools.

Lucky for us connoisseurs of Story Time, there is a Pajama Story Time this evening, from 7-7:30 PM.

From the Northeast Library events calendar:

It is pajama story time at the Northeast Branch! Bring your preschoolers and toddlers to enjoy stories, rhymes, songs and fun with our children’s librarian, who will be wearing pajamas, too!

Jammify your kids (and yourself) right after dinner, and get ready for a good time.

Presidents Day is Monday, February 21 – Libraries are CLOSED

Another good reason to head to the library this week: There’s a three-day weekend coming up. Do you have enough reading material?!

Seattle Opera Preview, Tuesday, February 22

The Seattle Opera’s next production is Massenet’s Don Quixote (runs February 26 through March 12). You can catch a preview at the Northeast Library from 6:30-7:30 PM on Tuesday, February 22.

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Hey, Ravenna (and Roosevelt) neighbors: Let’s all go to a ballgame!

February 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Happy Neighbor Appreciation Day, neighbor.

Without you, the Ravenna Blog would not exist! There’d be no one to send in questions and news tips to report on, no one to read the posts, and no one to talk to in the comments. So, thanks for being here.

As a thank you for being my neighbors, I would like to purpose some summer fun: LET’S ALL GO TO A MARINERS GAME TOGETHER.

This is not a fundraiser of any type — it is a community FUN raiser; a chance to hang out with each other and enjoy a baseball game together.

Here’s how it will work:

  1. We’ll vote on which of two games the most people can attend (see below).
  2. We team up with our neighbors next door in Roosevelt so we can get a REALLY big group together, which means…
  3. The Mariners will assign us a Group Manager to handle all the ticket sales.
  4. Tickets will go on sale a couple months out from the game date, and can be purchased online through the Mariners website, with a special discount code.
  5. We show up to the game, have a good time, and see OUR NEIGHBORHOODS ON THE SCOREBOARD during the Group Welcome inning¹.

But before we can reserve a section for our neighborhoods, we have to decide on a date.

Mariners Game Poll²

Don’t worry about whether or not you are sure you can attend either of these dates: I am looking to find out which of these two dates would work for most people.

The following poll will be open until noon on Monday, February 21st. One vote per household, please.


Have questions? Want to express your love of (or concern for) this idea? Let me know in the comments!

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¹ This is sort of what spawned the whole idea: “MARINERS WELCOME THE NE SEATTLE NEIGHBORHOOD OF RAVENNA.”

² Here’s how I came to choose these particular dates:

  • Good weather is more likely to happen AFTER mid-July, hence the July 31 and August 27 dates.
  • Visiting teams are not teams we see in town all the time (like the Texas Rangers or the Oakland A’s).
  • There is an evening game and a day game to choose from, as well as a Saturday and a Sunday.
  • Only two choices to make it easier for people to choose.
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History Friday, Part 2: Ravenna Springs Park

February 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This essay, “Ravenna Park (Seattle)“, appears here thanks to HistoryLink.org and author Peter Blecha, under a Creative Commons license.

[If you missed Part 1, you can find it here.]

Ravenna Springs Park

William N. Bell (1817-1887) and his wife Sarah Ann Bell (1815-1856) selected some acreage north of Union Bay that included the lower end of the creek that emerged from the ravine. In the years prior to Bell’s death the couple sold their land and it reportedly passed through several hands until George and Oltilde Dorffel acquired ownership in 1887, the same year they filed paperwork platting it as Ravenna Springs Park — a name inspired by the famously beautiful pine-tree-forested ravine town of Ravenna, Italy. Soon those 40-some springs bubbling from the ground were being touted for their medicinal properties.

The year 1889 saw another couple — William Wirt Beck and his wife Louise Coman Beck — investing in a huge parcel of 400 acres on the north side of Union Bay including the Dorffels’ park. The Becks were an interesting duo: He was a Presbyterian minister from Kentucky (who would later claim a background as a miner). She was an Athens, Georgia, native who had graduated from the Athens Female College and then studied music in the Northeast. She was well equipped to teach music in Seattle.

The Becks were ambitious: They envisioned a whole new town, Ravenna, arising on their land and toward that end they quickly platted out town lots southward from the edge of the park and entered the world of real estate sales. The Becks built a large house (at the northeast corner of NE 57th Street and 26th Avenue NE) on 10 acres that also contained their Seattle Female College.

The college enrolled 40 students for the 1890 school year, and soon included the Seattle Conservatory of Music and Ravenna Seminary. In addition they arranged to have a post office (headed by a Lafayette S. Beck) established and founded the Ravenna Flouring Co. Roper’s Grocery soon joined the hamlet. Best of all, the little town would be serviced at a Ravenna Station (at Blakely Street and 25th Avenue NE) by the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern railroad, which passed through the area on its route from downtown Seattle (along today’s Burke-Gilman Trail).

Next week: Rainier Power and Railway Company

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Sources:
W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park — ‘Im Walde,’ (1903), Peter Blecha collection, Seattle; W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park — ‘Im Walde,’ 16-page postcard booklet, undated, in Peter Blecha collection; W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park (ca. 1909), Peter Blecha collection; “Ravenna Park Guide,” brochure, 1909, Peter Blecha collection; “Ravenna Or Big Tree Park: It is Famous = “Nature’s Exposition,” postcard, 1909, Peter Blecha collection; Harvey Manning, Winter Walks and Hikes (Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2002), 42; Betty McDonald, Anybody Can Do Anything (Philadelphia / New York: J. B. Lippincott Co, 1950), 129-130; Paula Becker, “Time Traveling The Roosevelt District With Betty Macdonald,” Seattlepress.com website accessed July 13, 2010 (http://seattlepress.com/article-9455.html); “One of Ravenna’s Giant Trees Christened ‘Paderewski,'” Interlaken, February 8, 1908, p. 1; Sophie Frye Bass, When Seattle Was A Village (Seattle: Lowman & Hanford Co., 1947), 106-108:  David Buerge, “Indian Lake Washington,” Seattle Weekly, August 1-7, 1984; Seattle Polk City Directory (1901-1934); Directory of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Washington D.C.: Memorial Continental Hall, 1911), 1340; “Mrs. L. C. Beck Funeral To Be Held Today: Woman Widely Known In Musical and Club Circles Is Mourned By Seattle Friends,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 9, 1928, p. 13; Kate C. Duncan 1001 Curious Things: Tales from Ye Olde Curiosity Shop (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 73-78; Andrea Casadio, email to Peter Blecha, January 30, 2008; “No Finer Site: The University of Washington’s Early Years On Union Bay,” Web exhibition, University of Washington Libraries website accessed August 19, 2010 (http://lib.washington.edu/exhibits/site/); HistoryLink.org Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, “Seattle’s Ravenna Park Bridge is constructed in 1913” (by Priscilla Long), and “WPA builds Cowen Park Bridge in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood in 1936” (by Priscilla Long), and “John Olmsted arrives in Seattle to design city parks on April 30, 1903” (by David Williams and Walt Crowley), and “David Thomas Denny (1832-1903)” (by David Wilma), http://www.historylink.org/ (accessed August 1, 2010); Esther Campbell, Bagpipes in the Woodwind Section (Seattle: Seattle Symphony Women’s Association, 1978), 9; William Arnold, “The Great Mystery of Ravenna Park,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Northwest Today section, December 17, 1972, pp. 8-9; Steve Cronin, “Ravenna Park’s Famous Trees Vanished Furtively,” UW Daily, May 25, 1977, p. 3;  James Bush, “Remembering William W. Beck: The Father of Ravenna Park,” The Seattle Sun, August 2003, The Seattle Sun website accessed August 25, 2010 (http://parkprojects.com/2003news/0308aug/hisbeck.html); Mary R. Watson, travel diary (handwritten), 1910, portion accessed on eBay, December 2006, copy in possession of Peter Blecha; Russ Hanbey, “1916 Seattle was a Hotbed of Sin When 2 Officers Were Killed,” The Seattle Times, February 6, 2010 (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com); and Peter Blecha archives.

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Tour Old Station 38 on Saturday, tour New Station 38 in March

February 10, 2011 by 2 Comments

Fire stations all over the city of Seattle will open their doors to their neighborhoods this Saturday, February 12, from 11am-2pm, as a part of the Seattle Department of Neighborhood’s 17th Annual Neighbor Appreciation Day. There will also be activities for the kids, face painting, refreshments and a free raffle. The Seattle Fire Department and the Firefighter’s Union, Local 27 will be co-sponsoring the event.

This will be our neighborhood’s last chance to visit Fire Station 38 (5503 33rd Ave NE) while it houses fire fighters: Staff will start moving in to the new station down the hill (4004 NE 55th St) next week.

And what will become of the old station? I got the 911 411 from Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman, Helen Fitzpatrick:

[H]ere is the information I received from the City’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services. The City intends to sell the old station most likely through a competitive bid process.  The prospective buyer will need to be aware that the building has historical protection and the zoning is limited to multi-family use (this can also be for a single residence as well).  Any use outside of what is allowed through zoning would need the okay from the City’s Department of Planning and Development.  Any alterations to the outside of the building would require an okay from the Landmarks Preservation Committee.  Any alterations that could change the character of the building, specifically the front façade and the hose tower would be prohibited.

As we noted in an earlier post, a 2009 appraisal of the property came in at just over a million dollars. However, a competitive bidding process could make the old station more affordable. Money from the sale of the property will go back into the Fire Facilities and Emergency Response Levy fund (which made the upgrading of Station 38 possible).

Fire Station 38 is one of 22 landmark status properties and/or objects in Northeast Seattle (full list here), and was nominated and granted this status in 2004. If you have the time, I would encourage you to read the full Seattle Fire Station No. 38 Landmark Nomination Report (pdf; 26 pages!). It is CHOCK full of history, not only of the station itself, but our entire area.

Now, walk down the street (to the east) with me…

View Old and New Fire Station 38 in a larger map

As I mentioned above, the new Station 38 will start the move-in process next week. And after the staff has had some time to move in and get acquainted with the new building, the public will have a chance to do the same. (Well, not the move in part.)

Mark your calendars for Saturday, March 12, 11am-2pm 1pm, when Seattle Fire Department staff (and the new station’s architect, whom I met on the property today, by happy coincidence) will be on hand to welcome the public to their new fire station give us a tour. A postcard invitation in the mail in the next several weeks.

WHEE-OO-WHEE-OO!

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A photo tour of the new Fire Station 38

February 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The new Fire Station 38 (4004 NE 55th Street) is nearly ready. In my last email with Helen Fitzpatrick, spokeswoman of the Seattle Fire Department, a tentative move-in date in early February was given.

And once the firefighters move in and get settled, there will be an OPEN HOUSE.

Before doing a little grocery shopping across the street on Sunday, a took a few pictures of the station’s exterior and interior.

Starting on the south side of the station: Two bays for fire department vehicles (Engine 38 +1), the doors of which face NE 55th Street.

View straight up from ground level of the red corrugated metal siding on the south side of the station.

View inside the doors. I believe I can safely say, though I did not have my tape measure with me, that the old Station 38 could fit inside the new station’s vehicle bay.

The “front door” of the new station, at the southwest corner. There is a doorbell, and the red box conceals a telephone. This entry can be reached via stairs (railing visible) or by a ramp (to the right, out of the frame of the picture).

The flag pole near the entrance is already sporting an American flag.

On the west side of the station now (the 40th Avenue NE side). Looks as though the plants adjacent to the station are watered by rain collected from the roof and west side of the building.

Close up of the gutter at the base of the wall (catches water running down the side of the building) and the pipe (bringing runoff down from the roof) which both empty into a V-shaped cement structure (which allows the water to seep into the surrounding soil).

Oregon grape planted in the NE 4oth Avenue parking strip seems happy to be here.

North side of the station. It looks as though Engine 38 can come back from a call and drive straight into the station, no blocking traffic on NE 55th Street to back in.

This concludes our tour! Stay tuned to the Ravenna Blog for more information on Fire Station 38 (old and new).

The tricked-out grill of Engine 38 thanks you for your time.

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A little new Fire Station 38 background:

Seattle P-I reporter Casey McNerthney did a story on the ground breaking and the impetus of the new station back in September 2009 (“Chief, mayor break ground for new fire station“).

And the fate of little old Station 38 (5503 33rd Avenue NE), once it’s empty? The city is expected to sell it. For how much? Well, McNerthney’s article states that the property was appraised at just over a million dollars*, according to King County property records in 2009. Save your pennies!

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*I think this figure dashes any plans that former Ravenna resident now Camano Island blogger Jeff and I had for buying the old firehouse and turning it into a little neigborhood pub called the Ravenna Hole.

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Welcome to History Fridays, featuring Ravenna Park!

February 4, 2011 by 4 Comments

One of the biggest requests I get for content on the Ravenna Blog is for history. Unfortunately, writing essays on local history is a bit out of my skill set, but finding other people who do it well is not!

One of the newest members of the Seattle Times Local News Partnership is HistoryLink.org. One of their staff historians, Alan Stein, clued me in last month to a brand new essay on Ravenna Park by Peter Blecha (freelance writer, author, historian, and musician). I asked if I could put the essay up here, on the Ravenna Blog, and the rest is history. (Ha ha.)

This new essay on Ravenna Park is a LONG one. I’ve “serialized” it into a 12-week series, with each new section being posted on Fridays. (However, if you’d like to spoil the suspense, the whole essay with accompanying pictures is available here.)

Welcome to History Fridays!

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Ravenna Park (Seattle)

Ravenna Park, one of Seattle’s oldest, was among the few areas that escaped the logger’s axe in the late 1800s and thus preserved stunning examples of giant old-growth Douglas Firs. Centered around a steep moss- and fern-covered ravine just north of the University District, the park opened in 1887 as a privately operated destination called Ravenna Springs Park. It featured nature trails and mineral springs touted for their supposed healthful qualities. Over the following decades, owners William and Louise Beck (1860-1928) promoted the park under various names including Big Tree Park, Twin Maples Lane, Ravenna Natural Park, and finally Ravenna Park. Seattle bought the park in 1911, and subsequently lowered the lake that fed its stream and cut down many magnificent trees. Today Ravenna Park and the adjacent Cowen Park are city parks. A community group, Ravenna Creek Alliance, works to protect and restore it.

The Ravine

The deep history of Ravenna Park is directly tied to that of the nearby Green Lake Park — with the lake being a physical vestige of the Vashon Ice Glacial Sheet of 50,000 year ago. Green Lake had an outflow creek that meandered southeastward (along the path of today’s Ravenna Boulevard) through an increasingly steep and heavily wooded one-half-mile-long ravine and down into what is today called Union Bay (on Lake Washington). The western shore of that bay was the site of one Native American village and just northeast of the ravine (at the mouth of Thornton Creek) was another, so it may be presumed that the cutthroat trout and Coho salmon runs in the Green Lake (Ravenna) Creek were well known to those Indians. They also likely took note of the sulfuric mineral springs — natural features that would later be touted for having healing properties.

When Seattle’s first pioneer settlers — chief among them the Denny party — began making the land claims that would soon comprise the new village of Seattle, they mainly grabbed real estate along the central waterfront on Elliott Bay. It would take some time and the arrival of additional settlers before anyone made claims near the ravine. As logging operations progressed farther into the town’s surrounding forests, fields and hills all around were denuded of their bountiful stands of old-growth Douglas Fir, and giant alders, cedars, and willow trees. But not so, the ravine: Its steep canyon topography made the task far too difficult and its huge trees and massive ferns were spared that fate.

Next week: Ravenna Springs Park

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This essay, “Ravenna Park (Seattle)“, appears here thanks to HistoryLink.org and author Peter Blecha, under a Creative Commons license.

Sources:
W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park — ‘Im Walde,’ (1903), Peter Blecha collection, Seattle; W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park — ‘Im Walde,’ 16-page postcard booklet, undated, in Peter Blecha collection; W. W. Beck, Ravenna Park (ca. 1909), Peter Blecha collection; “Ravenna Park Guide,” brochure, 1909, Peter Blecha collection; “Ravenna Or Big Tree Park: It is Famous = “Nature’s Exposition,” postcard, 1909, Peter Blecha collection; Harvey Manning, Winter Walks and Hikes (Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2002), 42; Betty McDonald, Anybody Can Do Anything (Philadelphia / New York: J. B. Lippincott Co, 1950), 129-130; Paula Becker, “Time Traveling The Roosevelt District With Betty Macdonald,” Seattlepress.com website accessed July 13, 2010 (http://seattlepress.com/article-9455.html); “One of Ravenna’s Giant Trees Christened ‘Paderewski,'” Interlaken, February 8, 1908, p. 1; Sophie Frye Bass, When Seattle Was A Village (Seattle: Lowman & Hanford Co., 1947), 106-108:  David Buerge, “Indian Lake Washington,” Seattle Weekly, August 1-7, 1984; Seattle Polk City Directory (1901-1934); Directory of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Washington D.C.: Memorial Continental Hall, 1911), 1340; “Mrs. L. C. Beck Funeral To Be Held Today: Woman Widely Known In Musical and Club Circles Is Mourned By Seattle Friends,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 9, 1928, p. 13; Kate C. Duncan 1001 Curious Things: Tales from Ye Olde Curiosity Shop (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 73-78; Andrea Casadio, email to Peter Blecha, January 30, 2008; “No Finer Site: The University of Washington’s Early Years On Union Bay,” Web exhibition, University of Washington Libraries website accessed August 19, 2010 (http://lib.washington.edu/exhibits/site/); HistoryLink.org Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, “Seattle’s Ravenna Park Bridge is constructed in 1913” (by Priscilla Long), and “WPA builds Cowen Park Bridge in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood in 1936” (by Priscilla Long), and “John Olmsted arrives in Seattle to design city parks on April 30, 1903” (by David Williams and Walt Crowley), and “David Thomas Denny (1832-1903)” (by David Wilma), http://www.historylink.org/ (accessed August 1, 2010); Esther Campbell, Bagpipes in the Woodwind Section (Seattle: Seattle Symphony Women’s Association, 1978), 9; William Arnold, “The Great Mystery of Ravenna Park,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Northwest Today section, December 17, 1972, pp. 8-9; Steve Cronin, “Ravenna Park’s Famous Trees Vanished Furtively,” UW Daily, May 25, 1977, p. 3;  James Bush, “Remembering William W. Beck: The Father of Ravenna Park,” The Seattle Sun, August 2003, The Seattle Sun website accessed August 25, 2010 (http://parkprojects.com/2003news/0308aug/hisbeck.html); Mary R. Watson, travel diary (handwritten), 1910, portion accessed on eBay, December 2006, copy in possession of Peter Blecha; Russ Hanbey, “1916 Seattle was a Hotbed of Sin When 2 Officers Were Killed,” The Seattle Times, February 6, 2010 (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com); and Peter Blecha archives.

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Tour your local schools in February and March

February 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Been meaning to check out the local public school offerings? You’re in luck: February and March are chock-full of opportunities to tour our local institutions of compulsory education.

From the Seattle Public Schools’ School Tours page:

Bryant Elementary (K-5), 3311 NE 60th Street, 252-5200

  • Day Tour: Feb 10 – 9:30-11:00 a.m.
  • Evening Tour: Feb 17 – 7:00-8:30 p.m. Childcare will not be available.

Wedgwood Elementary (K-5), 2720 NE 85th Street, 252-5670

  • Day Tours: March 7 – 9:30-10:30a.m.; March 16 – 1:40-2:40 p.m. Meet in the Cafeteria for welcome from the Principal followed by tours with Parent Guides
  • Evening Tour: Feb 15 – 6:30-8:00 p.m. This program will include a Q & A with the Principal and parent volunteers from 7:30-8:00 p.m. in the Cafeteria.

Eckstein Middle School (6-8), 3003 NE 75th Street, 252-5010

  • Tours: Jan 7, Feb 16, March 4 – 8:30-10:00 a.m
  • Informational Night: March 10 – 6:00-7:00 p.m.

As for the local high school option, the tour listed for Roosevelt High School on the Seattle Public School’s site was for January; however, I found another tour date in this week’s North Seattle Herald-Outlook:

Roosevelt High School (9-12), 1410 NE 66th Street, 252-4810

  • Daytime tour: Feb. 15, 9 a.m.

Not sure which school(s) you should be checking out for your student(s) at home? Head over to the New School Assignment Plan address lookup page.

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