Queen Anne, Seattle

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Queen Anne

Queen Anne Hill is a Seattle neighborhood. Although several neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington are of similar or higher elevations (e.g. Broadview, Maple Leaf, and Southwest Seattle), Queen Anne is the highest named hill in Seattle, with a maximum elevation of 456 feet (139 m) (although the highest point in the city is High Point in West Seattle, at 520 feet). Queen Anne is situated just north of Seattle Center and just south of Fremont across the Lake Washington Ship Canal. The hill early became a popular spot for the city's economic and cultural elite to build their mansions (the name derives from the architectural style, typical of many of the early homes).

The Treat House on W. Highland Drive, one of the many mansions on Queen Anne Hill, is an official city landmark.

As a neighborhood toponym, Queen Anne can refer either to the entire hill or to the central residential and business district at the top of the hill. It is to be distinguished from Lower Queen Anne, also known as Uptown which refers to the area at the southern base of the hill, just north and west of Seattle Center.

Queen Anne is bounded on the north by the Fremont Cut of the Washington Ship Canal, beyond which is Fremont; on the west by 15th Avenue W. and Elliott Avenue W., beyond which is Interbay, Magnolia, and Elliott Bay; on the east by Aurora Avenue N. (State Route 99), beyond which is Westlake and Lake Union; and on the south by Denny Way, beyond which is Belltown. Seattle Pacific University is located on its north slope across from Fremont.

Its main thoroughfares are Gilman Drive W.; 15th, Elliott, 10th, 6th, and 3rd Avenues W.; and Queen Anne, 5th, Taylor, and Aurora Avenues N. (north- and southbound) and Denny Way; Mercer, Boston, W. McGraw, and W. Nickerson Streets; and Queen Anne Drive (east- and westbound). Portions of several of these streets reflect a comprehensive boulevard design by the Olmsted Brothers architectural firm, Queen Anne Boulevard, intended as a 3-mile loop around the crown of the hill. The design was never fully executed, but it remains part of the Seattle Parks System. Queen Anne can be reached from Interstate 5 by taking the Mercer Street Exit (Exit 167).

Filipino-American author and activist Carlos Bulosan is buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery^[1] on the north side of the hill. Remains of the unknown dead of the 1906 SS Valencia disaster, as well as many early Seattle pioneers, are also interred there, and a memorial to the dead of the 1916 Everett Massacre is located in the northeast section of the cemetery.

[edit] History

George Kinnear's home at 809 Queen Anne Avenue N., 1900. Kinnear developed much of Queen Anne, and donated the land for Kinnear Park.

White settlement of Queen Anne stemmed from the arrival of the Denny Party at West Seattle's Alki Point in November 1851. The next year, David Denny staked a claim to the 320 acres (1.3 km²) of Lower Queen Anne land today bounded by Elliott Bay to the west, Lake Union to the east, Mercer Street to the north, and Denny Way to the south. Development of the hill, called at various times North Seattle, Galer Hill, and Eden Hill, was slow, but the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway (1883) and the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad (1887), the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, and the opening of three cable car lines to the top of the hill (1902), improved matters. The hill began to be called "Queen Anne" by 1885, after the Queen Anne style houses that dominated the area^[2]

The first television broadcast in the Pacific Northwest originated from KRSC's facilities at 3rd Avenue N. at Galer Street in 1948. In 1949, KING-TV bought KRSC; this was the first such transaction in the country's history. Three years later, KOMO-TV installed its own tower, and KIRO followed suit in 1958.

In 1962, Lower Queen Anne became the site of the Century 21 Exposition, a World's Fair. The fairgrounds are now the campus of Seattle Center, home to the Space Needle, Pacific Science Center, Experience Music Project, Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, the north terminal of the Seattle monorail, and KeyArena, current home of the Seattle Storm. Until 2008, it was the home of the Seattle SuperSonics, and until 2009, it was also the home of the Seattle Thunderbirds, which moved to a new arena in Kent, WA.

As late as 1964, the area had a large enough population of families with children to motivate opening McClure Middle School, but by 1981 a decline in such families led the school system to close Queen Anne High School, North Queen Anne Elementary School, and West Queen Anne Elementary School.^[3]

Assistant United States Attorney Thomas C. Wales was shot in his home in the Queen Anne neighborhood on October 11, 2001, dying the next day of his wounds. The murder remains unsolved.

View from Lower Queen Anne.

[edit] Government and infrastructure

The United States Postal Service operates the Queen Anne Post Office at 415 1st Avenue North.^[4]

[edit] Education

Queen Anne is served by Seattle Public Schools.

Schools in Queen Anne include:

• John Hay Elementary School (which has had three different buildings, all on Queen Anne Hill)
• Coe Elementary (which temporarily moved to Magnolia during a remodel)
• McClure Middle School
• The Center School
• Queen Anne Community School (private)
• Seattle Country Day School (private)
• Saint Anne School (private)

Two former schools on Queen Anne Hill are on the National Register of Historic Places; both are now condominium apartment buildings:

• Queen Anne High School
• Queen Anne School, later known as West Queen Anne School

Universities: Seattle Pacific University

[edit] Parks and recreation

Rachel's Park, located in Queen Anne, was renamed from Soundview Park. The park was named after Rachel Pearson, a girl who died on Alaska Airlines Flight 261 in 2000.^[5]

[edit] Notable residents

Past and present residents include:

• Jonathan Raban (1942–), British travel writer and novelist.^[6]

[edit] Notes

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (December 2009)

[edit] External links

Seattle portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Queen Anne, Seattle, Washington

• Current Events Covered by Kaila Wyman, the QA Hill Expert Examiner
• Quenne Anne Hill Neighborhood info and stats
• Queen Anne Historical Society
• Queen Anne Community School, Pre-K to Fifth Grade

Coordinates: 47°38′14″N 122°21′25″W / 47.63722°N 122.35694°W / 47.63722; -122.35694