Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Capitol Hill is the second most densely populated neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States, after Belltown (north of 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.[citation needed]
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[edit] Geography
Capitol Hill is bounded by Interstate 5 to the west, beyond which are Downtown, Cascade, and Eastlake; by Washington State Route 520 and Interlaken Park to the north, beyond which is Montlake; by E. Pike and E. Madison Streets to the south, beyond which are First Hill and the Central District; and by 23rd and 24th Avenues E. to the east, beyond which is Madison Valley.
Its main thoroughfares are Lakeview Boulevard E.; Bellevue, 10th, 12th, 15th, and 19th Avenues E.; and Broadway (north- and southbound) and E. Pine, E. Pike, E. John, E. Thomas, and E. Aloha Streets and E. Olive Way (east- and westbound). Of these streets, large portions of Pike, Pine, Broadway, 15th and, to a slightly lesser extent, Olive, are lined almost continuously with streetfront businesses.
The highest point on Capitol Hill, at 444.5 feet above sea level, is in Volunteer Park, adjacent to the water tower. Capitol Hill is also responsible for half of Seattle's 12 steepest street grades: 21% on E. Roy Street between 25th and 26th Avenues E. (eastern slope), 19% on E. Boston Street between Harvard Avenue E. and Broadway E. (western slope) and on E. Ward Street between 25th and 26th Avenues E. (eastern slope), and 18% on E. Highland Drive between 24th and 25th Avenues E. (eastern slope), on E. Lee Street between 24th and 25th Avenues E. (eastern slope), and on E. Roy Street between Melrose and Bellevue Avenues E. (western slope).
[edit] Ambience
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. Seattle's main gay pride parade abandoned the hill in 2006 for a route from Downtown Seattle to the Seattle Center fairgrounds, drawing a crowd estimated at 75,000, but the so-called "dyke march" and a neighborhood pride parade still drew a crowd estimated at 50,000.[1]
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 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, both of them part of the Landmark Theatres chain and both of them 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). The Broadway Performance Hall, located on the campus of Seattle Central Community College, also hosts a variety of lectures, performances, and films.
[edit] Landmarks and institutions
- Cal Anderson Park
- Cornish College of the Arts
- Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery
- Holy Names Academy
- Lake View Cemetery
- Louisa Boren Park
- Roanoke Park
- St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral
- Seattle Asian Art Museum
- Seattle Central Community College
- Seattle Hebrew Academy
- Seattle Preparatory School
- Volunteer Park
- Volunteer Park Conservatory
[edit] Bars and Clubs
[edit] Past
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 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 the site of 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.
In December, 2005 new Washington State health codes came into effect that required smokers to remain at least twenty-five feet from all doorways, open windows and vents while smoking. With doors of neighboring businesses frequently within fifty feet of each other, this technically leaves nowhere on the sidewalk to smoke. A difficult issue that affects all businesses in the neighborhood, and bars and clubs are still finding means to accommodate their smoking and non-smoking clients while remaining within the law.
[edit] Current
- 22 Doors
- The Bad Juju Lounge
- The Baltic Room
- Barça
- Bill's Off Broadway
- Bus Stop
- Cafe Metropolitain
- Capitol Club
- Canterbury Ales and Eats
- C.C. Attle's
- Cha Cha Lounge
- Chapel
- Charlie's
- Chop Suey (arguably just outside the boundaries of the neighborhood, but very much a part of the Capitol Hill scene)
- Clever Dunne's
- The Comet
- The Crescent
- The Cuff Complex
- Elysian Brewing Company
- The Hopvine
- The Honeyhole
- The Maharaja
- Kincora's Irish Pub
- Liberty
- Linda's
- Madison Pub
- Man Ray
- Martin's off Madison
- Mercury
- Neighbours
- Neumo's
- Purr
- R Place
- Rosebud Cafe
- The Satellite
- Seattle Eagle
- Six Arms
- The Stumbling Monk
- Sugar
- Summit Public House
- The Vogue
- The War Room
- Wild Rose
[edit] Coffeehouses
Besides the inevitable large Seattle-based chains—Starbucks, Seattle's Best Coffee (now owned by Starbucks), and Tully's Coffee—Capitol Hill has been home to some of the city's most prominent locally owned coffeehouses.
The now-defunct Cause Celebre coffeehouse and ice cream parlor on 15th Ave. E. started life as a worker-owned collective, but was eventually bought out by one of its founding members. From about 1978 until the mid-1980s, it declared itself to be "Capitol Hill's living room."
B&O Espresso (at the corner of Belmont Ave. E. and Olive Way, hence B&O: Belmont and Olive), founded 1976, could be considered one of Seattle's oldest surviving coffeehouses, except that it has transformed over the years into more of a restaurant. One of B&O's claims to fame is that the band Pearl Jam conceived of their name while at this coffeehouse.
Through most of the 1990s, the Cafe Paradiso (now the Caffe Vita on Pike) was one of the few all-ages music venues in Seattle, slipping through the cracks of the draconian Teen Dance Ordinance by being, in theory at least, a no-dancing venue.
The minuscule Coffee Messiah (early 1990s – 2006), decorated in religious kitsch, serving little but coffee and vegan pastries, was also an all-ages performance venue for several years. The crowd frequently spilled out onto the pavement (especially because they could not smoke inside). Acts ranged from punk rock to drag cabaret, including a cross between the two known as Pho Bang (which later continued at other venues).
Present-day coffeehouses on the Hill include:
- Bauhaus Coffee
- Caffe Ladro (local chain)
- Caffe Vita (local chain)
- Cafe Dharwin
- Dilettante Chocolates Cafe & Patisserie
- Espresso Vivace (2 locations on the Hill)
- Faire
- Fuel Coffee
- Insomnia
- Joe Bar
- Kaladi Brothers
- Top Pot Doughnuts (local chain)
- Uncle Elizabeth's Internet Cafe'
- Victrola Coffee & Art
Several Capitol Hill coffeehouses use mezzanines or similar architectural devices to add more seating to their relatively small spaces; some take significant advantage of nearby sidewalks for additional seating. Espresso Vivace's Broadway location has only sidewalk seating, and that seating is technically on the property of the bank next door. Bauhaus takes advantage of its high ceiling not only for a massive wall of books (mostly encyclopedias and other reference books), but also to place additional seating over the food prep and serving area; it also spills out onto the sidewalk onto E. Pine Street and around the corner to Melrose, with sidewalk seats providing a view of the northern part of downtown.
[edit] Churches
With the original establishment of the Capitol Hill neighborhood came a variety of churches. While many of these churches began as suburban congregations serving to establish the newest neighborhood of young Seattle, these churches have changed with the neighborhood to reach out to the poor and homeless, those people living with HIV as well as continuing their work of encouraging the faithful.
A few of the original churches include St Joseph's on 19th Ave, which anchored a large Roman Catholic population on the east slope. St. Mark Cathedral's imposing edifice overlooks the freeway on the west side and is home to a large Episcopal congregation and the seat of the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia. All Pilgrims' Congregational Church on 10th Ave E comes from the congregation of first Christian Church joining Pilgrim's Congregational church after the Nisqually earthquake permanently damaged First's sanctuary (now demolished) across from SCCC.
There are a number of church plants on the hill as well. Grace Seattle, Presbyterian Church of America, meets at the Seventh Day Adventist facility. Church on the Hill was started by the Advent Church, which used to be on Madison; it meets at at the Capitol Hill Community Center. Sanctuary, Southern Baptist, meets at Piecora Pizza, and Church of the Undignified, Christian Missionary Alliance, has a storefront on Pike. Westminster Presbyterian Church—behind SCCC—became Capitol Hill Presbyterian (new church development) Easter 2006, when Church at the Center merged, with the liturgical music going from classical music to indie rock.
A number of immigrant populations worship throughout the neighborhood as the population diversifies, including Russian Orthodox, Ethiopean and Vietnamese. There is also a longstanding Greek Orthodox Church, the Church of the Assumption.
[edit] Recent History
Most recently, Seattle suffered its worst mass-killing since the 1983 Wah Mee massacre when a 28-year-old man named Kyle Aaron Huff committed the Capitol Hill massacre on March 25, 2006.
Capitol Hill, ever the politically active neighborhood, saw marches of protestors that walked up the hill from downtown, which were then turned back and dispersed by police with tear-gas in the days that followed "N30". N30 was a day of rioting in downtown Seattle during the WTO Conference of 1999.
[edit] Pop Culture
So pretty much Cap hill is the place to be. You can meet some rad folks. Kick it with who ever amd feel fly doingn it.
[edit] External links
- Capitol Hill on SeattleWiki
- A highly detailed and informative map of Capitol Hill on Wikimapia
- The Capitol Hill Block Party, which features local bands every summer.
- A page of images showing Seattle neighborhoods
- Seattle Pride Parade
[edit] References
- Kathryn McGrath, "Clubless in Seattle", University of Washington Daily Online, October 3, 1996: on the Teen Dance Ordinance.
