Ravenna, Seattle, Washington

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Ravenna

Ravenna is a neighborhood in northeastern Seattle, Washington named after Ravenna, Italy. Though Ravenna is considered a residential neighborhood, it also is home to several businesses such as the University Village Shopping Center. Many of the neighborhood's residents are graduate students and professors at the University of Washington^{[citation needed]}. One of its main roads, Ravenna Boulevard, is commonly referred to as "professors' row" since it is the abode of many former and current University of Washington professors.^{[citation needed]} Cowen-Ravenna Park, located near University Village and the walking or biking route connecting Green Lake to Burke-Gilman Trail, is a popular feature of the neighborhood.^[1]

[edit] Ravenna and Ravenna-Bryant

Calvary Cemetery in Ravenna/Bryant with University of Washington residence towers in background

What is now Ravenna has been inhabited since the end of the last glacial period (c. 8,000 B.C.E.—10,000 years ago). The Native American Duwamish (before contact, the Dkh^w’Duw’Absh, "the People of the Inside") tribe of the Lushootseed (Skagit-Nisqually) Coast Salish nations had the prominent village of SWAH-tsoo-gweel ("portage") on then-adjacent Union Bay, and what is now Ravenna was their backyard before the arrival of White settlers.^[2] The Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway was built c. 1886 along what is now the Burke-Gilman Trail, following what was the shoreline past where the UW power plant and University Village are today.^[3] In 1891, a streetcar line followed what is now 15th Avenue NE, then followed near the southern boundary of what is now Ravenna, where the narrow right-of-way remains clearly visible beside the park. Ravenna Boulevard was built in 1903 as a small part of the Olmsted Brothers' grand plan for Seattle streets and parks.^[4] Ravenna incorporated as an independent town in 1906, which permitted Seattle to annex it in 1907.^[5] Ravenna south of the Burke-Gilman Trail is filled land from dump sites at 26th Avenue, filling the drained Union Bay Marsh and much of Union Bay.^[6] University Village (1956) was built on the southernmost reclaimed land in Ravenna.^[7]

Ravenna is bounded on the west by 15th and 20th Avenues NE, beyond which lies the Roosevelt neighborhood; on the north by NE 75th and 85th Streets, beyond which lie Maple Leaf and Wedgwood; on the east by 35th and 25th Avenues NE, beyond which lie View Ridge, Windermere and Laurelhurst;^[8][9] and on the south by NE Ravenna Boulevard, and NE Blakeley or NE 45th Streets, beyond which lie the University District and sometimes University Village (boundaries are informal). University Village and Calvary Cemetery are in south Ravenna.^[10]

The adjacent Bryant neighborhood, or Ravenna-Bryant, extends the neighborhood east to 45th Avenue, south of 75th Street and north of Sand Point Way.^[9] The portion of south-central Ravenna adjacent to the University Village shopping complex is often considered part of the University Village neighborhood^{[citation needed]}, and Ravenna east of 25th Avenue NE is considered Ravenna-Bryant.^[5]

The principal arterial is 25th Avenue NE; minor arterials are 15th and 35th Avenues, and NE 65th Street; 40th Avenue NE and NE 55th Street are collector arterials.^[11] Besides the eponymous boulevard, its most well-known street is Candy Cane Lane. On the length of Park Road (one block and a little roundabout) residents have been creating an elaborate Christmas display since 1951, bringing bumper-to-bumper traffic to the boulevard on snowy nights.^[12] The 20th Avenue collector arterial has become increasingly bike- and pedestrian-friendly with the closure of the park bridge to motor vehicles (1975).^[13] Ravenna Boulevard is a popular bikeway.

There are small commercial clusters on 25th Avenue between Blakeley and 55th, on 55th east of 25th, on 65th between 20th and 25th, and along Blakeley.^{[citation needed]} An eponymous grocery has been at the same location on the boulevard since the 1920s.^[14] Most emblematic of the neighborhood are Queen Mary, serving Victorian English Tea; the Duchess Tavern (1934), and the Blue Moon, the oldest still-extant around the University of Washington. The only Volvo dealership in town is family-owned and in Ravenna-Bryant.^[15]

"The Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern Railway at the Ravenna Depot, near the Seattle Flour Mill", c. 1893 The quote is the caption from the original 14 x 15 print (35.5 x 37.7 cm).

The accompanying photograph shows an area around the railroad depot in the late 19th Century. Between the depot and the mill could now be 25th Avenue NE at the Burke-Gilman Trail. Left of the mill is the Ravenna Depot, center. The straight road left continues past Roper's Grocery on 24th Street, just left of the tree, left of center, to what is now the SE corner of Ravenna Park, behind the house between the foreground trees. Behind the hamlet of Ravenna, middle background, is the new Seattle Female College (c. 1890), "non-sectarian, distinctly Christian", and including the Seattle Conservatory of Music and Ravenna Seminary. The stable for the college is beyond the depot. Left of the college and above the small foreground snag, faintly, is a broad side of the Phillips house, still extant today.^[16]

[edit] Cowen Park–Ravenna Park and Ravenna Creek

Main article: Ravenna Park (Seattle)

Conjoined Cowen Park-Ravenna Park is located at a southwest corner of Ravenna-Bryant, reaching from beyond the source of Ravenna Creek beside nearby Brooklyn Avenue and Ravenna Boulevard, under the 15th Avenue bridge to 25th Avenue NE. The parks comprise the centerpiece of the neighborhood.

For many decades of Seattle city history, the park ravine had been ignored by loggers and farmers and still possessed full old-growth timber rising nearly 400 feet.^[17]The trees remained through the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1908, at which they were featured exhibitions. Public controversy about them declined after their gradual disappearance in suspicious circumstances by 1926. Today, none of that size remain anywhere in the world.^[18] The legacy helped save Seward and Carkeek parks, and helped galvanize conservation efforts ever since.^[19] Today, a single Sierra Redwood stands over the Medicinal Herb Garden at a south edge of the UW campus, at 106 feet somewhat over a quarter of the height of those of Cowen Park-Ravenna Park.^[20]

Ravenna Creek's original source was Green Lake, from Haller and Bitter lakes, then the Cowen Park ravine west wall when the watershed was diverted to sewers (1908-1948).^[21] In the mid-1960s, the Cowen Park ravine was largely filled using freeway construction spoils. The City of Seattle planned to use the ravine for staging a comprehensive stormwater drainage piping project in 1986, galvanizing the neighborhoods of the watershed to protect and restore the park.^[22] Since 1991, the park has seen major restoration by residents of neighborhoods in collaboration with the City.^[23] Projects have included daylighting portions of the creek (partly with the goal of restoring native fish runs), building and maintaining trails, and restoring riparian habitat.^[24][25] Completion of downstream daylighting to the mouth of the creek beside Union Bay Natural Area and restoration of migrating fish has come into conflict with property owners, specifically the owners of University Village, even though a revised daylighting project would not include their land.^[26]

Ravenna Creek, like daylighted urban streams anywhere, exists in living form only with the active, long-term stewardship of its neighborhoods.^[27]

[edit] See also

• Burke-Gilman Trail
• Daylighting (streams)
• Stream
• Water resources

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Further reading

• Aerial Photo. Ravenna Creek Alliance (n.d., .jpg dated 2001-12-16). Retrieved on 2006-04-21.
  Image of Ravenna Park and the greater University District to Union Bay-Portage Bay.
• Salisbury, Chukundi (Updated 2005-05-11). "Ravenna & Cowen Parks Trails". The Trails Program Trail Maps. Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation. Retrieved on 2006-04-21.
• Walter, Sunny; local Audubon chapters (Updated 2006-02-10). "Sunny Walter's Washington Nature Weekends: Wildlife Viewing Locations - Greater Seattle Area". Retrieved on 2006-04-21.
  "with additions by Sunny Walter and local Audubon chapters."
  Viewing locations only; the book has walks, hikes, wildlife, and natural wonders.
  Walter excerpted from
  • Dolan, Maria; True, Kathryn (2003). Nature in the city: Seattle. Seattle: Mountaineers Books. ISBN 0-89886-879-3 (paperback). 
    See "Northeast Seattle" section. Particularly useful.