Seattle Press on Line - A Short History of the University District

A Short History of the University District

Looking north on University Way and Northeast 45th Street in 1935. The streetcars that had travelled north on the Ave and turned west onto 45th since 1893 were replaced by trackless trolleys in 1940.

May 18, 2000 -- The history of the University District, like that of Seattle itself, reaches back less than 150 years. University Way NE teems with import shops, cheap food, panhandlers, bustling students and business people. It's as if pizza-by-the-slice and used CD shops have always been a fixture of the street known as "The Ave."

Yet, not so long ago, the entire area we know as the U District was a lowland forest of old-growth trees.
Several streams crossed what is now NE 45th Street. Natives known as the Union Bay Indians populated the land where they hunted bear, elk, and deer.

The fate of the forested land changed in 1855 when the morally questionable maneuverings of Governor Stevens acquired it for Washington Territory. US President Grant signed Christian Brownfield's title for 173 acres centered around what would become The Ave below NE 45th Street on July 1, 1873, making him the U District's first official resident.

For about 20 years, very few people were interested in living in the area since the only ways to and from Seattle were by boat or railroad. Then, in 1890, the village of Brooklyn was begun by a real estate developer named James Moore who held grand expectations for the area. He hoped it would become to Seattle what Brooklyn was to New York and named it accordingly. In 1891, David Denny, one of the original founders of Seattle, brought the streetcar to Brooklyn by building the Latona Bridge. Though Mr. Denny lost his fortune in the streetcar venture he opened access to the area and made it more desirable to settlers.

Brooklyn's future changed dramatically with the arrival of the University of Washington which enrolled 310 students its first year in 1895. Even with the new University, though, change came slow. Brooklyn remained a cow-town with muddy, unpaved streets surrounded by woods.

The event that really pulled the U District into the 20th Century and put it at the center of the nation's attention was the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, held on campus, which boasted almost 4 million visitors during the summer of 1909. As part of the preparations for the AYP Expo, all streets in the area were paved and numerous buildings constructed.

The U District would see its next period of great change in the 1920s, a decade of booming construction. In April 1920, UW President Henry Suzallo called on developers to distinguish the district architecturally by using Tudor (or Collegiate) Gothic in their building designs. Suzallo believed that visitors to the U District should immediately recognize the college look when they crossed the University Bridge, which had just opened in 1919. His vision remains visible today in numerous buildings on campus and in neighborhood churches.

Residents of the U District at the time maintained much closer ties with the University. Many community events were held at the University Stadium, a precursor to the present Husky Stadium. Among these were productions of the opera Aida, a widely popular passion play titled The Wayfarer, and Fourth of July fireworks for the public. President Hoover also commanded a crowd at the stadium as did Charles Lindbergh in 1927. In fact, residents resisted the label "District" in the 1920s and pushed to rename the neighborhood "UniverCity." The movement failed and the earlier name stuck.

The ensuing decades saw a steady growth of the U District and enrollment at the UW but no decade changed the social attitude and demographics of the U District more than the 1960s. Gradually, the sale and use of drugs increased until, by the late 1960s, the U District bore the undesirable distinction of being the drug capital of the Northwest. The Ave deteriorated, especially below NE 43rd Street, where litter, graffiti, and condemned buildings became more prominent. Crime and fear of the neighborhood increased.
On-campus protests began to spill over into the community. While the original focus of protests was local demands for such things as lower rents, by 1968, it changed to the Vietnam War and Civil Rights. Protests grew in support and violence. Demonstrations planned to be peaceful were often followed by riots and looting in the community, especially along the Ave. Cal McCune, an influential figure for many years in the community, describes the 1960s as "a time of drugs, riots, marches, bombs, and flag burning."

The Kent State killings in May, 1970, inspired protests at the UW that formed into a march downtown which closed I-5 North and South and ended up touching off three days of riots in the U District, which caused a large amount of damage to businesses in the area. Banks kept their windows boarded up all summer long to reduce the costs of replacing glass.

By the end of the Vietnam War, the U District had a new face: the average age of residents was lower, there were fewer families in the community, and several large merchants were gone. Import and specialty shops had increased, the U District was no longer dry, and the distance between the community and University had grown.

The end of the war also eased tensions between the University and community. Peace returned to the District. Students, business people, and panhandlers reclaimed the Ave and the U District lost most of its fearful reputation.

While there have been attempts to convert the Ave into a pedestrian mall, throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s the street continued to be the bustling heart of the U District with cars and bicycles sharing the space with pedestrians.

A vestige from the volatile protest years remains today in the annual Street Fair. After the fervor around the Kent State riots died down, a group of concerned citizens developed a Sidewalk Fair to ease tensions between the community and protesters. The first fair took place May 23-24, 1970, and 10,000 people attended. The next year attendance skyrocketed to 100,000 and the event has been held every year since, an ongoing commemoration of the relationship between community and University that has defined the unique character of the U District.

Primary resources for this article include: Roy Nielsen's UniverCity: The Story of the University District in Seattle and Cal McCune's From Romance to Riot: A Seattle Memoir.

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kristie klemmeck	Nov 19, 2003	seattle washington	student
hi i'm doign a orject on the u district and i was wondering if i could have any info you and give me to help me. thanks kristie


George	Dec 28, 2003	Los Angeles Ca
I would like infromation (history,location) on the City of Union Bay. Could you please send me some? Thank you