November The Seven Hills of Seattle
As I was driving through the Seattle neighborhoods I noticed a restaurant named Seven Hills. I wondered about the name and since Seattle has way more than seven hills I wanted to find out more. I found a web site with the following explanation:
Since 1900 or so, Seattle boosters have praised the city’s “seven hills” in a comparison with Rome, Italy. The number is arbitrary and does not accurately describe Seattle's topography of numerous hills, ridges, and bluffs left behind by the retreat of the Vashon Glacier some 14,000 years ago. Regardless, the Roman allusion apparently helped to attract land buyers and new families to the growing "Queen City of the Pacific Northwest" (another real estate slogan coined in 1869 by promoters based in Portland, Oregon).
Points of Conjecture
There is no firm agreement on which hills were counted to arrive at the original “seven,” but the main candidates are:
- First Hill, also called "Pill Hill" because of the many nearby hospitals. It rises east of downtown Seattle, and was the city’s first true residential neighborhood.
- Second Hill, also called Renton Hill after Capt. William Renton, who owned and logged the Central Area ridge roughly along 17th Avenue.
- Denny Hill, which stood immediately north of Pine Street and was regraded between 1897 and 1930 in order for businesses to move north into the new, level land, known as the Denny Regrade and now as Belltown.
- Capitol Hill, northwest of downtown and named by developer James Moore in 1900 to promote sales of luxury homes near Volunteer Park.
- Yesler or "Profanity" Hill (actually part of First Hill), original site of the King County Courthouse and now Harborview Hospital at Jefferson and 9th Avenue. Legend holds that it was named by the lawyers who had to trudge up Yesler Way’s steep slope from their Pioneer Square offices before a cable car line was installed in 1887.
- Beacon Hill, southeast of downtown. While there is no contemporary written evidence, legend holds that developer M. Harwood Young christened the ridge in 1889 after Beacon Hill in his hometown of Boston.
- Queen Anne Hill, originally called Temperance Hill due to a high number of teetotalers who lived there, and now known for the prevailing architectural style of its early homes.
Some accounts substitute Magnolia Bluff, Sunset Hill, Duwamish Head and/or West Seattle Hill, which rises to 522 feet above sea level (the highest Seattle elevation) at 35th Avenue SW and SW Myrtle Street and is the city’s tallest natural point. Many other highlands could be included, but then the total would no longer add up to a romantic seven. See: https://www.historylink.org/File/4131
We learned several years ago on a walking tour of Seattle that each neighborhood created their own township for shopping, post office, fire station, hardware store, schools, and all the other daily life necessities since it was such a long trip through the forest to get to downtown Seattle for those things. So many of these townships are one of the above mentioned hills. The Magnolia Neighborhood where we are currently staying in an Airbnb is actually two hills and the valley between. The Magnolia Town center is in the valley.
Each of the Hills/Neighborhoods are very distinctive in the culture that lives and thrive there. This website gives a detailed look at each of the Townships: https://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/about-seattle/neighborhoods-and-council-districts/neighborhood-snapshots
If you are driving, walking or biking from East to West or vice versa you are either going up hill or down hill. If you want to walk or bike without the hills then go North-South.
The twenty steepest hills in Seattle are listed at https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/slideshow/The-20-steepest-hills-in-Seattle-31436.php
The steepest streets in Seattle have an 18% grade. A 100% grade would be a 45 degree angle. Don't be fooled by the relative low number of 18 though, a 18% grade feels like your walking or driving up or down a 45 degree angle. Environments like the Pacific Northwest are the best places to own an electric car with their regenerative braking which can slow an electric vehicle to a complete stop so you often do not even need to use the brakes thereby saving the need to have your brake pads replaced as often as a gas powered car. Braking constantly as you go down steep grades wears out the brake pads much faster than living in the flatlands for sure, constantly downshifting can save your bake pads a bit!
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| We moved to a Air BB on W. Lynn St. on the East hill of the Magnolia neighborhood. I have always lived with Lynn but not on her street. |
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| Living on the side of a hill in this 1950's built Air BB |
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| With a 18% grade on W Lynn St. it is a steep walk up or down to flat land. |
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| A row of manicured Magnolia trees |
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| Better to sculpt it than to just cut it down. |
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| These people tried to maintain some idea of the traditional neighborhood architecture. |
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| When a modern townhome is not enough. |
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| Always curious about the multi level foundation work on the sides of these hills. I spent several years in my 20's constructing foundation's on Texas flat land |
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| Weeping Giant Sequoia |
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| First time for us to see this mushroom, right here in Magnolia a Fly Agaric Mushroom. The PNW is famous for its mushroom foraging in the forest. This one was so colerfull it easily caught our eyes. |
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From Wikipedia: Arguably the most iconic toadstool species, the fly agaric is a large white-gilled, white-spotted, usually red mushroom, and is one of the most recognizable and widely encountered in popular culture, including in video games—for example, the extensive use of a recognizable Amanita muscaria in the Mario franchise and its Super Mushroom power-up—and television—for example, the houses in The Smurfs franchise.[6]
Although poisonous, death due to poisoning from A. muscaria ingestion is quite rare. Parboiling twice with water draining weakens its toxicity and breaks down the mushroom's psychoactive substances; it is eaten in parts of Europe, Asia, and North America. All Amanita muscaria varieties, but in particular A. muscaria var. muscaria, are noted for their hallucinogenic properties, with the main psychoactive constituents being muscimol and its neurotoxic precursor ibotenic acid. A local variety of the mushroom was used as an intoxicant and entheogen by the indigenous peoples of Siberia.[7][8] |
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| The highest point in Magnolia at 382.2 feet |
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| A lot of dirt work goes along with these multilevel foundations. |
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| Monkey Puzzle Tree |
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| I don't know if a palm tree is more out of place in Seattle or Austin? |
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| Mt. Rainier is easy to see on a clear day from the east side of Magnolia or if your walking along the West Magnolia Bluff! |
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| View from West Magnolia Bluff |
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| Pacific Madrone Trees line the Pacific Coast |
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| A couple of Seahawk Fans |
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| On this day you can see Downtown but the mountain is not Out. |
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| Fall colors all over in November |
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| Even at Shilshole |
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| If you see these in your local store buy them! |
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| I saw a Quiche in a Market. It was $19.00 I decided to just make my own. |
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| Two of the kids favorites, Sparkles |
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| and Butters |
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| Reflection from the new Climate Pledge Arena at Seattle Center. |
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| The Jetson's live here. |
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| Seattle kids don't care if they get wet and it's 43 degrees out. |
