Tradition and Change on Seattle's First Hill: Propriety, Profanity, Pills, and Preservation

Cities like Seattle are inevitably changing. In the process important connections to our past are lost. Seattle s First Hill certainly reflects this dynamic transformation. First Hill developed on a promontory east of downtown and became the location of important churches, clubs, hotels, schools, and residences for civic leaders and entrepreneurs from the 1890s until World War I. From Sixth Avenue to Broadway and from Pike Street to Yesler Way, streets were filled with stylish residences, boarding houses, and fraternal and ethnic community halls welcoming newcomers to the Northwest from America and abroad. Some buildings survive and others made way for a denser neighborhood of institutional and commercial buildings, apartment houses for every income level, and the center of Seattle s healthcare industry. This book traces First Hill s origins, explains how and why changes occurred, and points to the potential that exists for future development that respects its surviving historic buildings. Editor Lawrence Kreisman, Historic Seattle s Program Director, taps the knowledge and talents of local and regional historians and authors Paul Dorpat, Jacqueline Williams, Dotty DeCoster, Dennis Alan Andersen, Luci J. Baker Johnson, and Brooke Best for a publication whose chapters make visible the historical, cultural, and social dimensions of First Hill. The book is a marvelous starting point for urban understanding and exploration. We hope it will encourage longtime and newly settled residents, office workers, shoppers, concert and lecture attendees, and visitors to think about what makes this place special and worthy of preservation. First Hill architecture and culture are waiting to be discovered.