Category: Capitol Hill Neighborhood

Capitol Hill is a popular Seattle neighborhood filled with energy and nightlife. Whether for living or visiting, Capitol Hill is a desirable location. Moreover, the parks and views are excellent for just relaxing.

Broadway is the main drag, running down the center of Capitol Hill. At its south end is the Pike-Pine Corridor, a hip neighborhood filled with lots of things to do. Cal Anderson Park stretches from here to the 1 Line subway station. At the north end of Broadway is the Harvard-Belmont Historical District, featuring the Loveless Building among other beautiful examples of architecture.

Also at the north end of Broadway is Volunteer Park, home to the Water Tower and the Asian Art Museum. Just beyond this is Lake View Cemetery and Bruce Lee’s grave.

To the east, another popular commercial district is 15th Avenue, home to great coffee shops, restaurants, and other fun retail locations.

Capitol Hill also has the strongest LGBTQ+ community in Seattle. Watch for the PrideFest street festival at the end of June each year!

Broadway

Broadway is the main thoroughfare on Capitol Hill, running from the Yesler Terrace neighborhood on First Hill to the south to just north of the Loveless Building to the north. (It reappears a block here and a block there further north, too!)

On the south end of Capitol Hill, Broadway passes through the Pike-Pine corridor, one of the most interesting parts of Capitol Hill. From there, it passes by Seattle Central College and then Capitol Hill’s main commercial district. Right at the Y-intersection, it jogs to the west, passing by the Loveless Building before ending.

The area between Pike and Roy is the Broadway Business Improvement Area (BIA), an initiative started in 1986 to promote the area while keeping it clean and safe.

Sources

• Broadway BIA website
• Broadway (Seattle), Wikipedia

Name

The Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, is home to the Capitol Building, where Congress meets. So is Seattle’s most eclectic neighborhood named after the DC neighborhood?

James Moore gave the hill its name when developing the area in 1901, and there are two stories about where the name comes from. One says it was to entice the state capitol to move to Seattle, and the other says that it was named after Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. In either case, Seattle’s Capitol Hill was named to promote the area.

Sources

• Seattle Neighborhoods: Capitol Hill, Part 1 — Thumbnail History, Paul Dorpat

Real Estate

Capitol Hill real estate is as diverse as everything else about Capitol Hill, though gentrification has swept through the neighborhood, greatly elevating prices.

Local neighborhoods:

• Pike-Pine Corridor;
• Central Capitol Hill, including Millionaire’s Row;
• North Capitol Hill;
• Harvard-Belmont Landmark District;
• 15th Avenue; and
• 19th & Aloha.

Geology

Capitol Hill is a glacial deposit known as a drumlin. When the Puget Lobe Glacier retreated, it left deposits of glacial till which form many of Seattle’s hills, including Capitol Hill, Beacon Hill and Queen Anne. It is this glacial movement that formed the north-south orientation of these hills. This is why moving east-west is hilly and difficult, while north-south movement is generally at a low gradient or flat.

Sources

• Geology of Seattle and the Puget Sound, hugefloods, Nick Zentner, 3:10
• Geology of Seattle and the Seattle area, Washington, Kathey Goetz Troost, Derek B. Booth in Landslides and Engineering Geology of the Seattle, Washington, Area,  edited by Rex L. Baum, Jonathan W. Godt, Lynn M. Highland
• Pikes/Pines: Glacial Till Hill, Brendan McGarr