University District, Seattle, Washington

The University District is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, so named because the main campus of the University of Washington is located there. It is bounded on the west by Interstate 5, beyond which is Wallingford; on the east by the Burke-Gilman Trail and Ravenna Avenue N.E., beyond which is University Village; on the south by the Lake Washington Ship Canal, across which are Eastlake and Montlake; and on the north by N.E. Ravenna Boulevard, beyond which are Roosevelt and Ravenna. Its main commercial street, University Way N.E., is known locally as "The Ave."

Related Topics:
Seattle, Washington - University of Washington - Interstate 5 - Wallingford - University Village - Lake Washington Ship Canal - Eastlake - Montlake - Roosevelt - Ravenna

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The U-District was first surveyed in 1855, and its first white settlers arrived 12 years later. In 1890, that part of the neighborhood due west of the present UW campus was laid out as the Brooklyn addition. One year later much of the land north of the Ship Canal, including Brooklyn, was annexed to Seattle, and the first university building appeared in 1895.

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The name Brooklyn began to fade soon thereafter. Electric trolley tracks had been laid up Columbus Avenue (later 14th Avenue) in 1892, and the neighborhood soon began to be called University Station after the stop at the corner of what is now N.E. 42nd Street. The name is not lost, however, for Brooklyn Avenue N.E. runs parallel to University Way, one block west.

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As a result of a contest held by the University Commercial Club in 1919, 14th Avenue (by then already known as "The Avenue" or "The Ave.") was renamed University Way, and the neighborhood was renamed the University District. The neighborhood's main thoroughfares are Roosevelt and University Ways and 11th, Brooklyn, 15th, and 20th Avenues N.E. (north- and southbound), and N.E. Pacific, 45th, and 50th Streets (east- and westbound).

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The neighborhood's primary landmark, other than the UW campus, and its tallest building, is the headquarters building of Safeco Corporation, located at the corner of Brooklyn Avenue N.E. and N.E. 45th Street.

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In recent years, the neighborhood has suffered commercial decline, due at least in part to the popularity of the University Village Shopping Center on the opposite side of campus. From 2002 to 2004, the city attempted to counter this by giving the Ave. a facelift, including the addition of benches and bus bulbs. The addition of benches represented the reversal of a decades-long neighborhood trend away from providing free places to sit.

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The local year round homeless population, refered to as "Ave rats", is notorious around Seattle for being a particularly young and counter-culture crowd. It is not uncommon to have change demanded rather then requested due to the accepted generosity/fear of UW students. Many young homeless on and around the ave are victims of abuse and addicted to narcotic drugs, particularly crack, cocaine and methamphetamines. They have commonly clustered in groups all along the Ave, selling and buying marijuana and doing hard drugs in the allys. Their numbers have dwindled in recent years due to increased police patrols and tougher enforcement of loitering laws.

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Due to the size of the UW greek system, many frat boys and sorority girls frequent most of the local bars. In particular, Earl's and Tommy's almost always smell of too much perfume, cologne and stale beer. Other bars are fun with a wide base of patrons, such as The College Inn and The Irish Emigrant. The University District houses all of the fraternity and sorority houses, some are quite large, and on Thursday nights its not uncommon for all the local bars to be overflowing with greek system members, and multiple raging frat parties to spill out on 17th Ave through 21st Ave, between 45th st and 50th st, Thursdays of course, because the UW Business School holds few classes on Fridays.

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On Friday and Saturday nights, the whole University District is alive with youth wallking and driving to parties. And its not uncommon for at least 10 parties a night to spill out into the streets within the area. This reputation brings many youth from around the whole state to walk around and crash already overflowing parties on weekend nights. Mostly all the instances of gun violence at UW student parties in the past 5 years are due to party crashers getting ejected. Sometimes, the police will break up the parties early, but usually they will run unchecked until at least 1AM. Do not be fooled, there are many families living in the U-District who regularly tolerate the loud crowds of intoxicated students walking by.

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