- Seattle Neighborhoods: Portage Bay-Roanoke-North Capitol Hill — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Seattle’s Portage Bay-Roanoke-North Capitol Hill neighborhood is located at the far northern end of the north-south ridge that forms Seattle’s Capitol, Renton, First, and Beacon hills. For the purposes of this essay, the distinct but closely related Portage Bay, Roanoke Park, and North Capitol Hill neighborhoods have been combined and their boundary is defined as the area east of Interstate 5, west of Portage Bay, and north of Volunteer Park. Development during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was spurred by the area’s convenient location: close enough – but not too close – to downtown Seattle. Initially somewhat challenging to access, by 1906 the area had streetcar service. The neighborhood encompasses Interlaken Park, Roanoke Park, and Boren Park. It has been challenged by – and in many ways defined by – the incursion of the Seattle Freeway (later I-5) beginning in the late 1950s and by SR 520 in the early 1960s.