- When I moved to Minneapolis from upstate New York last year, I found myself puzzled by the layout of the streets and avenues across the city. Why, for example, did every street and avenue in my neighborhood have Southeast (SE) as a suffix? And why did that change to South (S) when I went to neighborhoods like Seward and Whittier? These questions lingered in my mind while wandering the city by bike, bus and light rail. I tried to find the origin of the north–south divide and the east/not-east divide, as well as the underlying structure of the streets and avenues.
- Seattle Neighborhoods: University District — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Seattle’s University District, home of the University of Washington since 1895, is located in the northeast section of the city, north of the Portage Bay part of Lake Union. Its main spurs to development were the developer James Moore (1861-1929), the 1895 move of the Territorial University from downtown to what was then called Brooklyn, and the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition on the University of Washington campus in 1909. In the late twentieth century, the main challenges to this “city within a city” have been the development of nearby malls. It is a neighborhood of restaurants, cafes, a renowned street fair, a farmer’s market, and a few venerable institutions such as the University Book Store, University Inn, and the Meany Hotel.