- Seattle Neighborhoods: Montlake — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Seattle’s Montlake is a quiet urban neighborhood located south of the Montlake Cut/Lake Washington Ship Canal and composed mainly of single-family homes with a small commercial district. Its shoreline is bordered to the west by Portage Bay, to the north by the Lake Washington Ship Canal, and to the east by Union Bay.
- 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.
- Montlake Cut (Seattle) (historylink.org)
The Montlake Cut, between the Montlake and University District neighborhoods in Seattle, connects Lake Washington and Lake Union as part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal. When it was completed in 1916, it marked the realization of a 62-year-old idea to link the lakes with Puget Sound, creating a freshwater harbor in Seattle and a waterway connecting Seattle’s shipping harbor in Elliott Bay with the resource-rich interior of King County. The canal boosted economic development on the lakes and helped reduce flooding in the Duwamish River valley (its former outlet), but it also had far-reaching environmental and cultural consequences.
- The Montlake Bridge spanning the Montlake Cut in Seattle was completed in 1925, the last-built and easternmost of four double-leaf bascule bridges that carry vehicle and pedestrian traffic across the Lake Washington Ship Canal. It is set apart from its sister bridges by both its Gothic architectural details and its mechanical design, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982.
