Ell Alley: beyond Rainier Vista

Saturday, November 30, 2019

Issaquah

Confluence Park

Issaquah Salmon Hatchery

Gilman Village

We went to Issaquah on November 29. It’s a suburb of Seattle in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, on the south shore of Lake Sammamish. It took about 30 minutes to get there by car on Interstate 90. We had hoped to see salmon spawning in Issaquah Creek at Confluence Park. But it was too late in November. We saw a raft of ducks in the creek & the park was pretty. Then we went to the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. We saw quite a few juvenile salmon in 1 of the concrete tanks. There were a number of people there walking around. Our last stop was at Gilman Village, a shopping center in old houses that had been relocated to that site. We went in one of the houses. It was a shop with many Christmas decorations for sale. Here is a link to more photos of Issaquah. It was a sunny day & not too cold.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Patty in Seattle

Olympic Sculpture Park

Patty at the Olympic Sculpture Park

Olympic Sculpture Park

Steve’s mother Patty came to stay with us for 10 days (9/4 to 9/14/) from Bay City Michigan. Steve assigned Jordan 3 days to act as tour guide. On the first of those days, Patty & Jordan took light rail to Pioneer Square. They looked at the newly renovated King Street Station, toured the Klondike Gold Rush Museum & the Waterfall Garden, had lunch at the Grand Central Bakery in the Grand Central Hotel & rode in an antiquated elevator to the observation deck on the 42nd floor of the Smith Tower. All of these structures were built 100 or more years ago. Then they walked to the Pike Place Market & on up the waterfront to the Olympic Structure Park. They were out for 5 hours & covered 3 miles.

Patty, Steve & Jordan drove to Lynnwood, a suburb of Seattle, to have dinner at the home of Steve’s friends Gary & Kevin. Meat loaf, green salad with apples, dried cranberries & green beans were served. Kevin was on the paleo diet, so there was no starch. We brought bread, which wasn’t served until Steve made Gary fetch it from the kitchen.

Seattle Japanese Garden

Patty at the Seattle Japanese Garden

Seattle Japanese Garden

Patty & Jordan went to Bradner Gardens Park where Jordan had a plot in the community garden. Patty wandered around while Jordan watered. Then they walked down to Lake Washington through Colman Park, very nearby. They had lunch at the Hi Spot in Madrona & walked around the small business district there. Next they went to the Washington Park Arboretum & walked through the Japanese Garden & the Pacific Connections Garden at the Washington Park Arboretum.

Pacific Connections Garden at the Washington Park Arboretum

Patty & Jordan went to visit Jordan's parents Colleen & Seth in West Seattle. On the way there, they toured the South Seattle College Arboretum & the Seattle Chinese Garden. They took Colleen to Endolyne Joe’s for lunch, a restaurant near the Fauntleroy ferry dock. Then Patty & Jordan drove to Schmitz Park Preserve where they walked through the ravine down to Alki Beach on Puget Sound. They strolled along the promenade beside the beach. It was high tide & breezy. The waves slapped against the thin strip of beach.

South Seattle College Arboretum

Seattle Chinese Garden

Steve took half a day off on Thursday. He took Patty & Jordan to the state fair in Puyallup, a suburb of Tacoma. Jordan got free tickets from Colleen, who got them from a woman in her building. It was warm, but not hot. We saw lots of cows & also a few goats, alpacas & llamas. There were few displays of produce. Mostly there were commercial displays of various products & businesses. We did not look at those. We didn’t stay long at the fair. We had dinner at Matador, a Mexican restaurant in Tacoma.

Washington State Fair in Puyallup

Patty & Steve at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup

Washington State Fair in Puyallup

Steve had Friday off. He took Patty & Jordan to the Triangle Recreation Camp, which is located in the Cascade Mountains, on the South Fork Stillaguamish River, in Snohomish County. We were there less than 24 hours. We walked around the campground, ate dinner, made a campfire & talked with Dean, who shares the campsite with Steve & Rusty. Then they took Patty to a nearby B&B to spend the night. She balked at sleeping in the tent when she heard the temperature had been 38 the night before. It was cold that night. We picked her up in the morning & brought her back to the campground. Jordan collected moss & mossy logs for our garden. Steve & Patty gathered up camp gear to bring home.

Rusty was away in St Louis, where his mother died on the last day of Patty's visit.

Here are more photos of Patty in Seattle.

Triangle Recreation Camp

Patty at the Triangle Recreation Camp

Monday, January 27, 2014

Beyond Rainier Vista

The area beyond Rainier Vista, which lies just across the street, is filled with modest houses from every decade of the 20th century. We often walk there with Jetta. There are no sidewalks on this ridge, which I have only heard called Chubby & Tubby Heights, after a store at the base of the ridge on Rainier Avenue S, that was once locally famous. Chubby & Tubby was replaced by an apartment building called The Claremont. I like to call this area Leticia Ridge, after a street that runs along the east slope. Rainier Vista presses up against the west slope. From the east slope, you can see the Cascade Mountains. These photos were taken in November 2011.

About Ell Alley

Ell Alley is the home of Jetta, Jordan, Kitty, Rusty, Steve & Toby. It is named for the alley beside & behind the house that forms an ell: the shape of the letter L. It is located in the Rainier Vista development, in the Rainier Valley of Seattle, which extends 7 miles southeast from Downtown Seattle to Rainier Beach, between Beacon Hill & the lakeside ridges of Mt Baker, Lakewood & Seward Park. Ell Alley is 4 miles from Downtown Seattle, 0.4 miles from the Columbia City Station & 0.7 miles from the center of the Columbia City Landmark District.

Rainier Valley History

The first settlers arrived in the 1850s, but settlement was slow until the forest was cut down & milled, as it was throughout the city. Developers bought logged-off land toward the end of the 19th century. They laid out the communities of Genesee, Columbia City, Hillman City, Brighton & Dunlap.

Cheap land in the valley, just outside the City of Seattle, attracted Italians of rural origins & they planted large, productive gardens. The north end of the Rainier Valley became known as Garlic Gulch. Japanese immigrants also had farms in the valley. The produce filled local markets including Pike Place.

The Rainier Avenue Electric Railway opened the valley to greater development, reaching Columbia City in 1891 & Renton in 1896. In 1907, the City of Seattle annexed most of southeast Seattle, including the Rainier Valley.

At the start of World War II, Japanese residents were forced into internment camps east of the mountains. Tens of thousands of war workers came to Seattle to work at the Boeing Company, the shipyards & the port. The US government constructed thousands of temporary housing units at Rainier Vista, Stadium Homes (now Mt Baker Village) & Holly Park in the Rainier Valley.

After the war, the temporary housing became public, low-income housing. Suburban development took many white residents away from the valley. Blacks moved into the Rainier Valley from the over-crowded, nearby Central Area. Interracial couples found acceptance here. Filipinos arrived in large numbers.

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, refugees came from southeast Asia: Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Lao & Mien peoples. Many settled in the Rainier Valley. Chinese continued to arrive, although most settled on nearby Beacon Hill. There was a small influx of Mexicans. Somali immigration began after US involvement in Somalia in 1992.

Work on new housing at NewHolly (formerly Holly Park) began in 1997 & continued for a decade, with 1400 units sold to private owners. The rebuilding of Rainier Vista began in 2003 & still continues. Columbia City rapidly gentrified starting in the late 1990s. Many units of new housing were built in the form of townhouses, condos & apartments.

The current population of the Rainier Valley is about 41,000. The racial breakdown is 34.1% Asian, 26.9% Caucasian, 26% African American, 1.6% Pacific Islander, 6.5% Mixed Race, 1% Native American and 3.4% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race are 7.2% of the population.

Our Land & Climate

The city of Seattle rests between 2 bodies of water: Puget Sound & Lake Washington. Puget Sound is a substantial part of the Salish Sea & a very small part of the Pacific Ocean. The Salish Sea is set apart from the Pacific by the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington & Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. The dense, wet clouds of the Pacific Ocean travel as far as the Cascade Mountains, near the Salish Sea & not very far from the ocean. East of the Cascades lies the desert of the Columbia Basin. The moist, temperate climate of Seattle extends south to northern California & north to southeastern Alaska. The Pacific Northwest Coast from San Francisco Bay to Cook Inlet shares a flora dominated by evergreen coniferous forest. The central portion, west of the Cascade Mountains, is called Cascadia. The climate is cool & wet from fall to spring, warm & dry in summer. The Olympic Mountains block Seattle from much of the Pacific rainfall. Seattle is drier than the Atlantic coast of North America & northern Europe, cooler in summer & warmer in winter. It lies near the latitude of Paris & Quebec City.

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