Fremont, Seattle, Washington
Encyclopedia
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
. Originally a separate city, it was annexed to Seattle in 1891. Named after Fremont, Nebraska
Fremont, Nebraska
Fremont is a city in and the county seat of Dodge County, Nebraska, United States, near Omaha in the eastern part of the state. The population was 26,397 at the 2010 census....
, the hometown of two of its founders, L. H. Griffith and E. Blewett, it is situated along the Fremont Cut
Fremont Cut
The Fremont Cut is a part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal—which passes through the U.S. city of Seattle, Washington, linking Lake Washington to Puget Sound—that connects Lake Union to the east with Salmon Bay to the west. It is long and wide. The center channel is wide and deep...
of the Lake Washington Ship Canal
Lake Washington Ship Canal
The Lake Washington Ship Canal, which runs through the City of Seattle, Washington, connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington with the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Ship Canal includes a series of locks, modeled after the Panama Canal, to accommodate the different water levels...
to the north of Queen Anne
Queen Anne, Seattle, Washington
Queen Anne Hill is a neighborhood and geographic feature in Seattle, Washington, northwest of downtown. The neighborhood sits on the highest named hill in the city, with a maximum elevation of . It covers an area of , and has a population of about 28,000...
, the east of Ballard
Ballard, Seattle, Washington
Ballard is a neighborhood located in the northwestern part of Seattle, Washington. To the north it is bounded by Crown Hill, ; to the east by Greenwood, Phinney Ridge and Fremont ; to the south by the Lake Washington Ship Canal; and to the west by Puget Sound’s Shilshole Bay. The neighborhood’s...
, the south of Phinney Ridge
Phinney Ridge, Seattle, Washington
Phinney Ridge is a neighborhood in north central Seattle, Washington, USA. It is named after the ridge which runs north and south, separating Ballard from Green Lake, from approximately N. 45th to N. 85th Street. The ridge, in turn, is named after Guy C. Phinney, lumber mill owner and real estate...
, and the southwest of Wallingford
Wallingford, Seattle, Washington
Wallingford is a neighborhood in north central Seattle, Washington, named after John Noble Wallingford . The QFC supermarket at the corner of N 45th Street and Wallingford Avenue N may be regarded as the center of the neighborhood; its large WALLINGFORD neon sign is made in part from letters in the...
. Its boundaries are not formally fixed, but they can be thought of as consisting of the Ship Canal to the south, Stone Way N. to the east, N. 50th Street to the north, and 8th Avenue N.W. to the west.
The neighborhood's main thoroughfares are Fremont and Aurora Avenues N. (north- and southbound) and N. 46th, 45th, 36th, and 34th Streets (east- and westbound). The Aurora Bridge (George Washington Memorial Bridge) carries Aurora Avenue (State Route 99
Washington State Route 99
State Route 99, abbreviated SR 99, commonly called Highway 99, is a numbered state highway in the U.S. state of Washington extending just under from Fife in the south to Everett in the north, with a gap in Tukwila.-Southern division:...
) over the Ship Canal to the top of Queen Anne Hill, and the Fremont Bridge carries Fremont Avenue over the canal to the hill's base. A major shopping district is centered on Fremont Avenue N. just north of the bridge.
Sometimes referred to as "The People's Republic of Fremont" or "The Artists' Republic of Fremont," and at one time a center of the counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
, Fremont has become somewhat gentrified
Gentrification
Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...
in recent years. The neighborhood remains home to a controversial statue
Statue of Lenin (Seattle)
The Statue of Lenin in Seattle is a 16 foot bronze sculpture of Bolshevik Russian Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin located in the Fremont neighborhood....
of Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
salvaged from Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
by a local art lover who was teaching in the area at the time. After the 1989 fall of the Communist government, he brought the statue to Fremont with money raised through a mortgage on his house. In addition to Lenin is the Fremont Troll
Fremont Troll
The Fremont Troll is a piece of public art in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, Washington in the United States.-Description:...
, an 18 feet (5 m) concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
of a troll
Troll
A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...
crushing a Volkswagen Beetle
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Type 1, widely known as the Volkswagen Beetle or Volkswagen Bug, is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003...
in its left hand, created in 1990 and situated under the north end of the Aurora Bridge. The street running under the bridge and ending at the Troll was renamed Troll Avenue N. in 2005. In addition, signs throughout Fremont give such helpful advice as "Set your watch ahead five minutes", "Set your watch back five minutes" and "Throw your watch away." Other landmarks include the Fremont Rocket, a Fairchild C-119 tail boom modified to resemble a missile. and the outdoor sculpture Waiting for the Interurban
Waiting for the Interurban
Waiting for the Interurban is a 1979 cast aluminum sculpture collection in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. It is located on the southeast corner of N. 34th Street and Fremont Avenue N., just east of the northern end of the Fremont Bridge. It consists of six people and a dog standing under a...
.
Since the early 1970s some Fremont residents have been referring to their neighborhood as "The Center of the Universe" (which also appears on a large "Welcome" sign ). An unofficial motto "De Libertas Quirkas" ("Freedom to be Peculiar") appears in brochures and websites about the area.
The Fremont Arts Council
Fremont Arts Council
The Fremont Arts Council is a community-run organization that supports arts and artists. The Council resides in the Fremont, Seattle, Washington, but its members are from throughout the city....
sponsors several highly attended annual events in Fremont. One of those events is the Summer Solstice Parade & Pageant, which has made Fremont famous for its nude
Public nudity
Public nudity or nude in public refers to nudity not in an entirely private context. It refers to a person appearing nude in a public place or to be seen from a public place. It also includes nudity in a semi-public place, where the general public is free to enter, such as a shopping mall...
Solstice Cyclists
Solstice Cyclists
The Solstice Cyclists is an artistic, non-political, clothing-optional bike ride celebrating the Summer Solstice...
. Another event is the Troll-a-ween.
Also important to Fremont is the large block on Linden Avenue N. that contains the B.F. Day Elementary School and B.F. Day Playground, two separate entities. B.F. Day is the longest continually operating school in the Seattle school district
Seattle Public Schools
Seattle Public Schools is the school district serving Seattle, Washington, USA. Its headquarters are in the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence.-List of schools:...
, having been founded in 1892.
Another longstanding institution is the Fremont branch of the Seattle Public Library
Seattle Public Library
The Seattle Public Library is the public library system serving Seattle, Washington, USA. It was officially established by the city in 1890, though there had been efforts to start a Seattle library as early as 1868. There are 26 branches in the system, most of them named after the neighborhoods in...
. An informal library predated the 1891 annexation of Fremont to Seattle, and annexation made it the city's first branch library. The present structure dates from 1921.
Besides the B.F. Day playfield, Fremont has two small public parks, Fremont Peak Park
Fremont Peak Park
Fremont Peak Park is a half-acre park located in Seattle, Washington, located on a bluff in the Fremont neighborhood just south of N. 45th Street at 4357 Palatine Ave. N. It was opened to the public on November 10, 2007....
just south of N. 45th Street and A.B. Ernst Park next to the library. The Burke-Gilman Trail
Burke-Gilman Trail
The Burke-Gilman Sammamish Trail is a rail trail in King County, Washington. The multi-use recreational trail is part of the King County Regional Trail System and occupies an abandoned Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway corridor....
passes through Fremont just north of the Lake Washington Ship Canal
Lake Washington Ship Canal
The Lake Washington Ship Canal, which runs through the City of Seattle, Washington, connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington with the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Ship Canal includes a series of locks, modeled after the Panama Canal, to accommodate the different water levels...
. The large Gas Works Park
Gas Works Park
Gas Works Park in Seattle, Washington is a 19.1 acre public park on the site of the former Seattle Gas Light Company gasification plant, located on the north shore of Lake Union at the south end of the Wallingford neighborhood. Gas Works park contains remnants of the sole remaining coal...
is just east of Fremont on the north shore of Lake Union
Lake Union
Lake Union is a freshwater lake entirely within the Seattle, Washington city limits.-Origins:A glacial lake, its basin was dug 12,000 years ago by the Vashon glacier, which also created Lake Washington and Seattle's Green, Bitter, and Haller Lakes.-Name:...
.
The world headquarters of Getty Images
Getty Images
Getty Images, Inc. is a stock photo agency, based in Seattle, Washington, USA. It is a supplier of stock images for business and consumers with an archive of 80 million still images and illustrations and more than 50,000 hours of stock film footage...
is located in Fremont, as well as Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
' Seattle offices, BEA Systems
BEA Systems
BEA Systems, Inc. specialized in enterprise infrastructure software products known as "middleware", which connect software applications to databases and was acquired by Oracle Corporation on April 29, 2008.- History :...
' Seattle office, golf and daywear label Cutter & Buck
Cutter & Buck
Cutter & Buck is a manufacturer of upscale apparel for golf and other sports. Founded in 1990, the company went public in 1995 and was sold to New Wave Group AB, a Swedish-based corporation, on April 13, 2007....
's corporate headquarters, and Hale's Ales
Hale's Ales
-History:It was founded by Mike Hale in 1983. The first batch was brewed in a Colville, Washington apartment before the brewery opened in a local warehouse. Its second brewery opened four years later in Kirkland, Washington. The Colville brewery moved to Spokane, Washington, in 1992, and the...
brewery. Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
opened offices there in 2006. Google has expanded their presence in Fremont by leasing 60000 square feet (5,574.2 m²) of the Getty building in July 2007. The original Redhook
Redhook Ale Brewery
The Redhook Ale Brewery , headquartered in Seattle, Washington, is a brewer of craft beers, with operations in Woodinville, Washington and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was founded in Seattle in 1981, by Paul Shipman and Gordon Bowker and is owned by the Craft Brewers Alliance.-Beers:Redhook...
breweries were located in Fremont until their closures in 1988 and 2002, respectively.
A growing number of technology companies have a presence in Fremont, including Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
, the Allen Institute for Brain Science
Allen Institute for Brain Science
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is a Seattle-based nonprofit medical research organization that was launched in 2003 with a $100 million seed donation from philanthropist, founder and former Microsoft executive Paul Allen.-Overview:...
, Getty Images
Getty Images
Getty Images, Inc. is a stock photo agency, based in Seattle, Washington, USA. It is a supplier of stock images for business and consumers with an archive of 80 million still images and illustrations and more than 50,000 hours of stock film footage...
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, Groundspeak
Groundspeak
Groundspeak, Inc. was founded to manage Geocaching.com, the largest geocaching listing website in the world. It has over 40 employees. Jeremy Irish is the President and CEO.- Geocaching :...
, Impinj
Impinj
Impinj, Inc. is a manufacturer of radio-frequency identification technology. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The company was started based on the research done at the California Institute of Technology by Carver Mead and Chris Diorio...
, and others. Most of these offices are along the Lake Washington Ship Canal
Lake Washington Ship Canal
The Lake Washington Ship Canal, which runs through the City of Seattle, Washington, connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington with the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Ship Canal includes a series of locks, modeled after the Panama Canal, to accommodate the different water levels...
. As a result, the Southern edge of Fremont is now sometimes locally referred to as the "Silicon Canal".
The neighborhood is home to a number of progressive nonprofit organizations, including Literacy Source and Provail (formerly United Cerebral Palsy
United Cerebral Palsy
United Cerebral Palsy is an international nonprofit charitable organization consisting of a network of affiliates. UCP is a leading service provider and advocate for adults and children with disabilities, including cerebral palsy...
of King and Snohomish Counties).
A wedge-shaped building on the diagonal street Leary Way that cuts across Fremont from the adjacent Ballard neighborhood was once home to legendary Seattle producer Jack Endino
Jack Endino
Jack Endino is a producer and musician based in Seattle. Long associated with Seattle label Sub Pop and the grunge movement, Endino worked on seminal albums from bands such as Mudhoney, Soundgarden, and Nirvana...
's Reciprocal Recording studio, where he recorded (among many other records) Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
's first demos and the band's debut on Sub Pop
Sub Pop
Sub Pop is a record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman in Seattle, Washington. Sub Pop achieved fame in the late 1980s for first signing Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and many other bands from the Seattle music scene...
records, Bleach
Bleach (album)
Bleach is the debut album by the American rock band Nirvana, released in June 1989 through the independent record label Sub Pop. The main recording sessions took place at Reciprocal Recording in Seattle, Washington between December 1988 and January 1989...
.