Ravenna, Seattle, Washington
Ravenna is a neighborhood in northeastern
Seattle, Washington, named after
Ravenna,
Italy. The neighborhood is mostly
residential, with several businesses located along the busiest streets, in addition to
University Village Shopping Center. Many of the residents are graduate students at the
University of Washington, which is about a mile or two to the south. Its main distinction is the restored Cowen Park-Ravenna Park, which is near the popular walking or biking route between Green Lake and the
Burke-Gilman Trail near University Village.
Encyclopedia
Ravenna is a neighborhood in northeastern
Seattle, Washington, named after
Ravenna,
Italy. The neighborhood is mostly
residential, with several businesses located along the busiest streets, in addition to
University Village Shopping Center. Many of the residents are graduate students at the
University of Washington, which is about a mile or two to the south. Its main distinction is the restored Cowen Park-
Ravenna Park, which is near the popular walking or biking route between Green Lake and the
Burke-Gilman Trail near University Village.
Ravenna and Ravenna-Bryant
What is now Ravenna has been inhabited since the end of the last
glacial period . The
Native American Duwamish tribe of the Lushootseed Coast Salish nations had the prominent village of
SWAH-tsoo-gweel on then-adjacent Union Bay, and what is now Ravenna was their backyard before the arrival of
White settlers. The
Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway was built c. 1886 along what is now the
Burke-Gilman Trail, following what was the shoreline past where the UW power plant and University Village are today.
In 1891, a streetcar line followed what is now 15th Avenue NE, then followed near the southern boundary of what is now Ravenna, where the narrow right-of-way remains clearly visible beside the park. Ravenna Boulevard was built in 1903 as a small part of the Olmsted Brothers grand plan for Seattle streets and parks.
Ravenna incorporated as an independent
town in 1906 toward annexation to Seattle in 1907. Ravenna south of the Burke-Gilman Trail is filled land from dump sites at 26th Avenue, filling the drained Union Bay Marsh and much of Union Bay. University Village was built on the southernmost reclaimed land in Ravenna.
Ravenna and Bryant are bounded on the west by 15th and 20th Avenues NE, beyond which lies the
Roosevelt neighborhood; on the north by NE 75th and 85th Streets, beyond which lie
Maple Leaf and
Wedgwood; on the east by 35th and 25th Avenues NE, beyond which lie
View Ridge,
Windermere and
Laurelhurst ; and on the south by NE Ravenna Boulevard, and NE Blakeley or NE 45th Streets, beyond which lie the
University District and sometimes University Village . University Village and Calvary Cemetery are in south Ravenna. Bryant, or Ravenna-Bryant, extends the neighborhood east to 45th Avenue, south of 75th Street and north of Sand Point Way. The 20th Avenue collector arterial has become increasingly bike- and pedestrian-friendly with the closure of the park bridge to motor vehicles . Ravenna Boulevard is a popular bikeway.
There are small commercial clusters on 25th Avenue between Blakeley and 55th, on 55th east of 25th, on 65th between 20th and 25th, and along Blakeley. An eponymous grocery has been at the same location on the boulevard since the 1920s. Most emblematic of the neighborhood are Queen Mary, serving
Victorian English Tea; the Duchess Tavern , along with the Blue Moon, the oldest still-extant around the University of Washington; and that the only Volvo dealership in town is family-owned and in Ravenna-Bryant.
Cowen Park–Ravenna Park and Ravenna Creek
The parks comprise the centerpiece of these neighborhoods . Conjoined Cowen Park-Ravenna Park is located at a southwest corner of Ravenna-Bryant, reaching from beyond the source of Ravenna Creek beside nearby Brooklyn Avenue and Ravenna Boulevard, under the 15th Avenue bridge to 25th Avenue NE.
For many decades of Seattle city history, the park ravine had been ignored by loggers and farmers and still possessed full old-growth timber rising nearly 400 feet. The trees remained through the
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1908, at which they were featured exhibitions. Public controversy about them declined after their gradual disappearance in suspicious circumstances by 1926. Today, none of that size remain anywhere in the world. The legacy helped save Seward and
Carkeek parks, and helped galvanize conservation efforts ever since. Today, a single
Sierra Redwood stands over the Medicinal Herb Garden at a south edge of the
UW campus, at 106 feet somewhat over a quarter of the height of those of Cowen Park-Ravenna Park.
The creek original source was
Green Lake, from
Haller and
Bitter lakes, then the Cowen Park ravine west wall when the watershed was diverted to sewers . In the mid-1960s, the Cowen Park ravine was largely filled using freeway construction spoils. The City of Seattle planned to use the ravine for staging a comprehensive stormwater drainage piping project in 1986, galvanizing the neighborhoods of the watershed to protect and restore the park. Since 1991, the park has seen major restoration by residents of neighborhoods in collaboration with the City. Projects have included daylighting portions of the creek , building and maintaining trails, and restoring
riparian habitat. Completion of downstream daylighting to the mouth of the creek beside
Union Bay Natural Area and restoration of migrating fish has come into conflict with property owners, specifically the owners of University Village, even though a revised daylighting project would not include their land.
Neighborhoods of Ravenna Creek
The Ravenna Creek watershed mostly corresponds to:
- Bitter Lake-Haller Lake
- Green Lake
- South Roosevelt
- North and east University District ;
Walt Crowley and Paul Dorpat, "The Ave: Streetcars to Street Fairs", typescript dated 1995 in possession of Walt Crowley and Paul Dorpat, Seattle, Washington;
Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995;
Cal McCune, From Romance to Riot: A Seattle Memoir. Seattle: Cal McCune, 1996;
Roy Nielsen, UniverCity: The City Within City: The Story of the University District Seattle: University Lions Foundation, ca. 1986;
Clark Humphrey, Loser: the Real Seattle Music Story. Portland, OR: Feral House, 1995.
Updated at
"The Neighbors project was published weekly in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from 1996 to 2000. This page remains available for archival purposes only and the information it contains may be outdated. For more updated information, please visit our section."
