In the midst of galloping growth at the turn of the twentieth century, Seattle's city leaders seized on the confluence of a roaring economy with the City Beautiful movement to hire the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm to design a park and parkway system. Their 1903 plan led to a supplemental plan, a playground plan, numerous park and boulevard designs, changes to park system management, and a ripple effect, as the Olmsted Brothers were hired to design public and private landscapes throughout the region. The park system shaped Seattle's character and continues to play a key role in the city's livability today.
Landscape architect John Charles Olmsted was mentored by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York¿s Central Park. In the early 1900s, the meticulous, visionary protégé brought his famous stepfather¿s pastoral aesthetic to premier parks throughout the Pacific Northwest¿green retreats that still refresh urban souls in Portland, Seattle, and Spokane.
CLICK HERE to download Jake and Cathy Jaramillo's favorite walk from the book, "The Olmstead Vision" (Provide us with a little information and we'll send your download directly to your inbox) * The only guidebook to stairway walks in Seattle * Explore Seattle neighborhoods in a new way with these interesting walks in Seattle * Written for people of all ages who want to get outside, exercise, and explore Often called a “city of neighbor-hoods,” Seattle is shaped by soaring mounds like Queen Anne and Capitol Hill and by indentations such as Ravenna Ravine and Deadhorse Canyon. Weaving together the hills, bluffs, and canyons are stairs -- lots and lots of stairs. In fact, there are over 600 publicly accessible Seattle stairways within the city limits! And to explore Seattle by these stairs opens up stunning views and a whole new, intimate side of the Emerald City. Seattle Stairway Walks: An Up-and-Down Guide to City Neighborhoods is the city's first guidebook to 25 of the best neighborhood walks that feature public Seattle stairways. Each route description includes driving and public transit directions to the starting point, full-color photos, a detailed map, QR codes for saving abbreviated directions on your smart phone, tips on sections that are family-friendly, suggestions for cafes and pubs for that perfect espresso and sandwich en route, fascinating sidebars on Seattle's neighborhood history and community anecdotes, and much, much more.
This definitive, first full-scale biography of Olmsted--famed designer of New York's Central Park--reveals him also as a brilliant political and social reformer.
This collection of irreverent accounts provides a fascinating look at the sometimes troubled, tragic, and bawdy past of the Emerald City and surrounding region. The author portrays trendy fads and devastating events, and introduces some of the area's most notorious scoundrels and greatest benefactors. Whether about the great 1889 fire or the plague of 1918, brothel owners or rock musicians, Pierce's selections deliver captivating reading.
From the time that Roger Sale's interpretive history Seattle Past to Present was published in 1976 he has often served as an unofficial guide for friends and visitors to Seattle, and has also been asked by those who run professional tours for advice on how to view Seattle with fresh eyes. In Seeing Seattle he invites the reader to join him in walking tours of the city in a collaborative process of looking, asking, and forming opinions and judgments. The book starts near where Seattle itself started and works out to the city limits in layers. In the first walk, the Pioneer Square area reveals through its buildings - many of them handsomely rehabilitated - how the city re-established itself after the great fire of 1889. We are asked to observe and evaluate how new buildings and new uses have been combined with old ones, and how architects, builders, and planners have served this historical area. The same points are considered for the downtown business district, Pike Place Market, and other areas near the historic core of the city. We face the breathtaking downtown skyline from viewpoints on Seattle's many hills, from points across the bay at Duwamish Head, and from Seward Park, which has Seattle's largest stand of old-growth forest. What makes Seattle distinctively Seattle? Sale muses over this question as he walks through the older residential sections of Queen Anne Hill and Capitol Hill, with their mansions and near mansions. He traces the routes along Lake Washington Boulevard and the influence of the Olmsted brothers in shaping the social as well as the visual landscape of the city. He tours upscale neighborhoods with lake and sound views as well as working-class neighborhoods thatowe their history and early growth to nearby mills and streetcar transportation. He visits the Chinatown/International District and the University of Washington, and learns to identify trees in Washington Park Arboretum and to recognize those trees elsewhere. He finds the "enchanted house" where Mary McCarthy lived as a girl and the garden in which Theodore Roethke sought solitude among trees that "came closer with a denser shade". Sale and photographer Mary Randlett have worked together to integrate photographs closely with text and promote a view of Seattle in a context of new and old, landscapes and skyscrapers, neighborhood streets and remarkable vistas. Estimated times for each walk (or drive, in outlying areas) and bus route information are provided.
Why does a city surrounded by water need another waterway? Find out what drove Seattle's civic leaders to pursue the dream of a Lake Washington Ship Canal for more than sixty years and what role it has played in the region's development over the past century. Historians Jennifer Ott and David B. Williams, author of Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle's Topography, explore how industry, transportation, and the very character of the city and surrounding region developed in response to the economic and environmental changes brought by Seattle's canal and locks.
On the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of the City of Seattle, this book illustrates over a century and a half of the city's history through images and stories told through 150 objects and photographs from the collection of the Seattle Municipal Archives. Each object provides insight into a specific context of the city's history. With an afterword by Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan.
Seattle is located on the northwest edge of the continental United States, flanked by two mountain ranges and set on the calm shores of Puget Sound. It is remote from the country's hub but a portal to Alaska and Asia. It is widely considered liberal and green, but such a characterization over-simplifies a city of many idiosyncrasies and contradictions. Seattle Geographies explores the human geography of the city and region to examine why Seattle is Seattle. The contributors to this volume look into Seattle's social, economic, political, and cultural geographies across a range of scales from neighborhoods to the world. They tackle issues as diverse as economic restructuring, gay space, trade with China, skateboarding, and P-Patches. They apply a geographic perspective to uniquely Seattle events and movements such as the WTO protests and Grunge. They also look at the darker side of Seattle by exploring homelessness, poverty, and segregation. Guided by a strong sense of accountability to place, these geographers offer a wide, multi-faceted portrayal of the city and its region. Michael Brown is professor of geography at the University of Washington. Richard Morrill is professor emeritus of geography at the University of Washington.
200 Iconic Landscapes That Define North America Frederick Law Olmsted is the father of American landscape architecture. His firm, and the successor firms that sprung from it, worked through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to shape some of our most beloved green spaces, including national, state, and city parks, suburban neighborhoods, and academic campuses. He is most famous for creating New York’s Central and Prospect Parks, Stanford University’s campus, and the Capitol Grounds. What is less known and surprising about his legacy is that he worked widely across North America. By highlighting 200 iconic landscapes, many of which are still open to the public today, Experiencing Olmsted brings a fresh approach to the firms’ work and philosophy. It highlights not only grand city parks, but also other public venues born out of a desire for social equity. Olmsted was an early voice for parks as democratic spaces that could be reached on foot by a large percentage of any city’s populace. He viewed parks as restorative places—what he termed “the lungs of a city.” Brimming with contemporary and archival photography as well as original drawings and plans, this truly remarkable record brings these places to vivid life.
