Site Report #2: Environmental History
In 1800s, University District was relatively undeveloped. The area that is now known as University District was once a forest, including block 34. Seattle is well known for it’s hilly topography. Block 34 located at an area where the elevation is 100ft (Figure 1). If you have ever been to International District and Downtown Seattle, you will realize that block 34 elevations is lower than those areas, and other parts of Seattle as well. This is because block 34 is close to Lake Union and Union Bay area, where the lake and swamp is located. According to United States Geological Survey 1894 topography map, block 34th elevation started from 100ft to 200ft as we walk toward NE 41st Street (Figure 1). This means that the topography from NE 40th Street to NE 41st Street is uphill, and from Brooklyn Ave NE to 15th Ave NE is slightly uphill. Since the elevation between those two areas are not too extreme; therefore, it didn’t trigger a main environmental problem to planners.
On the second United States Geological Survey topography map, it shown that block 34 elevations has not changed as of 1897 (Figure 2). However, you can tell that block 34 has more black boxes around the area, which mean more buildings around the area.
Even thought, the topography around block 34 didn’t trigger a significant environmental problem to planners, the elevation changes might have some influenced on transportation planning. United States is well known as car dependent country. We can definitely see it around the country, especially in Seattle. With such a huge varieties of topography in Seattle, it makes Seattle an unsuitable city for lot of transportation methods, such as bikes and rails. Therefore, cars become prioritize over others mode of transportations. This is not just because of topographic reason; it is also because of the cars stakeholder Ford Companies manufactory happened to be located at the US. According to The Modern American Metropolis, chapter 7, page 159, it showed a magazine advertisement for Ford Company, a car company (Freund, David). In the advertisement, it provided the information to the public as cars can be affordable, and every young businessman should own one. From this advertisement, we learn that, cars were the main transportation across US back in the 20th century.
While I was doing my research on this site report, I found something very interesting. Base on 1947 zoning map, block 34 was in between E 40th Street, University Way, Brooklyn Ave, and E 41st Street, there was no campus parkway (Figure 3). However, in the 1960 zoning map, block 34 was in between E 40th St, Brooklyn Ave, Campus Parkway, and University Way (Figure 4). In figure 4, you can see that block 34 was split into half by car lanes. By doing more research, I found out that Campus Parkway road were built on 1953 (Seattle Design Commission). This had shown that City of Seattle had prioritized cars as their main transportation mode due to its popularities and the topography in Seattle. This development didn’t make a huge difference from 1947 to 1960.
What really change block 34 from a rural area to an urban area are the relocation of University of Washington 1895. During that time period, block 34 changed from a rural/ forest area into a suburban in the early 1900th , and during mid 1900th, due to the expansion of UW campus, block 34 started to transform into an urban area with more residential building and local businesses (Figure 3).
In my block, there were two signs of “nature” state still existed. One is the topography from NE 40th Street to NE 41st Street, and from Brooklyn Ave NE to 15th Ave NE (Figure 5). However, those two areas had been altered to a flatter elevation due to building being build there and the bike infrastructure being placed in. However, it is still a nature sign of what human have altered due to planning decisions. The other nature sign of my block are those trees (Figure 5). Evan thought, those trees are planted for aesthetics purpose; my block was once a forest prior to 1900th. As you can see in figure 5, both of those nature states has been altered over time, the topography and the deforestation.