Site report #1 the Deep Read

Bicycle shop facing NE 45th St. (on the South-East corner)

and UW CoMotion building on the right behind 

Sundance Theater and The University Business center (west side)

Customer Service Center and the parking area (North-west corner )

 

Roosevelt way and the side walk in front of Trader Joe's (East side)

UW CoMotion (East side)

Yoga Studio (South-East corner)

Hand drawn map of Block 44

Several blocks west from the North-end of UW campus and the University way, lies a mix-use neighborhood currently in transition. As the map attached on the bottome of this text shows, Block 44 is bordered to the North and South by NE 47th St and 45th St, and to the East and West by Roosevelt Way and 9th Ave, which is adjacent to Interstate-5, the only north–south primary interstate highway in Washington. 

The first thing I noticed when I visited, was the very different atmosphere compared to the “the Ave”, where many UW students and visitors walk through on weekdays. It was more of a calm and quiet place with few people walking around. All I could hear was the noises of cars passing by one after another on the busy crossroad nearby and the beeping sound of the crosswalk buttons. 

Except for the outside parking area on one corner, the whole block is packed with 3 large buildings that consist of all kinds of facilities. As I circled around the block several times, I found out the building in the south has a bicycle shop, sports outfit store, Movie theater, Business Center, yoga studio, and several empty rooms. The middle building is a 6 stories tall new headquarters of UW with a large parking garage. The building in the North consists of a customer service center and trader Joe’s. I was impressed with how more than 10 kinds of facilities fit compactly in this one single block. However, unlike other blocks there were no restaurants or houses.

I assume that these mixed-use buildings fulfill all kinds of needs for the people living in the neighborhood, as it provides a place to work, shop for food, buy sports products, get some help for services, and even a opportunity to exercise or watch movies. Moreover, since people around this area seemed to be mostly adults or elderly rather than students or children, the purpose of this block might be to provide neighbors with sufficient amenities and entertainment for a comfortable living. 

One of the interesting thing I noticed was that most of the buildings seem to be either new or re-painted recently, which gave me an clean and nicely organized impression of this area. Moreover, unlike on “the Ave”, I didn't see any trashes on the ground nor homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks. As I did some research on the internet, I found out that the Movie theater was built in 2013 and the UW building in 2016, which means that this block was reconstructed recently. Another was the convenience in terms of transportation as block 44 has a bus stop, large parking areas, bicycle parking lot and a bicycle path.

To sum up, this block seems to serve many facilities for the surrounding residences, who are not merely students but rather includes diverse populationーfamilies, workers, and elderlies.

These follweing questions will be discussed in site report #2, #3, #4 through historical research by reading articles and maps from books/online sources. 

(1)What was here before the buildings were reconstructed? what did the landscape look like in the past? [past]

(2)How did the block develop as time went on? [to present]

(3)What would Block44 be like in the future? [future]