Final Site Report
Introduction
The first time I walked onto my block, I was so grateful to see a large building. After walking around for a few minutes, I was able to deduce that it was some kind of school. However, apart from making the assumption that it was probably not a public school, I had no other information. I took lots of pictures and continued walking until I got to the library. This made me excited because I love libraries, and I knew I would be able to find so much information regarding its past on my block. In the very beginning of the course we talked a lot about how people started developing cities, and how they wanted to live in more central areas where they could live and work in the same place. And eventually they became more crowded and didn’t live up to expectations of what city living would be like. But then leisure started becoming more important, and that is where it ties in to my block because library are not work-centered at all. The library was a main focus as I wrote my site reports just because there was a lot of history behind it and I personally found it very interesting.
Site Report 1
My block ended up being a lot more interesting than I had anticipated. The exact location is between 9th Ave NE and Roosevelt Way NE, and between NE 53rd St and NE 50th St. When I first started walking around my block, the first building I noticed looked like some kind of preschool or elementary school. As I kept walking I saw that it was called the University Child Development School. I didn’t learn much more about this school; there were no kids playing outside on the playground and it seemed very quiet. I am excited, however, to learn more about what kind of school it is.
Another big building on my block was the University branch of the Seattle Public Library. I have always loved libraries so I was excited to see this on my block; I took several pictures and even went inside and looked around for a while. The building looks big from the outside but it’s relatively small inside. It doesn’t look too new so I do wonder how long it has been there.
As I finally finished walking around my block I found a few smaller buildings and businesses, including a chiropractor, a food bank, and a newer looking apartment building.
One big thing I noticed as I walked around and took pictures was that it was extremely quiet. I went after class around 1 pm and there were very few people around. Even in the library, I didn’t see very many kids like I do when I go to my local library in Bellevue. I didn’t notice any strange smells, mainly exhaust from the busses, but that is to be expected in the city. Another thing I noticed was that outside the school, there were a lot of bushes and trees. There was so much green that it could almost have been a suburb, or an even more rural area. It took me a while to get close enough to even see that the building was a school.
I did think of several questions during my first visit to my block. One big one is I’d love to learn more about the school that is there; how long it has been there, if the building was used for a different purpose before, and maybe who owns it. I’d also want to learn more about the library; I know that the Seattle Public Library system is separate from the King County Library System but I don’t know much else. One last question is I’d like to know more about the history of the block; what it looked like 100 years ago in particular.
Site Report 2
From what I was able to learn about Seattle, it has always had a lot of hills. This is in part because it is surrounded by mountain ranges. It is also close to water, being near the Puget Sound. The earliest map I could find of Seattle was from 1909, and it is a topographical map of the entire city. The hills of Seattle influenced urban development because you can see as you walk throughout the city that a lot of buildings are built on hills, and a lot of the land hasn’t been evened out; you have to drive up and down steep hills as you drive throughout the city. On my block, the school (University Child Development School) looks like it was built on a foundation that is raised up on one side so that the building is even, and not slanted along the hill. I will provide a picture to further explain what that looks like.
I can also see that there were a lot of trees on my block even before the buildings went up. This is obvious because some of the trees are still there, and they are very tall and have thick, strong roots. Roots like that take time to grow, so it is clear that they were not planted recently. In some places the concrete is cut around the roots so that the roots are exposed. This is probably because the roots were creating cracks in the cement as they continued to grow after the land was developed. I like that Seattle is trying to preserve some of the natural land even as urban development continues.
I know that my block was developed a bit later than other parts of the University District; I looked at a map from 1908 and my block did not even exist yet. I also know that the University Branch of the Seattle Public Library was open in 1910, so it must have been the first building on what would later become the block that I am researching now. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places. I have not yet been able to find a primary document on this, but I hope to be able to later on in my research.
Site Report 3
The biggest building on my block is the University Child Development School. The building used to belong to the Blessed Sacrament Parish and the school moved into the building in 1990. The building looks old but one can see that it has been renovated to suit the needs of elementary school students. Prior to being a school, it was a building for the Catholic Church meaning that it held services regularly. The church sold the building to the school when parents at the school were looking for a larger space so that they could increase the number of students. The school began as an experimental preschool at the University of Washington but now teaches kid up to 5th grade.
Another major building on this block is the University branch of the Seattle Public Library. As you can see, this building is over a hundred years old. It was built in 1910 and has been a library ever since. It has gone through renovations but has stood on the same block the entire time. The building looks big from the outside, but inside it is pretty small. It can often be difficult to build new buildings like libraries because since they don’t bring in as much revenue, they can be seen as less essential. However, a lot of money was donated by Andrew Carnegie to build this branch as well as two others. It was renovated in 2007, which is why it no longer has the tall ceilings and large entrance of the original branch. However, outside you can still see large trees with deep roots, showing that the land itself hasn’t changed much over the years.
Site Report 4
The University District Park Plan was put in place to create or enhance open spaces in the U District, particularly around the light rail station. Urban planners and architects wrote this plan, but it was influenced by all the people living in the U District, including students. They held public forums and workshops in order to get people involved and to see what people would want the most out of open spaces in their neighborhoods. The three public forums each had a different purpose, including deciding where these open spaces would be and what purposes they would serve. It seems as if the public forums were integral for the city planners to make decisions about how to move forward. Their main goals were to have one central park and then other smaller parks and plazas in the different neighborhoods. My block is half residential but also has a school and a library, and I can see how people would want smaller parks nearby. Historically my block hasn’t changed very much and I think a park would be a positive addition because the area is utilized by a lot of people and it would probably be well-used.
The University District Retail Plan was interesting because it talked about how currently, the U District is boring and looks cluttered and not well-maintained. City planners want to change that, and add more urban shops to attract more people. This would be a change from the history of the U District because right now, the shops exist mostly to serve the people living in close proximity. The paper discussed how the light-rail service and station are making the U District more accessible. This is obviously different from how the U District has been historically. It is becoming more of an area for people to visit or spend leisure time in, rather than just being a function area for residents.
I think the light-rail is something we should take into account when considering future development of the U District because it is changing how the U District is being used. Historically it has been residential neighborhoods but they want to make it more urban and draw more people there. A student-centered U District ideally would be less expensive and have a diversity of different shops and businesses I think.
Conclusion
Learning about urban development throughout the course I was able to relate a lot of it to what I found out about my block. I learned about the financial side of urban development, and how waiting for funds can take years, and then planning any changes can take even longer. Learning about future plans in the University District was interesting because so much of the course was focused on the past, and this was a different view of urban planning. I liked reading through the planning documents that were drawn up for the library, and reading about why they were making all these proposed changes. That was interesting because I was able to see the real results from that. Reading through planning documents for the future of the University District was interesting but I won’t see how things actually happen for a few years. In all, this project was an interesting way to learn about urban planning in a very specific, tangible way.