Location and borders skyline as viewed from
Puget Sound. Queen Anne is bounded on the north by the
Fremont Cut of the
Lake Washington Ship Canal, beyond which is
Fremont; on the west by 15th and Elliott Avenues West, beyond which is
Interbay,
Magnolia, and
Elliott Bay; on the east by
Lake Union and
Aurora Avenue North, beyond which is
Westlake. As a neighborhood
toponym,
Queen Anne may include
Lower Queen Anne, also known as
Uptown, the area at the southern base of the hill, just north and west of
Seattle Center. Whether or not Lower Queen Anne is considered a separate neighborhood matters in setting Queen Anne's southern boundary, which is either West Mercer Street or Denny Way. Queen Anne can be reached from
Interstate 5 via the Mercer Street Exit (Exit 167). The neighborhood's main thoroughfares are Gilman Drive West, 3rd Avenue West, Queen Anne Avenue North, Boston Street, and a set of streets, collectively known as
Queen Anne Boulevard, that loop around the crown of the hill and reflect a comprehensive boulevard design in the style of the
Olmsted Brothers architectural firm. The design was never fully executed, but it remains part of the Seattle Parks System. While Queen Anne stands out in Seattle geography due to its proximity to downtown and three television broadcast towers, the highest point in the city, above sea level, is in
West Seattle. Queen Anne slopes are home to seven of the twenty steepest streets in the city and 120 pedestrian staircases.
Demographics Including the sub-neighborhoods of
North Queen Anne,
West Queen Anne,
East Queen Anne and
Lower Queen Anne (or
Uptown), Queen Anne has approximately 19,000 households and a total population of about 36,000. Queen Anne is disproportionately populated by unmarried, white, young adults. The population is more racially homogeneous than Seattle as a whole.
Significant events The Vashon
Glacier carved Queen Anne Hill's
topography more than 13,000 years ago, and human habitation in the area began some 3000 years ago. When white settlers arrived in the mid-19th century, the
Duwamish tribe maintained a seasonal presence in and around Queen Anne. White settlement of Queen Anne stemmed from the arrival of the
Denny Party at
West Seattles
Alki Point in November 1851. In 1853,
David Denny staked a claim to of land the Duwamish called ''baba'kwoh'', prairies, known today as Lower Queen Anne, and bounded by Elliott Bay to the west, Lake Union to the east, Mercer Street to the north, and Denny Way to the south. Denny called the area "Potlach Meadows". Development of the hill, called at various times North Seattle, Galer Hill, and Eden Hill, was slow. Then an 1875 windstorm flattened thousands of trees on Queen Anne, making the previously dense forest more appealing for settlement. The hill began to be called "Queen Anne" by 1885, after the
Queen Anne style houses that dominated the area. The arrival of the
Northern Pacific Railway (1883) and the
Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway (1887), the
Great Seattle Fire of 1889, and the opening of three
cable car lines to the top of the hill starting in 1890, including the
Queen Anne Counterbalance, further encouraged residential and business development. The 1917 opening of the
Lake Washington Ship Canal, and the
Fremont and
Ballard Bridges over it, made the area more appealing for maritime and timber industries, and connected Queen Anne with communities to the north. On the south side of the hill, the 1927 completion of a Civic Center (with auditorium, ice arena and football field) on David Denny's Potlach Meadows land brought residents from all over the city to Queen Anne for concerts and sporting events. The first
television broadcast in the
Pacific Northwest originated from the hill in November 1948, when KRSC-TV (now
KING-TV) signed-on from its transmitting tower at Third Avenue North and Galer Street.
KOMO-TV installed its own tower nearby, on Galer Street and Orange Place North, and began operations from there in December 1953, and
KIRO-TV went on the air in February 1958 from a tower adjacent to its original studios on Queen Anne Avenue. "The 1962 Seattle
World's Fair was perhaps the most transformational single event in the history of Queen Anne", according to historians Florence K. Lentz and Mimi Sheridan. Named the
Century 21 Exposition, the fair expanded on existing Civic Center infrastructure on the old ''baba'kwoh'' swale. After the fair, the grounds became the
Seattle Center, home to the
Space Needle,
Pacific Science Center,
Experience Music Project,
Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, the north terminal of the
Seattle monorail and
KeyArena. The
Seattle SuperSonics began playing at the then-
Seattle Center Coliseum in 1967. The
Seattle Thunderbirds hockey team began play next door at the Mercer Street Arena in 1977. The
Seattle Storm basketball team began play at KeyArena in 2000. As late as 1964, the area had a large enough population of families with children to motivate opening McClure Middle School, but by 1981 a decline in such families led the school system to close Queen Anne High School, North Queen Anne Elementary School, and West Queen Anne Elementary School. Assistant
United States Attorney Thomas C. Wales was shot in his home in the Queen Anne neighborhood on October 11, 2001, dying the next day of his wounds. The murder remains unsolved.
Landmarks on Queen Anne Hill with
Mount Rainier in the background Queen Anne is home to 29
official Seattle landmarks, including 12 historic houses. A group of
residences on 14th Avenue West, built between 1890 and 1910, include one of the few remaining
Queen Anne style houses on the hill. The
North Queen Anne Drive Bridge, built in 1936 across Wolf Creek, is a
parabolic steel arch bridge, declared a historic landmark for its unique engineering style. One of the oldest wooden-hulled
tugboats still afloat, the
Arthur Foss, is moored near the base of Queen Anne.
Queen Anne Boulevard, which circles the crown of the hill, and some of the original
retaining walls complete with decorative
brickwork,
balustrades, and
street lights, are also designated landmarks. Although not located at Queen Anne and no longer located west of present-day
Seattle Center, the Denny Cabin was built by
David Denny in 1889 as a real-estate office and was made from trees cut down on Queen Anne Hill. ==Community services==