Look, that’s no secret. Ever since I slipped up here in 1973 to attend the University of Washington and fell in love with this state, I’ve known that this is one, special place.

I remember describing the northwest to friends as “somewhere you could live in the kind of place we used to go camping.” When you fly into Seattle and look out the window as you’re about to land in Seattle, you may find yourself thinking, “Oh, my God, we’re going to crash into a forest!”

When my fiancé Victoria and I were house-hunting back in 2007, we did a lot of looking around. I had a home in Bothell and worked in Edmonds. She had a house in Ballard and worked in downtown Seattle, so we were looking for a neutral corner. To be honest, I didn’t even know the Broadview area of Seattle existed. But our realtor, Bruce Fulton, found the house we’ve called home for the past 12 years in the heart of this north Seattle neighborhood.

During some of our get-to-know-the-neighbors gatherings, I found out that our little neighborhood was among the “Parade of Homes”, one of the earlier versions of the “Street of Dreams.” I believe 7 of the homes in our neighborhood came with swimming pools, although all but two have been filled-in. Between leaves dropping and our far-from-resort-weather, having a pool in the northwest really isn’t that great.
Tonight, while working on social media posts for a client, I was doing some research into Seattle history and I came across some nuggets that simply blew me away. The “Broadview” area of Seattle is up around the 125th-140th area of the N.W. streets.  Our home would have a spectacular view of the Puget Sound if it weren’t for all the trees and neighbors, but then again, that’s among the things we loved about this area.

One of the things I learned about this area of North Seattle is that they used to have a place called, Playland. An amusement park located on Bitter Lake that opened in 1930, at a cost of $750,000 to build. This was back in the time when that was a long way out-of-town. The area where we live now used to be where people would have their vacation or weekend homes. Playland opened in 1930 and made it all the way until 1961 before closing forever.

Now, add to that, they used to have an Aurora Race track out here, as well. No kidding.

Can you imagine?  Piling the family in the car and then heading out “to the country” to take in some auto racing while sitting in the giant wood bleachers?

And what area would be complete without a drive-in movie theater? It was a mile or so, due east of where we now live.

I’m sure you could get similar results with almost any neighborhood. Do a little digging, Google your neighborhood’s name and you just might some surprises about what went on before you got there. In my case, an amusement park, a race track and a drive-in theater, all made my neighborhood a destination for people to go and play almost a hundred years ago. All those places have been torn down, paved over and are now anything from SHAG housing to a car dealership or even a Dollar Tree store.

Thanks to those who took the time to capture those memories on film and everyone who helped preserve them along the way, so those of us around now can look back and marvel about how special this place is that we live.

It was special then. It’s special now.

Tim Hunter