Capitol Hill

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Infomation

Northeast of downtown, Capitol Hill is fascinating for its array of hair colors and for the clockwork-like fashion in which partygoers converge on the neighborhood at night. Capitol Hill is one of the most vibrant areas in Seattle.

The community is home to all sorts your parents wouldn’t approve of, from punks to artists to bohemians, but contains a growing number of those with more conservative wardrobes. Broadway, the main artery of this neighborhood, is lined with alternative boutiques, restaurants, cafes, bookstores, tattoo parlors, and everything else that wasn’t in Our Town.

Parking is scarce, but drinking isn’t, so you shouldn’t be driving anyways.

Capitol Hill is more than a coffee fueled existence for hipsters and a place for bohemians.

Capitol Hill is a neighborhood that is easy to describe when it’s being explained to outsiders: trendy, hipster, gentrified, expensive, liberal, alternative, coffee fueled etc… However, those of us who live here, who play here, who shop here, who exist here, cannot easily describe this neighborhood in those, in this near decade resident of Capitol Hill reviewer’s humble opinion, simplistic terms.

Often this neighborhood is classified as that place for hipsters or Seattle’s more, how should I say, alternative, metropolitan residents. But those of us who have spent a significant amount of time here know Capitol Hill as more than a place where the subcultures of the subculture come to flourish.

While they are definitely what make this neighborhood standout, we long term residents know that the longer you stay, the more Capitol Hill revels itself in many other forms. Families, couples, singles, retired folk (aka a skilled conversationalist), life enthusiasts, artists, intellectuals, geeks, nerds, loners, social butterflies, entrepreneurs, the rich, the poor, the in-between, the established, the not so established, and America’s transients – all cohabit in the flora and fauna diversity that is Capitol Hill.

And despite it holding the title of being the most urban Seattle neighborhood, Capitol Hill is quaint, cozy, and has a certain je nes sais quoi that this reviewer cannot get enough of. Capitol Hill also has a well-known small business culture, a myriad of restaurants and cafes to satiate any palate and budget, and two, well-established, uniquely different parks.

Capitol Hill’s more urban park, Cal Anderson, lives near Broadway (a thriving, yet laid back strip of city life). It was also in Forbes Top 12 list of the nation’s best urban parks. Cal Anderson Park is not only a true example of how a park can bond a community, but it is also a profound example of how a place can bring you peace from the madness of city life.

Cal Anderson Park covers nearly eight acres of city, but inside it there’s vast green, a fountain inspired by the eruption of Mt. St. Helen, flora diversity, an abundant of city benches to sit on and trees to sit under, and most recently commissioned sculptures from local artists.

It is also the home to the future Capitol Hill light rail. To the northern, quieter, more established part of Capitol Hill is Volunteer Park. Volunteer Park is a forest within the city.

From end to end massive, venerable trees thrive. It’s the home of a long standing greenhouse (free and open to the public), the Seattle Asian Museum, and every summer many of medieval plays and sword fights, and to this reviewer’s recent and most delightful discovery, a bustling and edible mycological biodiversity.

The best parts of Capitol Hill are the areas close to the three main hubs: the Pike/Pine corridor, 15th Avenue and Broadway. Each of these areas has the amenities that make a city life very convenient.

The good news is is that really no matter where you live on Capitol Hill (north or south), you will most likely be within walking distance of these streets. The not so great parts of Capitol Hill is the far southern area of 12th avenue, close to the International District; however it seems since the creation of a community coalition that area is now a burgeoning neighborhood within a neighborhood.

So come to Capitol Hill, enjoy a happy hour drink, slowly sip a cup of our ubiquitous coffee, learn about edible fungi, or devour a cheap bowl of Vietnamese Pho (if you plan on living here, you will need to know it’s pronounced fuh). Get here by bus, bike, foot, cab, or yes, even a car.

Against the will of this reviewer there has been an ongoing effort to improve the parking situation. Don’t let that effort fool you though, it is a progressive city neighborhood: it’s dense, thriving and eco-minded, but as most other Americans – oh, the car, the car, the car.

Who knows? Maybe you’ll decide to stay. And stay.

But remember, like the hipsters try not to act like you care.

What's awesome

From May to October every Sunday there is a neighborhood Farmer’s Market open from 11-3 featuring local produce from small Washington farms. Get a chance to become closer to your food source.

What's not so awesome

This really isn’t a “what’s not so awesome” but rather a warning: Capitol Hill is an urban community. What that means is that along with urban amenities like walking distance of pretty much anything you need – there is also urban noise.

Also known as city life. The awesome thing is is that you can avoid this noise by living in the quieter parts of the neighborhood. From my own experience I have found that anything east of Cal Anderson is fairly quiet and North Broadway where it turns into 10 Ave East is as quiet as any North Seattle suburb. (Well, besides the many birds that like to chirp at the sight of the rising sun.)

Eclectic, vibrant, and urban. Wonderful inner city neighborhood that has something for everyone!

There is no state capitol on Capitol Hill despite the dreams of early Seattle leaders. However, no neighborhood in the city has a more active sidewalk scene, day or night, than Broadway, Capitol Hill’s believe-it-or-not version of Main Street.

And no neighborhood in the city has a more diverse population. Seattle’s gay community, grunge rockers and twenty-something’s of many races share the area with longtime residents ensconced in the historic mansions, elegant old homes and classic apartment houses of Capitol Hill.

Educational institutions enliven this neighborhood’s life, with Seattle University, Seattle Community College and Cornish College of the Arts all located here. There are movie theaters, clubs, taverns, dance steps imbedded in the sidewalk and a variety of shops from around the world.

Volunteer Park is the gem of Capitol Hill, original home of the Seattle Art Museum, a much-beloved building now handsomely restored as the Seattle Asian Art Museum. The spacious grounds of Volunteer Park also include a conservatory and an old battlement of a water tower which boasts, at the top of 108 steps, one of the best views of the city.

Via www.seattle.gov

Fun Fun Fun

Its 2 in the morning, and all the teenagers who have found the loophole in thier cerfew roam around Capitol Hill in clove smoking packs. They cant get into bars, so they hang around the all night cafes and shops that are everywhere.

The dirty streets lined with refuse, both garbage and human form, are always packed, never leaving a parking space. If you are lucky enough to find one, the tight parallel parking situation mars bumpers, scratching away the trendy band and current popular political views bumperstickers.

Of those able to visit the bars, a thriving gay community exists. It is not uncommon to see a man wearing teeny weeny little shorts and a cut off tank top smoking a clove near the door of a bar whose trendy dance music is blaring obscenely.

Trendy trendy trendy is Capitol Hill, with it’s tea shops and it’s urban outfitters. Trendy individuals trying to be different in a community of collective rebellion. Brightly colored heads and flamboyant individuals run amouk as touriss hit up Dick’s Burgers and get treated like crap by the burger hawkers.

No sauce? They all come one way. Eat it or get out of the way.

I never want to live here. It is a younger person’s world. I visit often the wonderful array of bars and restraunts that serve a healthy mixture of comfort food and crazy dining.

A must visit.

True Life: I drink Organic Coffee and Casually Wear Flannels

Capitol Hill is lemony with cosmopolitan demand; tart, authoritative, knowledgeable, perceptive. Alternatively suave. It exhales a kind of stained urbanity.

The streets protrude a nonchalant middle finger to each tourist, because these are where the artists live, man.

Scrumptiously acquainted with the Emerald City, Cap Hill, as us locals call it, exudes an edgy feel that provides the quaintness in my step, especially through Broadway Street. The regulars accessorize with Value Village Ray-Bans, a grande recyclable cup, and oversized headphones.

Each shop, restaurant, and pedestrian is all about cutting edge newness, because this is where ever-blooming music, food, and art exists. Oh, and people honestly don’t care what you think about them.

Really.

The neighborhood validates the proposition that yes, Seattle contains more guitar-strumming and flannel scruff balls than LAX. It withholds the neon attitude of the city, and is the source of constancy that keeps us all in-motion; it’s a timeless indispensability. When you’re there, you get a similar feeling like when you hear the ice cream truck for the first time of the summer – a bit weirded out, but you’re so going for it.

The neighborhood is for the nonjudgmental, because this is the brewing spot for ruthless creativity. The spawn of it all, that is always just a tad bit marijuana induced. It’s all very wildly individualized yet collectively cool.

For the locals, they run their little shops to pass the time till that evening’s rehearsal. When you go and grab a coffee from one of their cafes, they’ll look at you with oversized glasses, dyed black hair, and rolled up sleeves.

He or she will sarcastically grimace, “What can I do for ya, honey?”.

Hopefully you’re at Minervini on Harvard Ave at this point, looking at the handcrafted jewelry and chatting with one of the twins. They’re brothers and both managers of the minute espresso place, but everyone calls both of them Joe.

No one has ever been corrected. Anyways, you better be getting their $2 latte and making a bid for a turquoise ring, because both will make you weep in devastation. Let’s face reality: you will never be as darling a