How Denny Hill Became Belltown

Legend has it there were once seven hills. Not the ones in Rome we all learned about in school, but right here in Seattle.

One of the seven was Denny Hill, located just north of what is now downtown Seattle. In 1892, then City Engineer Reginald Thomson had a vision of straight and level roads in his city. Denny Hill stood in the way of that vision. Second Avenue was a bluff that dropped straight to the tide line below, confining the original Belltown to First and Western Avenues and largely isolated from downtown Seattle.

Thomson decided that dumping Denny Hill load by horse-drawn load over the bluff might just solve his problem. However, this was slow going with a hill a hundred or so feet high. Thomson, having sometime witnessed a hydraulic mining operation, decided he could get rid of the offending hill by sluicing it away hydraulically. So water was pumped from Lake Union to wash away Denny Hill once and for all. And finally, in 1930, the job was finished (with the help of steam shovels).

Belltown or the Denny Regrade, as it is also known, was at one time a working-class neighborhood, home of labor unions and their meeting halls. There were the usual hotels, apartments, cafes, restaurants, taverns and clubs serving the neighborhood residents and the occasional visiting seaman.

Today, Belltown reflects a neighborhood in transition. Gone are the single-family homes and their old neighborhoods, replaced by high-rise condos and office buildings, up-scale restaurants, coffee shops, night clubs, boutiques and art galleries.

However, some of the old apartment buildings and brick storefronts still remain, renting to the young, the single, the artist or musician. As you look around at these vintage buildings and storefronts, you catch a glimpse of the Bohemian element that survives in this mini-SoHo colony. Check out an artist’s studio—with work in progress—or a nearby café with an all-organic menu. Most of all, enjoy the eclectic and trendy offerings of Belltown. A neighborhood rediscovering itself.