Wallingford, Seattle, Washington

Wallingford is a neighborhood in north central Seattle, Washington, named after John Noble Wallingford (died 1913). The QFC supermarket at the corner of N 45th Street and Wallingford Avenue N may be regarded as the center of the neighborhood; its large WALLINGFORD neon sign is made in part from letters in the old FOOD GIANT sign that adorned QFC's predecessor for decades.

John Noble Wallingford was a major local landowner and real estate speculator; at one time his holdings included most of what is now Wallingford and extended north as far as Green Lake. He travelled considerably up and down the West Coast of the United States and lived for a time in Alaska, but Seattle in general, and the neighborhood now named after him in particular, remained his major place of investment.

Wallingford's business district extends along N 45th Street from Stone Way N in the west to Sunnyside Avenue N in the east and features many small shops, two banks, a pharmacy, a few taverns and bars, the two Guild 45th movie theaters, the Wallingford Center (the former Interlake Elementary School, now turned into shops and apartments), and numerous restaurants (including the original Dick's Drive-In, founded 1954). Nearby, just south of N 45th, is the former (Abraham) Lincoln High School, closed in 1981, now used primarily to house public high schools "in exile" while their own buildings undergo major renovations. (Ballard High School was rebuilt in 1997-1999, and Roosevelt High School (Seattle) in 2004-2006. Garfield High School currently occupies Lincoln and will do so until 2008.) Just north of N 45th is Meridian Park, including the Good Shepherd Center, a former Roman Catholic home for wayward girls, now a community center, also home to the Tilth center with urban gardening demo plots.

Like neighboring Fremont (and, indeed, most Seattle neighborhoods), Wallingford's boundaries are not fixed, but they may be thought of as Stone Way N to the west, beyond which is Fremont; Lake Union to the south; Interstate 5 to the east, beyond which is the University District; and Woodland Park and NE 60th St. to the north, beyond which is Green Lake. The secondary concentration of mostly retail businesses on N 55th Street near Meridian Avenue is known variously as Tangletown or Meridian and considered by some to be outside of Wallingford proper. The likely source for the name "Tangletown" is the irregular configuration of the blocks, some of which follow the contours of Green Lake, others conforming to the city's basic grid. "Meridian" sometimes refers to a wider neighborhood than "Tangletown", which refers strictly to the retail district. The region south of N 40th Street is also known as Northlake.

Gas Works Park on Lake Union is on a peninsula that juts into Lake Union from Wallingford just south of the Burke-Gilman Trail. To the northwest of Wallingford is Woodland Park, featuring the Woodland Park Zoo and a rose garden.

Annual events in the neighborhood include the Wallingford Wurst Festival and the What's Cookin' in Wallingford food festival, as well as the Family Fourth fireworks show every Independence Day at Gas Works Park. The annual Wallingford Kiddie Parade is run in summer on 45th Street.

External links

* [http://www.seattlewiki.org/wiki/Wallingford Wallingford article] on [http://seattlewiki.org Seattle Wiki]
* [http://southwallingford.org/ South Wallingford Stewards community website]
* Paul Dorpat, [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=3461 Seattle Neighborhoods: Wallingford -- Thumbnail History] , HistoryLink.org Essay 3461, July 24, 2001