One of my favorite things about Seattle is that many of the neighborhoods were originally separate towns and have their own history and flavor. Ballard, which today is in the northwest quadrant of Seattle, was originally a Scandinavian fishing town. Ballard was incorporated into the city of Seattle in 1907 and has gained appropriate street names, e.g. 15th Ave NW (actually very confusing because the result is numerous 15ths). The street names weren’t always so bland, though! Even better: a cross-section of them have been preserved via these tile street signs in the sidewalk. 50-somethingth street (see, I forgot already) was originally Times Street (see picture, below). Sometimes small preservation efforts make a huge difference. I love these little peaks into the past.
This place matters.
Happy Friday, everyone!
Want to go searching for these signs? They’re primarily located on 20th and 24th Avenues. The My Ballard website has a link to a map of them, here.
Susie Trexler 
[…] To celebrate holiday, I thought I’d share some of my favorite types of ghosts: architectural ghosts! I love picking out ghost signs on old buildings (I previously wrote about resurrecting ghost signs, here). But ghost signs aren’t the only ghosts in the built environment. Often, especially on old brick buildings, you can see places were windows, doors, and even staircases once were. And, I would add to the group those places you spot old tiled floors–from the old tile entryways to sidewalk elements like street names. […]
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