Seward Park
Seattle Neighborhood
A forested peninsula surrounded by a lake and urban neighborhoods
Aerial view of Seward Park area from the west featuring forested Bailey Peninsula in Lake Washington, with Mercer Island on top.
Map of Seward Park's location in Seattle
Map of Seward Park's location in Seattle
Coordinates: 47°33′02″N 122°15′52″W / 47.55056°N 122.26444°W / 47.55056; -122.26444

Seward Park is a neighborhood in southeast Seattle, Washington just west of the park of the same name. It is part of Seattle's South End. The park occupies all of Bailey Peninsula.

Neighborhood

The neighborhood is bounded on the east and north by Lake Washington, on the south by South Kenyon Street, and on the west by the eastern boundaries of Columbia City, one of Seattle's oldest neighborhoods.

Environment

The 300 acres (121 ha) of Seward Park has about a 120 acre (48.6 ha) surviving remnant of old-growth forest, providing a glimpse of what some of the lake shore looked like before the growth of the city of Seattle. With trees older than 250 years, the Seward Park forest is relatively young (the forests of Seattle before the city were fully mature, up to 1,000–2,000 years old).[1][2] The park's trees largely consists of softwoods, mostly Douglas firs, but with other species present as well, including Western hemlock, Pacific madrona and Alaskan cedar.

One of the earliest settlers, E. A. Clark, was influential in the life of Cheshiahud, a young man at the time, the mid-1850s.[3]

The Seward Park neighborhood includes what may be one of the highest residential hills in Seattle (the hill is traversed by Graham Street near its high point, thus earning it the name "Graham hill"). In a series of annexations, the neighborhood joined the City of Seattle in 1907.[4]

Education

Although no schools fall within the borders of the neighborhood as described on city maps, three public schools, Graham Hill[5] and Hawthorne[6] and Dunlap[7] elementary schools serve the area's students. In addition the alternative Orca K-8[8] lies within blocks of the neighborhood's boundary.

Jewish Community

Seward Park is home to the largest concentration of Orthodox Jews in the Seattle area.[9] Established after the Jewish community of the Central District relocated en masse in the early 1960s, the eruv-bound neighborhood has five synagogues and a Kollel, and its main thoroughfare becomes a family parade on Shabbat and holidays.[10] The state’s oldest Ashkenazi Orthodox congregation, Bikur Cholim Machzikay-Hadath (BCMH), runs a campus that includes the local mikveh, a summer camp, and the girls’ high school Derech Emunah. Seward Park also contains two congregations - Sephardic Bikur Holim, which follows Turkish tradition, and Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, from the Island of Rhodes - which anchor Seattle’s Sephardic population, the third largest community in the country.[11][12][13][14][15][16]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Sherwood, Don (June 20, 2003). "Seward Park" (PDF). PARK HISTORY: Sherwood History Files. Seattle Parks and Recreation. Retrieved April 21, 2006.
  2. ↑ Talbert, Paul (May 1, 2006). "The Magnificent Forest". Friends of Seward Park. Archived from the original on July 17, 2006. Retrieved August 6, 2006.
  3. ↑ Talbert, Paul (May 1, 2006). "SkEba'kst: The Lake People and Seward Park". The History of Seward Park. SewardPark.org. Archived from the original on December 14, 2005. Retrieved June 6, 2006.
  4. ↑ Phelps, Myra L. (1978). "Chapter 15, "Annexation"". Public works in Seattle. Seattle: Seattle Engineering Department. ISBN 0-9601928-1-6., p. 216–224, map "to 1921", p. 217; map "to 1975", p. 224, map key table p. 222-3.
  5. ↑ "Graham Hill Elementary School (which abuts the neighborhood as defined by the Clerk of the City of Seattle)" (PDF). 2014-15 attendance area maps. Seattle Public Schools. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 1, 2014. Retrieved May 1, 2014.
  6. ↑ "Hawthorne Elementary School" (PDF). 2014-15 attendance area maps. Seattle Public Schools. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 1, 2014. Retrieved May 1, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Dunlap Elementary School" (PDF). 2014-15 attendance area maps. Seattle Public Schools. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 1, 2014. Retrieved May 1, 2014.
  8. ↑ "Orca K-8" (PDF). 2014-15 option elementary geo zones. Seattle Public Schools. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 1, 2014. Retrieved May 1, 2014.
  9. ↑ "With Passover around the corner, Seward Park's Orthodox Jews feel the impacts of COVID-19". South Seattle Emerald. March 23, 2020. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  10. ↑ "Seward Park & Columbia City". Jewish in Seattle Magazine. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  11. ↑ "Why does Seattle have so many Sephardic Jews?". www.kuow.org. June 6, 2019. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  12. ↑ Shapiro, Nina (May 29, 2019). "Jews from around the world come to Seattle to see the U.S.' 3rd largest Sephardic community". Seattle Times. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  13. ↑ "Sephardic Jews in Washington". www.historylink.org. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  14. ↑ Mezistrano, Makena (January 8, 2019). ""Seattle is a Sephardic country:" Behind the scenes of Ladino Day 2018". UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  15. ↑ "Sephardic Settlement". Jewish in Seattle Magazine. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  16. ↑ "In Seattle, a Sephardi Ladino Revival Takes Hold". Tablet Magazine. July 23, 2014. Retrieved April 16, 2021.

References

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