In our first installment, we checked off some of Seattle’s more obvious tourist attractions (i.e. Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market, the view of the Space Needle from Kerry Park, etc.). It was very cool, but TODAY we’re going to peel a few more layers off the onion and get into some of Seattle’s quirky b-list attractions. As a city, Seattle has a stronger and more distinct personality than most. I think this cross-section of less-notable items actually did more to help me get to know this place than the major tourist attraction did. It’s all about details.
SO LEMME HITCHU WITH THE DEETS.
The Fremont Troll
Fremont is Seattle’s O.G. hipster neighborhood. We did a brief intro to this area in the previous article, which focused entirely on neighborhoods. What I am about to show you—The Fremont Troll—might seem like a random, niche thing, but it is actually very well-known, locally. It basically serves a the mascot for Fremont, as it is very much at the forefront of this neighborhood’s identity.
Where did this troll come from? Well, Fremont is right on the water, on the north side of the straight that connects Lake Washington with the Puget Sound, and the ocean. I believe that this particular stretch of water is known as the “Fremont Cut.” Anyway, what this means is that there are big bridges that define Fremont’s most busy areas. Up through the late 1980s, there was apparently some blight under these bridges—people were dumping their trash and selling drugs here. Below are a couple of pictures of this under-the-bridge area.
So, in 1989, the Fremont Arts Council held a competition to rehabilitate the area. The competition was won by sculptor Steve Badanes and his team, who drew the inspiration for their piece from the folktale “Billy Goat’s Gruff.” Their idea? Construct a MASSIVE CONCRETE TROLL UNDER THE BRIDGE.
And, in 1990, that’s exactly what they did. This thing is big. It’s 18 feet tall, and it’s actually crushing a Volkswagen Beetle in his left hand. If you look at the final picture in the gallery below you can get a view of that poor car. This car was apparently a time capsule for Elvis Memorabilia until it was vandalized. Anyway, Fremont and Greater Seattle readily accepted this Troll into their hearts, and now it’s a b-list tourist attraction. In fact, the street that it’s on was renamed “Troll Avenue” in 2005, so I think it’s safe to say that this troll is here to stay. Here are some pictures, with some people in them for scale.
The Japanese Gardens
Now for something a bit more… *ahem* traditional. Seattle is full of lush, green parks, and I visited many of them, but I wanted to share one in particular: The Japanese Gardens. Constructed in 1960 to fulfill the vision of renowned landscape designer Juki Iida, this is apparently one of the most highly regarded Japanese-style gardens on the North American continent. I’m no expert, but I can verify that this place is, indeed, cool.
It’s also part of a MUCH bigger slice of urban parkland which is known as the Washington Park Arboretum / UW Botanic Gardens. This is 230 acres of green space in the middle of urban Seattle. The terrain in here is pretty intense in places as well. I had been hoping to walk in and out, but we would have been scrambling down cliffs to get here—or walking forever down narrow forest roads with no sidewalks, so we ended up having to Uber both ways. It was annoying at the time, but in retrospect, it made the experience cool. I’d like to explore of this area next time I’m in Seattle.
During COVID they are limiting the number of people that can be in here at one time, so you actually need to reserve a spot. I am so used to people being idiots about the pandemic that we just rolled up and ended up needing to wait to be let into the gardens. If you want to visit, you can reserve your spot ahead of time here.
The “Up” House
Ok party people. Have you ever seen the movie “UP" from Pixar? Remember that little house that was going to get knocked down but then the old man tied a bunch of balloons to his roof and floated away? What if I told you that this was inspired by real events?
Edith Macefield is the hero of our story. In the early 2000s, she was just another Seattle citizen—an old woman who had been living in her house in Ballard for decades. Seattle was quickly changing around her, and eventually, in 2006, a big commercial developer bought up all the land in her neighborhood so they could knock everything down and build a big shopping mall. Except that Edith wasn’t selling.
Edith was the ONLY one in the entire neighborhood who refused to sell her home. She reportedly turned down offers as high as $1 million (which was a lot of money for a small house in Seattle in 2006), so finally, the mall just went up around her. Today this mall literally has an indent cut into the side of it in the exact shape of Edith’s property line, with concrete walls towering over 3 of the 4 sides of her lot.
Edith passed away 2 years later in 2008, but in the final years of her life—against all odds—she actually had a good relationship with the folks at the aforementioned big commercial developer. She had a particularly warm relationship with the construction superintendent that oversaw the creation of this mall. His name was/is Barry Martin. Here’s a snippet from a CNBC news report:
As Martin tells it, the story of the house really became bigger than Macefield. She only wanted to stay in the house, and didn’t really mind the mall because she had been on the block by herself for a while. She actually looked forward to the noise and commotion of the people, he claimed.
“I see that she had lived here for a major portion of her life, and she just wanted to die here,” he said. “She didn’t understand what the big fuss was when she was still alive. She wouldn’t want for it to be a memorial to her, but I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen.
Macefield, who had no living family, wanted Martin to sell the house in order to pay college tuition for his children.
Martin did sell the house… but then the sale fell through. There’s been a lot of red-tape and confusion surrounding this little lot, and the fate of the house still remains unclear. However, for today at least, it’s still standing, and it has become something of a local legend. There’s no shortage of new coverage around the saga of this house. If you’re interested, give it a Google!
And—full disclosure—the screenplay for UP was apparently written 2 years before Edith turned down the $1 million, but the parallels between this and the plot of the movie are unreal. And these similarities are not lost on Seattle residents, as they have taken to leaving balloons on the fencing and scrawling their favorite lines from the movie on any available surface. It’s cool. Here are the best pictures I could snap during my visit.
Bruce Lee’s Grave
+ Volunteer Park
I’ll start with Volunteer Park. In my previous article about Seattle’s neighborhoods, I talked about my favorite and not-so-favorite areas of Capital Hill and Stevens. This park sort of sits at the border of these two areas, so it’s hard for me to fully attribute it to one neighborhood or the other… but, neighborhoods aside, I think I can safely say that the area surrounding this park—whatever it is—would be one of the absolute best neighborhoods in Seattle to live in. I LOVED this area. The park itself was very cool too. Check out the graffiti on the slide below. 😂
The reason we came to Volunteer Park was actually to visit the graveyard next door, which actually dates back to 1873. It’s called Lake View Cemetery—so named for its view over Lake Washington—and it was actually one of the coolest cemeteries I have visited. I would rank it alongside Reykjavík’s Hólavallagarður Cemetery or Havana’s Cementario de Cristóbal Colón, which are 2 other very cool places recently covered on this site.
One reason was because of how HIGH UP it is. They call it Capital Hill for a reason. The views from this cemetery out over Lake Washington and beyond to the Cascades are really spectacular. And in many places that view is 180 degrees. It was hard to capture in a photo, but I did my best.
Another reason is the cemeteries inhabitants. I don’t think I have ever seen headstones with so much personality. These are random strangers to you and me, but the pictures and inscriptions really give a glimpse of who these people were. There was some really heart-warming stuff in here. It was also quite a diverse crowd. There were lots of different cultures and languages represented amongst these headstones. It’s an interesting place to walk around.
But of course, the REAL reason we came here was to visit one tenant in particular. Legendary Chinese-American martial artist and film star Bruce freaking Lee is buried here. He died in 1973, when he was only 32 years old. Since then, his grave has become something of a pilgrimage for fans from all over the world.
Why is he so important to people? In a nutshell, he was more than just a famous movie star. His films were among the first to introduce Eastern martial arts to American audiences AND were the first to portray Asians in mainstream cinema in a way that wasn’t caricatured or grotesque. He is a big deal because he was one of the original cultural ambassadors between the East and the West.
Next to him his son Brandon Lee is also buried. I was not familiar with this name, but he apparently followed in his father’s footsteps with regard to martial arts & cinema. He was a rising star in both American and Chinese films when he was accidentally shot and killed at the age of 28 on set for a major movie in 1993. Sad stuff. But the legacy is an entirely positive one, and there are people literally lining up to pay their respects to them every single day. Their graves even got put on a little platform with a fence around them now, which I think means that they are a bonafide tourist attraction. During my visit, I had to wait in line to take the pictures below, and that is apparently very normal. Even on Seattle’s rainy days. You can see their graves below. They have very photogenic headstones, right?
Kurt Cobain’s House + Unofficial Memorial
Viretta Park
AND NOW, THE MOMENT YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!
It’s time to go to Kurt Cobain’s house. Kurt Cobain—AS I’M SURE YOU KNOW—was the creative force behind one of the biggest bands in history: Nirvana. He is also Seattle’s most famous dead person, and one of the most notable members of the 27 club. I opened this series talking about my excitement for and subsequent abandonment of my grunge-centric itinerary. It was just getting REALLY depressing learning the ways that so many of grunge’s talented, young artists died. Honestly, I was still on the fence about whether or not I wanted to do this even as I walked over. I’m glad I did this, but the experience definitely felt emotionally heavy to me.
Kurt spent his final days living in the house I am about to show you. He shot himself in the head in the greenhouse that was located around the back. Or, if you’re a conspiracy theorist, maybe Courtney did it. (#CKK) I know way too much about this because I read his biography when I was young. He definitely embodied the rockstar archetype. Young, talented, gritty, emotionally tortured, drug-addicted, and in spite of it all, brilliant and prolific.
His old house is in an ultra-wealthy area of Seattle called Denny Blaine, which faces Lake Washington. It’s hard to see much of it since there’s a giant wooden gate blocking the view, but lucky for you, your good friend Peter got a little creative with his camera. If you’re interested in visiting this place yourself, here’s the address:
171 Lake Washington Blvd E, Seattle, WA 98112
Next to this house is a little piece of green space called Viretta Park. If you really want to pay your respects to Kurt, this is where you should come. There’s a little bench here that has somehow become the unofficial memorial for him. And it is actively visited each day by fans who will leave meaningful artifacts on the bench, or even long, handwritten letters for him weighted down with rocks. It’s actually really touching to read what people write to him. It’s not often that you get to see people’s appreciation for music expressed in such a concrete, unifying, personal way.
The emotional waves put out by great art are invisible—so the value and impact of that art are easy to discount. But every once in a while, you stumble across something like this bench that allows you to actually SEE these invisible forces at work. It’s a really special thing to witness. Another example of this that springs to mind is the John Lennon Wall in Prague, but I did not find that to be nearly as powerful. This bench has some heavy, intense energy to it.
Bonus: Nude Beach 🍆
Denny Blaine Park
Kurt’s house was the end of a VERY long walk. It was the last stop on our last day in Seattle, so before we caught an Uber back to Ballard, we decided to walk down the street to a random beach we saw on Google maps and spend a bit of time looking out over the water. We were walking down towards the parking lot when all of a sudden…
My eyes zoomed in on somebody’s bare ass.
There was somebody without pants on at their car. We laughed and continued on down towards the bottom of the hill, but we stopped short of the actual beach because *GASP* it turned out to be full of naked people!
There were actually quite a few of them down there! I Googled it. Denny Blaine Park is, in fact, a nude beach… although I don’t think there is any sort of official ordinance designating it so. It’s just a place that people come to be naked I guess. So we sat on a ledge a bit further up the hill from the actual beach and looked out over Lake Washington. There were a few clothed people up there with us. Off in the distance, we could see the tall(ish) buildings of downtown Bellevue amongst Washington’s quintessential evergreen trees, and beyond that, the Cascades served as a towering backdrop.
And then I looked to my left to find that the man who had been standing near us was also now naked. He stood proudly with his hands on his hips and his big belly stretched out in front of him—like he was trying to really enjoy the breeze. 💨🌝
“Ok. Let’s call an Uber.”
Even as we were driving away, I was talking about how this was actually the perfect experience to bookend our trip to Seattle. This place is weird. And in spite of the deeply-rooted body shame that makes me feel uncomfortable on nude beaches, that’s actually pretty cool. Because—to borrow a line from the previous article—if you really think about it, the amount of weirdness walking around the streets of any city is likely the same no matter where you go. The difference is that, in Seattle, people feel empowered to be themselves. So they let their freak flags fly.
Maybe one day I’ll be one of them.
For now, though, I’ll be catching a flight back to my less-scenic and less-weird life. 💀
I really struggled over which track(s) I would use from Seattle’s grunge era in these posts. It feels like kind of a shame not to be using tracks from legends like Pearl Jam or Alice In Chains, but now that I am arriving at the end of this article, the choice is clear. “Come As You Are,” says it all. Try as we might to blend in, deep down we all know that we’re fucking weirdos. But Seattle loves you not in spite of your weirdness, but because of it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter was born & raised in Columbus, Ohio, and started this blog when he moved from Boston to Hanoi (Vietnam) in 2014. After years based in Nashville working on his band, The Great Palumbo, he now resides in London, UK.
Also, here’s this: