Capitol Hill & First Hill - Seattle - page 236

For more detail of this area see Neigbourhood Map »
Neighborhood Top Five
Strolling along the Pike-Pine corridor , stopping off at bars, brunch stops, music
venues or restaurants and watching the fashionable theater of life on the Hill.
Seeing a name band at legendary live-music venue Neumo's .
Climbing the water tower in Volunteer Park to admire dazzling vistas of Seattle
and Mt Rainier.
Gazing jealously at the mansions on 14th Avenue and seeing how the top 2%
live.
Coming up for air after an afternoon of lazy literary immersion at Elliott Bay
Book Company .
Explore: Capitol Hill & First Hill
To decipher Seattle's most diverse, spirited and downright cool neighborhood it's useful
to understand a little of its geography. There are three main commercial strips worth ex-
ploring in Capitol Hill - Broadway (the main drag), 15th Ave, and the ultra-cultural
Pike-Pine corridor - all of which are refreshingly walkable. Geographically the strips
are gelled together by Capitol Hill's residential grid, a mixture of cheap apartment
buildings, large grandiose houses and the green expanses of Volunteer Park. This weird
but never caustic juxtaposition of rich/poor and chic/scruffy is one of the neighbor-
hood's biggest allures. Herein lives Seattle's wildest assortment of people.
If you're walking up from downtown crossing I-5 on E Pine St, you'll enter the
neighborhood close to Melrose Market at the western end of the Pike-Pine corridor.
This stretch of aging brick warehouses and former 1950s car dealerships made over in-
to gay bars, live-music clubs, coffeehouses, record stores and fashionable restaurants is
Seattle's nightlife central. Explore it by night on foot.
Running perpendicular to Pike-Pine is Capitol Hill's main commercial street, Broad-
way, while several blocks east is the quieter business district of 15th Ave E. This is
where some of the city's wealthiest residents live in the grand old mansions that embel-