I live here — 2 years ago
(OK, technically, I’m one of the poseurs who lives just feet south of the drawbridge, technically making me a QueenAnne-ite, but Fremont’s where I do all the local after-work errands and walk to relax, so it’s home.)
The five years I’ve lived here, I’ve always been in this neighborhood, and I plan to keep it that way—hoping the upcoming Fremont Bridge construction won’t put a hamper on the lifestyle here too badly in the interim.
Unless you live directly off the main crossroads, it’s relatively quiet, even just houses away. There’s plenty to do here: eat, drink, shop, do errands, take an urban hike, show friends around, trade, etc.
It’s also the second most tourist-y part of Seattle outside downtown and the Seattle Center. There’s plenty of public art—some of which is good-naturedly ridiculed and adorned much of the time.
There are more thai restaurants and brew pubs per street corner in this neighborhood than I thought humanly possible… A friend of mine visiting from Boston felt “at home” here, in a good way—subtract the chowder, add the thai. (though you can take that as good or bad.)
Sundays with good weather = mass crunch to the Fremont Flea Market, and hence Fremont. No fleas, really.. mostly antiques and home-made stuff though. If finding rare stuff is your game, get up at the crack of dawn and go; otherwise, arrive at your leisure and take a walk.
The places you’re most likely to find me: PCC (the co-op market), Jive Time Records, Sonic Boom records (CD and vinyl parts), Tawon Thai, Blue C Sushi, the Gilman-Burke trail to Ballard, Rudy’s Barbershop, and crossing the most active drawbridge in North America—the Fremont Bridge. Perhaps it’s because I rarely have or had to drive across it—or, more to the point, wait for it to go down—but I still love walking across the drawbridge every day. I have not gotten tired of it, after five years.
Same goes for Fremont, even through its ups and downs… Given that more nightclubs featuring concerts are opening up, I’m hoping I will have at least another five years of fun here.
Lenin says hi. He’s not as cranky as he looks. Don’t be shy.
