Aurora Avenue aka: Highway 99, Hwy 99

I had a hard time deciding whether to place this in Washington State or Seattle, but I chose the latter because most of this grossly overlooked expressway/street resides in the city of Seattle proper, and edges into fellow city Shoreline just north, within King County.

I would never recommend Aurora Ave as a place to visit for anyone who’s visiting here for the first time (unless you were going to rent a car anyway, and had to do business up there for some reason.) However, I find that even people who make snotty comments about the Eastside cities like Kirkland, Redmond, and Bellevue often pretend that Aurora north of Greenlake doesn’t exist.. which is too bad, because, while it may not be architecturally pretty, there are many great things to be found on this street. I think everyone who’s lived here for at least a couple of years should give Aurora a chance (if you don’t live near there already.)

One of my goals is to take the 358 bus all the way up to Shoreline and walk back to Fremont on Aurora Ave as an all-day urban hike. In fact, I plan to do this on Saturday (March 18th, 2006, weather permitting.)

That said, I’ve done a little bit of walking around the most notorious parts of Aurora, which lie just north of the Aurora Bridge bisecting Fremont and Wallingford. Despite these two neighborhoods being completely safe and sanitized, and despite the most expensive restaurant in the city being a quick bridge walk south, there’s a definite red-light-district-that-nobody-dare-wanders type atmosphere to this area. I haven’t walked around there at night, and I don’t think I’d ever want to, alone at least.. but I have walked around it during the day, and found many sites quite fascinating.

Even though many specific places off this thoroughfare will be entered in the appropriate neighborhoods, I’ll reserve this location as a place to post entries about things that can only be described as being on Aurora Avenue.

EDIT: Ok, I’ve done the walk… I postponed it two days later due to unforeseen grey weather on Saturday. This was a great decision for many reasons. Anyway, besides being a great way to get exercise, I found quite a few things I want to visit. That said, Aurora is certainly a part and history of Seattle that has always seemed to settle for nothing more than being functional. It never wanted to “take it to the next level.” Sometimes, that can be a great thing. Often, that can be a disaster. Aurora Ave. did neither. But just in case, one day, it does decide to take itself to the next level, there will always be these pictures. But I somehow doubt that will happen any time soon.