Looking Back

Looking back at Seattle’s Green Lake Neighborhood where my family lived when I was in college brings back memories of bus rides, long walks at 2AM and late meals at the Moon Temple Chinese Restaurant. I didn’t have a car nor did my fiance who lived near Sand Point Navel Air Station so I usually caught the last bus from there at 2AM on weekend nights and transferred to another bus at 45^th street and Meridian where the Moon Temple is/ was. Sometimes I missed that last bus from Sand Point and so I walked about five miles to get home. My family lived at 64^th street and one block from Green Lake Way. Today, there are commercial and residential developments within a few blocks of there, some finished and some halted because of the current economic recession.

One apartment building at Ravenna Boulevard and Green Lake Way is complete with rents of up to $3,000 per month for a two bedroom apartment on a site which in my day, the 1950s, was a bowling alley. There is no way my wife of 53 years and I could afford to live in the Green Lake area now. Time marches on and prices continue to go up.

Sources: Kenneth Briggs, May 18, 2009
The Seattle Times, May 18, 2009