Quiet life is a nice change from area's frolicking past

By DON CARTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

It's a safe bet that bedtime in Broadview now comes a lot earlier than it did in the old days.

In its honky-tonk heyday, the big district in Seattle's northwest corner served as the city's backyard playground. It boasted a huge amusement park with "the Big Dipper" -- a terrifying roller coaster -- and, as one old-timer recalls, "a barge kind of thing that slammed people into the lake."

Seattle crowds packed dance halls near Aurora Avenue North during the Big Band era, and several noisy tracks were a magnet for race-car fans.

Teenagers drove their Model T's to Carkeek Park to spoon, and rum-runners used the park's beaches to deliver Canadian whiskey to slake Seattle's Prohibition-era thirst.

Things are tamer today.

The Playland amusement park closed forever in 1960. No traces of it remain; ball fields and a new community center occupy the south Bitter Lake site.

One of the dance halls survives, but it's now occupied by an electrical contracting firm. A new Eagle Hardware store is on the site of one of the racetracks. Carkeek Park now closes at night, in part to discourage teen partying.

And three large retirement-home centers have brought a much more mature crowd to Broadview.

Although it had noisy beginnings, quiet is now one of Broadview's great attractions. Residents say the big trees, big lots and a quiet country feeling are among the main reasons they live there.

"I'm an environmentalist, and I like the fact that Broadview has maintained much of its tree canopy," says Don Harris, director of Seattle Parks and Recreation Department's environmental programs.

Harris, who moved to Broadview in 1973, says he also likes the easy access to downtown Seattle. "I can be at work in 20 minutes," he says. "I'm sort of a committed city guy, and here you're not in a suburb."

Continued:

• People lucky enough to live here count their blessings
• Folks of all stripes call it home