Madrona is a mostly

residential A residential area is a land used in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas. Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single-family housing, multi-family resi ...

neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...

in east

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. It is bounded on the east by

Lake Washington Lake Washington is a large freshwater lake adjacent to the city of Seattle. It is the largest lake in King County and the second largest natural lake in the state of Washington, after Lake Chelan. It borders the cities of Seattle on the west, ...

; on the south by E. Cherry Street, beyond which is Leschi; on the west by Martin Luther King Jr. Way, beyond which is the Central District; and on the north by E. Howell Street, beyond which is Denny-Blaine. The neighborhood's main thoroughfares are E. Union and E. Cherry Streets (east- and westbound), Madrona Drive (northwest- and southeast-bound), and 34th Avenue and Lake Washington Boulevard (north- and southbound). It is home to Madrona Park and the 34th Avenue and E. Union commercial area.

History

The neighborhood was named by John Ayer, who contributed the land for Madrona Park, after a species of tree ( Arbutus) common to the area. Madrona's motto, "The Peaceable Kingdom," reflects its racially mixed heritage. In the early 20th century, the

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

industry brought Chinese immigrants to Madrona. Later, the

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to bef ...

boom brought an influx of

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

. For most of the second half of the 20th century, 34th Avenue divided the neighborhood between mostly middle-class African American (to the west) and upper-class Caucasian (to the east). The

Black Panthers The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

used the Madrona Playfield on Spring Street and 34th Avenue as its marching drill location in Seattl

In more recent years, as the neighborhood has gentrified, Madrona has seen a steady decline in its Black population. The 2018

American Community Survey The American Community Survey (ACS) is a demographics survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the decennial census, such as ancestry, citizenship, educati ...

5-Year Estimates notes that, of the 5,675 residents in King County Census Tract 78 (covering Madrona east of 31st Avenue), 75% are White Non-Hispanic (up from 65% in 1990), 6% are African American (down from 29% in 1990), 4% are Asian (4% in 1990), 11% are Mixed race, and 4% are Hispanic. Census tract 77 with 5,382 residents, two-thirds of which is in the Central District, is 67% White Non-Hispanic, 13% African American, 7% Asian, 8% Mixed race, and 5% Hispanic.

References

External links

Madrona Neighborhood websiteMadrona neighborhood profile and stats
{{Seattle neighborhoods