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History of Ballard
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March 24, 2002
New York Times
Nordic Knits And Lutefisk In Seattle
By Katherine Ashenburg
IN 1907, the largely Scandinavian fishing and lumbering town called Ballard became
part of Seattle -- and the rest of the city enjoyed condescending to it, claiming
you needed a passport to cross the Ballard Bridge, and the ability to speak ''Ballard-Norsk''
once you arrived. About four miles northwest of Pike Place Market, for decades Ballard
remained a low-rise, hard-working area where folks drove slowly and fattened their
savings accounts. A district whose distinguishing cue from the bridge was a winking
neon sign for Bardahl automotive oil and whose biggest annual celebration was dedicated
to the Norwegian constitution was not exactly a this-minute place.
The vast ad for Bardahl (founded by the Norwegian-born Ballardite Ole Bardahl in
1939) still illuminates the waterfront, and Syttende Mai (May 17, Norway's Constitution
Day) is still marked by marching bands, floats, Nordic food and a dance at the Leif
Erikson Lodge. But these days, Ballard, of all places, is becoming hip.
Anointed in Seattle magazine's ''Best Neighborhoods'' issue, last April, as the prime
area for young families, Ballard has a vital waterfront, parks, a seasonal Sunday
market for produce and crafts, and some of the city's last affordable housing. But
there's more: in the same issue, the word ''chic'' was affixed to Ballard.
That's not as ominous (or unbelievable) as it sounds. The really good news about
Ballard is that while smart restaurants and shops are briskly self-seeding, there
is still plenty of the honest, original town left. Marine hardware stores and lumber
shops redolent of sawdust and varnish live in close propinquity to cutting-edge art
galleries and shops selling exquisitely frivolous French bibelots. Since history
suggests that these magic moments of coexistence don't last long, this is the time
to see Ballard.
Actually, for a neighborhood of about 50,000, there are quite a few Ballards. There's
the waterfront, including the commercial fishermen's terminal, a 1,500-boat marina
and the Hiram M. Chittenden locks. (The locks, which connect Puget Sound and Lake
Washington and Lake Union, are one of Seattle's most popular tourist sights.) There's
a burgeoning music scene, where bands with names like Jam on White Bread play at
the Tractor Tavern and a good handful of other places.
The Scandinavians who settled here beginning in the 1880's have left their footprints
all over the neighborhood. The ''metropolis in Lilliput,'' as The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
of 1899 called the diminutive city to the north, has been preserved on Ballard Avenue,
now a Historic Landmark District. And let's not forget the latest, gentrifying Ballard.
Like a kaleidoscope, every time you shake it another pattern emerges.
With only a day and a half late last August, I had to make some choices. My 11- and
13-year-old nieces, Maddie and Kate, who live just north of Ballard, doubted I would
find much beyond their favorite bookstore, The Secret Garden, but I ignored them,
deciding to focus on Ballard's Scandinavian roots, historic district and fashionable
new face. First I had lunch with Maddie, Kate and an 11-year-old visiting nephew,
Ben, at a Ballard landmark, Hattie's Hat. The kids were probably too young to appreciate
the grungy atmosphere, but we agreed that the fries and smoked-salmon club sandwiches
were excellent.
After Hattie's, I was on my own. Spotting Olsen's Scandinavian Foods, a local tradition,
I decided to look in, just for a few minutes. When I emerged about 45 minutes later,
I felt as if I'd been to Stockholm or Helsinki. Presided over by two women who chat
in Norwegian but can translate any Scandinavian language, Olsen's sells all kinds
of Nordic baked goods; dried fruit soups and other mysteries in packets, and an anthology
of marine things from Fiskepudding to the iconic lutefisk, dried cod reconstituted
to something gelatinous (best not to inquire too closely). I brandished a green bottle,
decorated with a picture of a little child facing a big fish, and guessed, ''Cod
liver oil?'' The women blanched, but admitted it. I asked about the taste. ''It's
not that,'' they said, shuddering, ''it's the texture.'' Still, it's so popular in
Ballard they can't keep it on the shelves. I spent the rest of the afternoon on Market
and Ballard Streets, wandering into a vintage furniture, gifts and collectibles shop
called Re-Soul; a day spa and salon called Habitude; and the superb Lucca, which
in spite of its name has wonderful French decorative objets.
The next day began early at Vera's, voted Ballard's best breakfast place by readers
of The Ballard News-Tribune in 2000. The hand-lettered sign at the counter says ''No
Credit Cards''; the banquettes are red leatherette; the clientele favors baseball
caps. ''This is the real Ballard,'' my sister Carole told me, as we did justice to
Vera's oatmeal and pancakes.
Or one of the real Ballards. An earlier incarnation is down the street, on Ballard
Avenue, the neighborhood's main street from the 1890's to the Depression. A self-guided
walking tour of the Historic Landmark District will transport you back a century,
when Ballard's red cedar shingle mills made it ''Shingletown, USA'' and when the
millworkers and fishermen supposedly supported more saloons than anywhere else west
of the Mississippi.
Over four short, well-preserved blocks, I got a sense of a straight-ahead place lined
with bordellos, saloons, pool halls and banks. There are occasional decorative outbursts,
such as the metal cornice at 5000-5004 20th Avenue NW, but in general, the mostly
two-story brick buildings come with minimal frills, like Ballard itself.
Maddie and Kate rolled their eyes when I mentioned the Nordic Heritage Museum --
too many school trips -- so I expected a semiamateurish exercise in Old Country nostalgia.
The museum turned out to be sophisticated, highly diverting and already outgrowing
its capacious, three-story former school building.
Founded in 1980 and claiming to be the only museum in the country covering immigration
from all five Nordic countries -- Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden -- it
begins at the beginning with ''Dream of America.'' This interactive journey from
the poverty of post-1860 Scandinavia to the boom town on Salmon Bay tells a good
story while walking the museumgoer from Nordic fishing sheds to steerage compartments
to Ellis Island to Ballard. The soundscape is particularly fine, and the noise of
the wailing child in the Ellis Island section is one I haven't forgotten.
The second and third floors display the material culture and community life of the
Nordic settlers. The painted chests, carved wooden ale bowls and crimson weavings
you might expect are here, but so are odd, exceptional items, such as the pale blue
folkloric pleated skirt and vest designed in 1947 by an Oslo department store as
an ''urban folk costume.'' (It didn't catch on.)
On my way back down to Market Street, I zigzagged across Ballard's residential streets,
appreciating the doughty frame houses built as Victorian styles gave way to Craftsman
bungalows and other ''modern'' looks. Fifty-eighth Street NW, between 28th and 30th
Avenues NW, is a particularly pleasing block rich in overhanging roofs, porches and
verdant Northwest gardens.
Thank goodness for Vera's hefty pancakes. After a very late lunch at Dish Urban Market,
one of Ballard's modish new eating places, I indulged myself, imaginatively anyway,
at Kristy's Scandinavian Gifts. The trolls and dolls in folk costume didn't tempt
me, but the black-and-white Norwegian sweaters did. With my Scandophilia running
dangerously high, I decided the book section was a safer place for me and ultimately
settled on a guide to traditional Nordic knitting patterns.
That night, my sister, nieces and I dined at Le Gourmand. Regularly judged one of
Seattle's best restaurants, it has been hiding its rosy, intimate dining room behind
the blinds of a forgettable corner building on a residential Ballard street for 16
years. The chef, Bruce Naftaly, devises classic French food from organic ingredients,
and we feasted on blintzes filled with sheep's cheese, Whidbey Island mussels, salmon
poached in champagne and salad studded with flowers. Kate describes Le Gourmand as
''fancy but friendly.'' It was the girls' first French restaurant and they behaved
with panache; the sommelier behaved equally well, asking Maddie if her milk should
be regular or skimmed, and bringing the skimmed milk in a perfect little glass bottle.
I asked her how often she gets an order for milk: ''Maybe once a year.'' But Le Gourmand
was ready for Maddie, and she and her sister are looking at Ballard with new eyes.
Down-home cafes and chic boutiques
Restaurants
Hattie's Hat, at 5231 Ballard Avenue NW, (206) 784-0175, charges $7.50 for a smoked-salmon
club sandwich; its legendary hamburgers are $6.50; most draft beers are $3.50. It
is open from 3 to 11 p.m. on weekdays and until midnight on weekends (brunch is served
weekends from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.).
Vera's down-home cafe is open from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on weekdays, from 8 a.m. on
weekends. It's at 5417 22nd Avenue NW, (206) 782-9966. Pancakes with bacon and eggs
cost $7.50.
Potsticker salad in ginger-soy dressing, iced tea and a shortbread cookie will cost
you about $8 at Dish Urban Market, at 2052 Northwest Market Street, (206) 297-1852.
Open 10:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. weekdays, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
Le Gourmand, at 425 Northwest Market Street, (206) 784-3463, serves dinner Wednesday
to Saturday. Dinner for two with wine, about $130.
Sightseeing
A pamphlet outlining a Ballard Avenue walking tour is available free at the Ballard
Chamber of Commerce, 2208 Northwest Market Street, Suite 100, Seattle 98107; (206)
784-9705; www.ballardchamber.com.
The Nordic Heritage Museum, open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
and on Sunday from noon to 4 p.m., is at 3014 Northwest 67th Street, (206) 789-5707;
www.nordicmuseum.com. General admission $4.
Shopping
Olsen's Scandinavian Foods, at 2248 Northwest Market Street, (206) 783-8288, is closed
Sunday.
Lucca, at 5332 Ballard Avenue NW, (206) 782-7337, has a buyer with a flair for the
stylish and unexpected, such as 19th-century silk banners advertising French fetes
at $300, as well as more affordable writing paper, calendars and garden bric-a-brac.
Open daily.
Kristy's Scandinavian Gifts, at 2205 Northwest Market Street, (206) 789-3010, sells
classic Norwegian black-and-white sweaters for about $225 and Swedish clogs for $96.
Closed Sunday.
The Secret Garden, at 2214 Northwest Market Street, (206) 789-5006, one of Seattle's
oldest children's bookstores, has recently expanded to adult books. Open daily.
The Ballard Sunday Farmers Market, selling produce and crafts, will be held from
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. starting May 5 in the US Bank parking lot at 22nd Avenue NW and
Northwest 56th Street. The location may change later in the year. Information: (206)
282-5706 or (206) 782-2286.
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