This street in the Washington Park neighborhood runs ⅖ of a mile from Lake Washington Boulevard E and E Harrison Street in the south to 39th Avenue E in the north, about where E Ward Street would be if it extended that far east. It was created in 1906 as part of the (I’m going to use its full name!) Replat of John J. McGilvra’s Addition to the City of Seattle and Blocks 13, 14, 18, 20 to 29 Inclusive, and South Half of 19 of John J. McGilvra’s Second Addition to the City of Seattle. It once began farther south, at 39th Avenue E and McGilvra Boulevard E, but this portion is now part of Lake Washington Boulevard E.
The street was so named for running along the eastern side of the unnamed hill at the center of the Washington Park neighborhood.
Born and raised in Seattle, Benjamin Donguk Lukoff had his interest in local history kindled at the age of six, when his father bought him settler granddaughter Sophie Frye Bass’s Pig-Tail Days in Old Seattle at the gift shop of the Museum of History and Industry. He studied English, Russian, and linguistics at the University of Washington, and went on to earn his master’s in English linguistics from University College London. His book of rephotography, Seattle Then and Now, was published in 2010. An updated version came out in 2015.