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Fuhrman Avenue E

This street, created in 1890 as part of the plat of the Denny-Fuhrman Addition to the City of Seattle, was originally named Randall Street. I haven’t been able to pinpoint the reason for or date of the name change, but it first appears in The Seattle Times and in the city’s ordinances in 1906. The street and addition were named for Henry Fuhrman (1843–1907), who developed the area with David Thomas Denny (1832–1903) (Denny Way).

Fuhrman, who had come to Seattle in 1890, was a German Jew. According to his Seattle Times obituary, he “came to this country from Germany when a boy.… He was engaged as a mercantile solicitor in the early days, but later started a small drygoods business in Fremont, Nebraska, where he has since become famous as the pioneer wholesale drygoods merchant west of Omaha.… It is estimated that his fortune amounts to at least a million dollars.”

Fuhrman and Charles Cowen (né Cohen) (1869–1926) (Cowen Place NE) are the only Jews I am aware of who have Seattle streets named after them.

Henry Fuhrman, from his Seattle Times obituary, August 23, 1907
Henry Fuhrman, from his Seattle Times obituary, August 23, 1907

Fuhrman Avenue E begins at the north end of Fairview Avenue E, under the Ship Canal Bridge, and goes nearly ½ a mile southeast to E Shelby Street, where it becomes Boyer Avenue E. (A short segment begins about 150 feet to the east of Boyer, heads about 225 feet to the south, and mainly functions as a driveway for a number of houseboats; and another short segment begins at the north end of 15th Avenue E at the E Calhoun Street pathway, heads about 275 feet to the northeast, and serves as a driveway for an apartment complex.)

Sign at corner of Fuhrman Avenue E, Eastlake Avenue E, and Portage Bay Place E, August 24, 2009
Sign at corner of Fuhrman Avenue E, Eastlake Avenue E, and Portage Bay Place E, August 24, 2009. (Portage By Pl is an error; it should read Portage Bay Pl E, as it’s [[Portage Bay] [Place]], not [[Portage] [Bay Place]]. The original Red Robin restaurant was founded at this intersection in 1940. It has since been demolished, but I’ve seen imagery of this sign — including the error — on the walls of other Red Robin locations.) Photograph by Benjamin Lukoff. Copyright © 2009 Benjamin Lukoff. All rights reserved.
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Eastlake Avenue E

Like NE Northlake Way, Eastlake Avenue E is so named because it runs along the shore of Lake Union — in this case, obviously, the eastern one. It, too, was earlier named Lake Avenue (in part), but this was changed as part of the Great Renaming of 1895. Ordinance 4044, Section 6 reads

That the names of Albert Street, Waterton Street, Lake Avenue and Green Street from Depot Street [changed by the same ordinance to Denny Way] to the shore of Lake Union at the northerly point of the Denny–Fuhrman addition, be and the same are hereby changed to Eastlake Avenue.

Today, Eastlake, at 2⁹⁄₁₀ miles in length, extends slightly farther north and south than the roadway mentioned in the ordinance. It starts in the south at the intersection of Court Place and Howell Street as Eastlake Avenue, then becomes Eastlake Avenue E a block north as it crosses Denny Way. From here to just south of E Galer Street it divides the Avenue: E; Street: E section of town from the Avenue: N; Street section. Just north of Portage Bay Place E it crosses Lake Union as the University Bridge, then continues on as the one-way–northbound Eastlake Avenue NE to 11th Avenue NE just north of NE 41st Street. (Southbound, it is fed by Roosevelt Way NE at NE Campus Parkway.)

Eastlake, like Fairview and Boren Avenues, is one of the few north–south streets in Seattle to have three different directional designations.

Looking northeast at the University Bridge from the Ship Canal Bridge in Seattle, July 2018
Looking northeast at the University Bridge from the Ship Canal Bridge, July 2018. Photograph by SounderBruce, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
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Boyer Avenue E

This street, which runs just over 1⅓ miles from Lake Washington Boulevard E northwest to Fuhrman Avenue E, was established in 1905 as part of Interlaken, an Addition to the City of Seattle, platted by the Interlaken Land Company, whose president was John E. Boyer (1866–1961).

Advertisement for Interlaken in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 30, 1906
Advertisement for Interlaken in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 30, 1906
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Portage Bay Place E

This street, which runs ³⁄₁₀ of a mile from Fuhrman Avenue E to E Allison Street, was established as an alley in 1890 as part of the Denny–Fuhrman Addition to the City of Seattle, but only received a name in 1936. It was named for Portage Bay, the eastern arm of Lake Union, which it parallels. Portage Bay was in turn named for the portage from Union Bay (part of Lake Washington) to Lake Union over the Montlake Isthmus, which is today the Montlake Cut of the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

Sign at corner of Fuhrman Avenue E, Eastlake Avenue E, and Portage Bay Place E, August 24, 2009
Sign at corner of Fuhrman Avenue E, Eastlake Avenue E, and Portage Bay Place E, August 24, 2009. Portage By Pl is an error; it should read Portage Bay Pl E, as it’s [[Portage Bay] [Place]], not [[Portage] [Bay Place]]. The original Red Robin restaurant was founded at this intersection in 1940. It has since been demolished, but I’ve seen imagery of this sign — including the error — on the walls of other Red Robin locations. Photograph by Benjamin Lukoff. Copyright © 2009 Benjamin Lukoff. All rights reserved.