Wallingford Avenue and the Wallingford neighborhood are named for real estate developer John Noble Wallingford (1833–1913). Originally from Maine, he moved to Massachusetts, then Minnesota as a young man. He fought for the Union all four years of the Civil War, and later moved to California before coming to Seattle in 1888. He was a city councilman from 1889 to 1891 and also a police commissioner.
Wallingford Avenue N begins as the Wallingford Steps at N Northlake Way, just north of Gas Works Park. It then goes 1⅔ miles north from N 34th Street to Woodlawn Avenue N, just south of Green Lake. At the north end of Green Lake, it goes 1⅓ miles north from E Green Lake Drive N to N 105th Street at Mineral Springs Park. It picks up again at N 135th Street, just north of Ingraham High School, and goes ½ a mile to the northern city limits at N 145th Street. As with many other North Seattle avenues, the name continues on into Shoreline; its northernmost appearance is at the King–Snohomish county line at N 205th Street.
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.
