The original Ballard city plan

By Kay F. Reinartz

The past two years Ballard has experienced a substantial amount of change in its streetscapes. Like it or not the physical appearance of the community is changing.

Long-term Ballard residents, including your historian, regret the six and eight story buildings going up on Leary Way (originally Leary Ave.), 24th Northwest (originally 4th Avenue West) and other streets. The current battle over keeping the old Mannings Restaurant, a.k.a. Dennys, building as the historic anchor building at Northwest Market and 15th Ave. strikes me as "Ballard fighting back." This historic property is being reported in the Ballard News-Tribune, so I need not tell that story here at this time.

However I urge all of you who care about maintaining some continuity with the past, and stopping a six and eight story building going up at the corner of Market Street and 15th Avenue Northwest to join forces with the Ballard community coalition that has taken on the laudable challenge of stopping the out-of-control tearing down of old Ballard for the sake of over-priced profitable condo buildings.

Today I will tell you a little about the original Ballard city plan and the historic factors that shaped it.

The original layout of a city - its street plan, lot sizes and open spaces - is of utmost importance in determining a city's future. The original decisions often determine its physical appearance and economic and demographic development for centuries, as is seen in cities of the Old World.

In the 1890's Ballard grew progressively north and west from Salmon Bay Without notes from the survey team who laid out the streets, we can only guess as to their criteria. Ron E. Batterson, urban planner and volunteer with Passport to Ballard, the community history book project, carefully studied the layout of Ballard streets in 1988. He concluded that the forms of the streets and lot patterns were logically arrived at based on practical and economic considerations. Three factors appear to be the primary influences: a) the presence of the Salmon Bay waterway, b) the desire to follow a gridiron north-south, east-west street orientation, and maintain 50 x 100 foot lots wherever feasible.

Batterson found that Ballard's characteristic gridiron plan begins with the intersection of what is today 17th Avenue Northwest and Northwest Market Street. Market Street is placed as far south as possible to maintain a straight east-west orientation. Similarly, 17th Avenue is placed as far west as possible and yet maintains a straight north-south orientation. This commitment to laying out the town according to a gridiron plan, in spite of irregularly shaped natural physical features, e.g. Salmon Bay was characteristic of 19th century city planning, particularly in the American west. The concept of the ideal city in 1890 was a perfect gridiron plan with a progressive street numbering system.

Because of the meandering nature of Salmon Bay streets laid out paralleling the Bay create a triangle between Market Street and 17th Avenue. The angle of Barnes Avenue, the first street cutting the triangle, is north 38 degrees 39 minutes west. Batterson's calculations show that this is the only angle less than 45 degrees that will work using the given lot sizes of 50 x 100 feet - the West Coast Improvement Company's standard lot size. I refer you back to an earlier column regarding the West Coast Improvement Company' role in the development of early Ballard.

Capt. William Rankin Ballard, secretary of the West Coast Improvement Company, was a surveyor and one of the original developers of Ballard. He was an entrepreneur who was undoubtedly interested in creating as many saleable lots as possible, made several decisions designed to resolve problems with difficult intersections and land waste. The results of his survey decisions can be observed on a leisurely stroll along the area of Bergen Place south to Ballard Avenue. Why not go down to this part of our town on a winter Sunday to catch the Sunday street market and study the original town street plan.

Kay F. Reinartz may be contacted via bnteditor@robinsonnews.com