Aurora: Finding beauty in Seattle's most maligned street | History

“Everybody rags on Aurora Avenue,” historian Roger van Oosten said. “It’s the most maligned street in the city, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.”

Van Oosten, who will be leading a walking tour of Aurora for the Museum of History and Industry July 23, said there is beauty in the functionality of Seattle’s Route 66.

“Right now, it’s a place where families can do business,” he said, pointing to auto shops, appliance repair stores and places like Green Lake Games.

Not to mention, Aurora is the last place in the city where you can get a burger slung over your car window at a classic drive-in, he said.

Van Oosten said those are the kinds of businesses being squeezed out of the rest of the city. Aurora is the last street in North Seattle that has real small businesses doing real business, he said.

For example, where in the city would you go if you needed a headstone – a need many people don’t think of with any frequency, van Oosten asked. Well, there is always Custom Headstones at 9608 Aurora Ave. N.

“When I needed it, they were there,” he said.

He said that’s the kind of oddballs stuff that can be found on Aurora and nowhere else in the city. If that goes away, Seattleites will have to trek to places like Renton and elsewhere to find it.

But, it’s not just the businesses that set Aurora apart in the eyes of van Oosten.

He said Evergreen Washelli Cemetery, at 11111 Aurora Ave. N., has a lot of amazing stuff, such as the Doughboy sculpture. The Doughboy, honoring veterans who fought in World War I, was – for all intents and purposes – a goner when McCaw Hall was remodeled in the 90s, van Oosten said. But, Evergreen Washelli stepped up and made a home for the sculpture.

And, in case you don’t buy that the story behind a sculpture can be all that interesting, take a moment to peruse this history of the Doughboy. (Fact: The 21-gun salute honoring the Doughboy’s unveiling in 1932 shattered 11 windows in a neighboring apartment building.)

Set back from the roadway, Aurora is still home to the motels that popped up in the 1930s – places like the Klose-In Motel at 9309 Aurora Ave. N. A second generation of motels joined them in the 1960s when Boeing and other manufacturers came to town, van Oosten said.

He said those motels, many of which rent rooms on an hourly basis, went hand-in-hand with the area’s developing prostitution problem and are part of the dark side of Aurora.

But, like the rest of Aurora, they serve a purpose, van Oosten said. He said many working people who can’t afford to live anywhere else use the motels as transitional, workforce housing, paying on a weekly basis.

South of the Woodland Park Zoo, most of those motels have been boarded up or torn down to make room for condos and other developments, van Oosten said. Gentrification is taking away Aurora’s character, and it’s not coming back, he said.

“It’s going away, and it’s going away fast,” he said.

Van Oosten recognizes Aurora Avenue has its problems, such as prostitution and drugs, but he said he feels the street is unjustly disparaged.

“Certainly, there is an element there that is difficult,” he said. “But, is this not happening in Belltown? Is this not happening in Lake City? Is this not happening in Seward Park? The problems facing Aurora are the problems facing Seattle.”

Van Oosten will lead “Aurora – Life on Seattle’s Mother Road” from 10 a.m. to noon July 23. The 2.5-mile walking tour starts at the corner of North 90th Street and Stone Avenue North and ends at Licton Springs Park for a light lunch.

Tickets are available online. The cost is $15 for MOHAI members and $20 for the general public.