Wedgwood is a neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, located about two miles (3 km) north, and slightly east, of the University of Washington; it is about 6 miles (10 km) northeast of downtown. The misspelling Wedgewood is not uncommon — it is used by five businesses (as against 11 that spell it correctly) and even appears, as of December 2004, on an official city web site [1] — but the origin and spelling of the name are clear: the neighborhood was named after the Irish porcelain-maker Wedgwood, the favorite of the wife of Albert ("Al") Balch (1903–1976), the developer who named the neighborhood. Balch was also the founder of adjoining View Ridge .

Like many Seattle neighborhoods, Wedgwood has no universally agreed-upon borders. The official city map [2] shows its boundaries as

• bounded on the north by N.E. 95th Street
• bounded on the east by 45th Avenue N.E.
• bounded on the south by N.E. 75th Street
• bounded on the west by a route coming north from N.E. 75th Street along 25th Avenue N.E., then jogging due west along N.E. 85th Street and snaking up Lake City Way N.E. to N.E. 95th Street.

However, N.E. 75th Street presents no discernable break in the business strip along 35th Avenue N.E., which continues south to N.E. 65th Street; many of the businesses, churches, etc. in these ten blocks identify themselves as being in Wedgwood; some even have "Wedgwood" in their names. If these official borders are accepted, then the landmark Wedgwood Rock, a large 19-foot-tall boulder at the corner of 28th Avenue N.E. and N.E. 72nd Street, lies in the adjoining Bryant neighborhood.

Major development of the neighborhood began during World War II; initial development was largely by Al Balch and his partner Maury Seitzer. They built 500 homes on 40 acres (160,000 m²), constituting the center of today's Wedgwood neighborhood. The houses, each of which originally sold for $5,000, currently (as of 2004) go for upwards of $300,000.

There is a shopping district along 35th Avenue N.E., with concentrations of stores at N.E. 75th Street and N.E. 85th Street, including a supermarket at each of these corners; a lesser concentration near N.E. 95th Street includes the Fiddler's Inn bar, a live music venue, one of relatively few this far from the center of the city. 35th N.E. doesn't rise to the level of having "street life", but it does have a good smattering of businesses, including numerous banks, a ballet school, the Seattle branch of the Audobon Society [3], several popular bars, miscellaneous medical offices, and a variety of retail stores. There are also numerous places of worship; several of these are just south of what the city defines to be Wedgwood proper, as is one of the city's largest and busiest public library branches and the Grateful Bread Cafe, a bakery/coffeehouse that sometimes hosts live music and community events).

There are also businesses and stores along Lake City Way, but the inclusion of these in the Wedgwood neighborhood is, at best, a technicality.

Wedgwood, as defined by the official city map, includes the public Wedgwood Elementary School [4], [5] (Kindergarten - 5th grade), the Seattle Jewish Community School [6] (K-5), Our Lady of The Lake Parish School [7] (Roman Catholic, K-8), and University Prep [8], [9] (6-12). Of these, perhaps the most notable are University Prep, one of Seattle's leading secular preparatory schools, and the Seattle Jewish Community School, which attempts to bridge the various streams of Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, etc.) in a single elementary school. The Concordia Lutheran School [10] (a Christian K-8 school) lies south of what the city considers to be Wedgwood, but has always identified itself as being "in Wedgwood".

Wedgwood and the adjoining View Ridge and Bryant neighborhoods constitute one of the three centers of Seattle's Jewish community, along with Seward Park and the suburb of Mercer Island; besides the Jewish Community School, Wedgwood has a Reform synagogue and a branch of the Stroum Jewish Community Center (the main part being on Mercer Island); a Conservative synagogue and two Orthodox synagogues (one of them associated with Chabad Lubavitch) are in walking distance, though outside of the city's official boundary for the neighborhood. Nonetheless, Jews constitute less than 10% of the neighborhood's population.

The Wedgewood (sic) Estates apartment complex on N.E. 75th Street between 32nd Avenue N.E. and 34th Avenue N.E. was purchased by the Seattle Housing Authority in 2001 in an effort to preserve a supply of moderately priced housing in this part of Seattle. [11]

The large P-Patch (community garden) near the west edge of the neighborhood, and the adjoining University Prep School and Temple Beth Am (Reform synagogue) are on land that remained a working farm as late as 1965. Wedgwood's is Seattle's oldest and largest P-Patch; as of 2005, there are now 52 others. The "P" originally stood for "Picardo", the family that farmed the land.

Just south of the old Picardo farm is Dahl Playfield. Like the P-Patch, it is peaty land, although a drainage system makes it less of a bog. At one time there were houses on part of what is now the playfield, but when they began sinking in the peat, the city bought them out to turn the land into a park.

External links

• Wedgwood Community Council
• Wedgwood news archive
• Wedgwood on Historylink.org. Among other things, this gives a good account of the last farming in the neighborhood, of the initial development, and of the Wedgwood Rock; it also gives an extensive set of print references.
• P-Patch Community Gardens: Picardo Farm