The First Hill Neighborhood

Town Hall is located in a rich historic neighborhood. Numerous old churches, apartment buildings, hotels, social clubs, and early hospital buildings bespeak the time around the turn of the century when the city was expanding up the hill (in part to get some safe distance from downtown after the disastrous fire of 1889). This promontory overlooking downtown and Elliott Bay began as a neighborhood of prominent families who built fine mansions (four of which remain today). Soon, however, First Hill became richly various in its population. First Hill is a reviving urban village, with thousands of jobs, stately apartment buildings, fine views, nearby colleges, and a growing cultural base. Town Hall is recognized in the First Hill neighborhood as an essential part of this revival.