One Ballardite is on a mission to document all the tile street names embedded along some of Ballard’s roads.
“Since I moved into Ballard in September 08,” Luke emailed, “I’ve been photographing the old street signs embedded into the sidewalks. Most are on 20th and 24th Avenues, but I’ve found a few outliers here and there.” His friend made up a Google Map of where the signs are.
View Old Ballard Street Markers in a larger map
This was a topic that came up in our forum a few months ago. Long Timer filled in the story as to where some of these tiles came from.
I am proud to say I wrote the application for the ‘Neighborhood Matching Fund’ grant that co-funded the project that made and installed new tiles down 24th. Benson Shaw, a Ballard artist, spearheaded the creative portion. Neighbors and Cub Scouts worked together on 3 different weekends to create and install the mosaics. The new mosaic names were based on the 100 yr old street tiles that can be found in several spots in Sunset Hill and Ballard between 20th & 15th. I think we did the project around 1988 or 89.
It was a wonderful project to be involved in. I still smile whenever I walk over them. It shows what good can be done in our neighborhood when we band together as neighbors.
In the meantime, Luke continues his journey around Ballard to photograph the tiles. “I keep thinking that I’ve taken pictures of them all, but keep seeing them as my wife and I walk around the neighborhood,” he says. If you know of any signs not on the map, list them in comments. Luke will add them to his collection.