By LYNN STEINBERG
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Though Crown Hill residents often lack a strong sense of identification with their neighborhood (indeed, many say they live in Ballard or North Seattle) they are quick to mobilize around issues that affect their quality of life.

Block watches are active, street parties well attended.

When merchants along 15th Avenue, near 85th, noticed drug dealing and prostitution in 1994, they worked closely with Seattle police officers to clean up the area, reporting the slightest hint of trouble, and driving the dealers off.

"There is a general sense of renewal in the Crown Hill area," says Grace Jansons, the Seattle Police Department's Community Crime Prevention Coordinator for the area.

When an overgrown lot on 14th Avenue Northwest, just south of 85th, was bought by the city Parks Department, neighbors took the lead and ultimately transformed the property into a lovely respite from the nearby commercial zone. It includes a butterfly garden and play area.

Working through the Whittier Heights Community Council, residents garnered city grants to plan, design and construct the park, then donated much of the labor, moving mounds of dirt, planting, and building walls.

Baker Park is named for the property's former owners, who ran a nursery on the premises, and it has retained some of the nursery's more interesting plants, including a Monkey Puzzle tree, a Portuguese Laurel, apple trees and flowering pears.