Area is quintessential Seattle

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

On a hillside cemetery overlooking Lake Washington, Brian Peyton brushes away the fallen leaves on the gravestones of his great-grandparents, who came to Seattle from Italy almost 100 years ago.

Modesto Colasurdo, Peyton's great-grandfather, died from the flu that swept through Seattle in 1918. His widow, Lucia, survived and lived until 1976.

The Peyton family history is the story of Seattle: immigrant families leaving their homelands, braving long odds.

As Seattle's population swelled, new little communities like Ravenna -- named for a seaside district in northeast Italy -- sprouted near train stations and clearcuts at the edge of the frontier city. Peyton, who was raised in Rainier Valley's Italian "Garlic Gulch" neighborhood, moved to Ravenna five years ago, attracted by its "down-to-earth feeling."

"It's not at all pretentious," he says.

Ravenna is quintessential Seattle. Its daily rhythms are set by the alarm clock, coffeepot and school bus. A late night means staying up for the 11 o'clock news.

It has a wholesome, tree-lined sensibility. There are no Volkswagen-eating trolls hiding beneath bridges. No steaming rockets, or statues of Lenin. Ravenna has Glenn's, an old-time barber shop; the Queen Mary tearoom; and Seattle's only Volvo dealership, run by Bob Byers and his family. Volvo station wagons are big in Ravenna, says the Byers' daughter, Sue, who is the office manager.

Ravenna has no sex shops, but it does have a few family restaurants, small bakeries and unique shops, including The Herbalist, McCarthy & Schiering Wine Merchants, and Saxe Floral & Greenhouse, founded in 1919 by a Japanese gardener.

Ravenna's homey little market, the Puget Consumer Co-op at Northeast 65th Street and 20th Avenue Northeast, was affectionately regarded as the "mother ship," when the alternative chain first took root in Seattle in the 1970s.

Residents still recall the protest at PCC about a dozen years ago when vegetarians tried to stop the store from adding a fresh-meat department -- to no avail.

The PCC still enjoys a loyalty from shoppers, 30 percent of whom come each day by foot or on bicycle. The store's fund-raising projects include selling teas to benefit the grass-roots effort to "daylight" Ravenna Creek.

Continued:

• Volunteers pitch in to build up community
• Traffic wars just latest fight for activist neighborhood
• Area's diversity more in religion than in race