On the corner of Ballard Avenue NW and 22nd Ave is the original location of Ballard City Hall, sometimes called ‘Hose Hall,' which also contained the jail and the fire department hose company (hence the nickname). Weakened by a series of earthquakes, the building was demolished in 1965, but the columns and bell were saved and made into this little landmark.
Commemorative Bell Tower
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
4.57 MILES
A cavalcade of noise, smells, personalities, banter and urban theater sprinkled liberally around a spatially challenged waterside strip, Pike Place Market…
3.64 MILES
The Museum of Pop Culture (formerly EMP, the "Experience Music Project") is an inspired marriage between super-modern architecture and legendary rock-and…
11.12 MILES
Even people with absolutely no interest in aviation have been known to blink in astonishment at Seattle's Museum of Flight, which takes visitors on a…
1.11 MILES
Hard to beat on a sunny spring day, this former military installation has been transformed into a wild coastal park, laced with walking trails and…
3.83 MILES
This ingenious feat of urban planning is an offshoot of the Seattle Art Museum and it bears the same strong eye for design and curation. There are dozens…
3.64 MILES
Opened in 2012 and reinforcing Seattle’s position as a leading city of the arts, this exquisite exposition of the life and work of dynamic local sculptor…
3.65 MILES
This streamlined, modern-before-its-time tower built for the 1962 World’s Fair has been the city’s defining symbol for more than 50 years. The needle…
0.64 MILES
Seattle shimmers like an impressionist painting on sunny days at the Hiram M Chittenden Locks. Here, the fresh waters of Lake Washington and Lake Union…
Nearby attractions
0.02 MILES
A great example of the decorative brickwork that graces many of the buildings along Ballard Ave, the Portland Building has housed all kinds of businesses…
0.04 MILES
In case you forget where you are or the origin of the settlers to whom Ballard owes its existence, a quintet of flags fly over diminutive Bergen Place…
0.07 MILES
Ballard’s only major terracotta structure was built in the 1920s by the Fraternal Order of Eagles. It once held a community hospital and now houses shops,…
0.08 MILES
The GS Sanborn Building is Ballard’s only example of Romanesque architecture, a style that was popular on the East Coast in the 1880s. It has a sandstone…
5. Scandinavian American Bank Building
0.12 MILES
The second-empire-baroque–style Scandinavian American Bank Building is a nice example of the early-1900s tendency to flatter by imitation: its concrete…
0.19 MILES
Now lacking its decorative 3rd-floor corner turret, the narrow Junction Building (dating from 1890) has had all number of reincarnations in its 125-year…
0.21 MILES
Once the offices of the early local broadsheet, Ballard News, this is still one of the most impressive historic buildings in Ballard and one of the oldest…
0.35 MILES
Reason alone to come to Ballard – if the culinary scene and waterside parks weren’t enough – is this delightful surprise of a museum dedicated to Nordic…