Have you ever wondered what your vintage house looked like in its younger years?  If your house was built prior to 1972, and particularly before 1940, you may be able to find out!

Between 1936 and 1940, the federal depression-era WPA funded a comprehensive survey of properties in King County. Hundreds of workers gathered information and took photographs of nearly every structure in the county. Between 1940 and 1972, the King County Assessors Office took over 1 million more photos. This entire collection photos is housed at the Washington State Archives Puget Sound branch, located in Bellevue.

You will need your home’s tax number or legal description when you call the archives at 425-564-3942. Whether you want to restore your house to its original appearance, or are just curious how your abode may have changed over the last 70+ years, this wonderful resource is what you need.

And for a short history on this unusual project, visit historylink.org.

Since I last wrote about the proliferation of excellent neighborhood blogs, two more have sprung up right in Mary Ann’s stomping grounds of Wallingford/Green Lake. 

Wallyhood was started in January, 2009 by Wallingford resident Jordan Schwartz, and it covers local events with frequency, enthusiasm, and cheeky humor.  According to Jordan, “Fair game for the blog include neighborhood events, business openings and closings, police blotter reports, resident profiles, found objects, and pretty much anything relevant to that little area … that we call home. Story ideas may come from the Wallingford Community Council, Wallingford Chamber of Commerce, Weaving Wallingford, neighborhood gossips, meddling kids and the occasional snake oil salesman.”  I can’t say I’ve noticed any stories provided by snake oil salesmen, but I will say that Wallyhood is chock full of community information and is a must-read for any Wallingford resident who wants to be in-the-know.

It wasn’t long before Green Lake had to get in on the blogging game, which led to the birth of My Green Lake in mid-May. If you live near Green Lake (or just love it, and who doesn’t?), turn to My Green Lake to find out about new restaurants, events at local businesses, and other vital community info.

Seattle Metropolitan Magazine just posted a fascinating and fun online resource called “Neighborhoods by the Numbers”. For each neighborhood in Seattle and some surrounding cities, it lists important information such as median home prices (including increase or decrease since 2007 and 2005), crime rates, percent of owner-occupied homes, and average commute times. It even has interesting demographic tidbits such as median age, household income, and ratio of Gregoire to Rossi contributors.  And if you’re wondering how many dogs and cats, or supermarkets, or acres of parks are in a particular neighborhood, this is where to search.

If you find a particular community meets your needs, you can click on it and get a list of all the current real estate listings from the up-to-date Windermere database.   It’s fun for real estate geeks and novices alike!

There are literally millions of blogs out there in cyberland and it can be hard to sift through them to find ones that are indispensable.  So I want to give a shout-out to a collection of local blogs that have become part of my daily routine.  In December, 2007, a Ballard couple who go by the moniker “Geeky Swedes” started MyBallard.com, a “blog about news, events, restaurants and shopping in Ballard and Crown Hill.”

It wasn’t long before their frequent and fascinating posts, combined with extensive participation from other Ballardites who added information in comments and the Forum, created a must-bookmark local resource.  I can’t even count the tidbits of useful information I have gleaned from MyBallard.com.  I learn about new restaurants before they open, community events, which streets are navigable during huge snowstorms, and pretty much all the local news that is relevant to Ballard.

Now Ballard isn’t the only lucky neighborhood, as the Geeky Swedes have branched out! Phinney-Greenwood has PhinneyWood, Fremont news is found in Fremont Universe, and even Queen Anne and Magnolia are getting in on the action. Each blog contains information particular to the featured neighborhood, but they all boast the Geeky Swedes’ fabulous blog design and usability.

If you live in near Northwest Seattle and like your news to be fresh and incredibly local, check them out. You may become another daily visitor.

It’s 9pm (or 7am if you’re a morning person) and you suddenly realize that you are plum out of scotch tape, natural toilet cleaner, and organic apples.  Oh, and you need to throw together a little dinner party for the next day, complete with wine, cheese, entree, and dessert.  What ever will you do?

Well, if you live in Tangletown, you can just wander down to the Meridian Market at 2201 N 56th St. and pick up all you need to stock your pantry and impress your guests.  They have a little bit of everything: produce, frozen food, specialty cheese, dry goods, wine, and household supplies.

As cool as it is to have a wide variety of staples and luxuries just down the street, that isn’t the best thing about Meridian Market.  What makes it special is that it is one of a dying breed of truly neighborhood markets. You know, where the owner is in the shop every day to answer your questions or help you put together gift baskets (his name is Wally, and he used to own the beloved Phinney Market), there’s a place to sit and eat gourmet prepared food, and they hold fun community events.  I was tempted to attend one of their debate watching parties.  You might want to stop in for Wine Tasting Wednesdays or Pasta Bar Thursday, where you can enjoy some culinary pleasures while getting to know your neighbors.  Or try out their delectable Saturday breakfasts.  But do visit this neighborhood gem and support our community.  Your neighbors love it.

I’m a 71.  What are you?

Walkscore is a nifty little website where you can type in your address (or the address of a property you might want to buy) and find out how walkable the area is.

The developers of the website rated 40 different urban neighborhoods for their walkability: which means how close a given home is to businesses, workplaces, schools, and parks.  Each address is assigned a number between 0 and 100.  The scoring system is as follows:

So, what is your walkscore?