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Rising nearly 500 feet high above downtown and the Denny Regrade, Queen Anne Hill is more populated than many Washington cities. It is, in fact, several different neighborhoods in one. A predominantly younger crowd resides in ‘lower Queen Anne’ by the Seattle Center to the south, for example, while established North Queen Anne residents mix with transitory students from Seattle Pacific University. Central Queen Anne is known as the Counterbalance (Queen Anne Avenue North from Roy to Galer streets), so called because an actual counterbalance was used to get trolleys up the south side of the Hill in the 1890’s.
It is a stable neighborhood with residents having lived in this working class area an average of about 17 years. The housing styles are derived from early lumber barons’ fondness for Queen Anne architecture, after which they then named their neighborhood.
There are about 2,000 businesses to be found on the Hill, with the main shopping area, composed of small stores and supermarkets, found on the top of Queen Anne.