On Staircases

It's not quite Montmartre, but this staircase on the south side of Queen Anne hill does a pretty good impression of those leaf-shadowed flights of steps in Paris. Moreover, this is not the only such stair on the hill: according to local architect-turned-cartographer Thomas Horton there are no less than 120 in this one neighborhood.

They are often a find, these steps: hidden from view until you stumble across them, they are shortcuts with breathtaking views of Puget Sound and the downtown skyscrapers. In the early 1900s there were cable cars to transport the young city's elite up to their mansions on the hill. Now you have no choice (if you have no car) but to get out of breath.

Queen Anne is not the only Seattle neighborhood on a hill. The fact that there are 550 public staircases should indicate that this is a very hilly place to live. It should also indicate that there are a lot more intriguing corners than the grid-system street layout would suggest.

Recently, descending a little-used staircase on the west side of Capitol Hill, I discovered a semi-wild public garden I had had no idea existed. Following what appeared to be a rabbit trail through the trees, I came across this:

Sometimes the unmapped, off-staircase, rabbit-trail discoveries are the best.