2/22/21

Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles, changing uses of the shoreline

Last year I posted a set of before/after photos of Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles, with a focus on how much large-scale fill has transformed Washington's urban shorelines.  This post is going to focus on the same area, but I'm going to try to emphasize the trade-offs, from a cultural and ecological stand-point, associated with that transformation.  I feel that this particular photo:

does this job well.  This photo, taken from right about here, ended up in my collection, but I don't know a whole lot about it...when it was taken, whose collection its in, etc. (and who should be credited for it; please get in touch with me if you know anything about it).  But this photo was definitely shot before downtown Port Angeles was filled around 1913, and gives us some perspective of both the uses (residences, canoes, etc.) and habitat conditions (a relatively broad, low-sloping beach and actively eroding coastal bluff) of this shoreline.  The view from this perspective is now radically different:

June 2015 photo looking east along the historic shoreline near Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles

These two photos aren't perfectly aligned, but are pretty close...


2/1/21

Seattle's Ballard Beach Pre-Shilshole Marina and Present Day

Seattle experienced big changes along it's shorelines in the 20th century.  In Ballard, Shishole Bay went from a rural gravel covered beach with forested hillsides to fully developed with filled in shores, pavement and residential areas.  

Ballard Beach pre-road (looking North to Golden Gardens)



Ballard Beach, 1920's looking South



Burke Gilman link, Seaview Ave and Shilshole Marina, 2021




Ballard Beach looking southwest towards the entry to Salmon Bay, Magnolia and West Point



From 34th NW street overlooking Shilshole Marina, approx 1960's, early marina days.


                               From the 34th NW St park overlooking Shilshole Marina 2021