Everyone here calls it the U-District: the University District grew up around the University of Washington campus in the 1890s and has been a center of student life, countercultural energy, and affordable housing ever since. University Way NE, known universally as the Ave, is the commercial spine of the neighborhood: a long stretch of cheap restaurants, used bookstores, coffee shops, and the occasional head shop that has served generations of UW students. The Ave was the site of the Ave Riots in 2001, when a crowd of young people clashed with police over five nights in a confrontation that reflected tensions over policing, homelessness, and the neighborhood's changing demographics.
The U-District has always attracted a mix of the university community, homeless youth, international students, and longtime residents, a combination that generates both community richness and persistent conflict. The Link Light Rail opened a station here in 2021, connecting the U-District to downtown in seven minutes and to the airport in forty, fundamentally changing the neighborhood's relationship to the rest of the city. Coffee shops and ramen restaurants proliferated almost immediately.
The bookstores are holding on. The Ave remains recognizably itself.