Lower Queen Anne, Seattle


Lower Queen Anne is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, at the base of Queen Anne Hill. While its boundaries are not precise, the toponym usually refers to the shopping, office, and residential districts to the north and west of Seattle Center. The neighborhood is connected to Upper Queen Anne—the shopping district at the top of the hill—by an extremely steep section of Queen Anne Avenue N. known as the Counterbalance, in memory of the cable cars that once ran up and down it.
While "Lower Queen Anne" and "Uptown" are rarely used to refer to the grounds of Seattle Center itself, many of Seattle Center's leading attractions abut the neighborhood; these include KeyArena, the Exhibition Hall, McCaw Hall, the Cornish Playhouse, and the Bagley Wright Theater, as well as the Mercer Arena.
Lower Queen Anne also has a three-screen movie theater, the Uptown, and On the Boards, a center for avant-garde theater and music.

Geography

Lower Queen Anne can be considered either a distinct neighborhood, or part of the larger Queen Anne neighborhood.
Although the borders of Lower Queen Anne are not clearly defined, they usually include the area from Ward St. to Denny Way. Additionally, the area from the intersection of W. Galer St. and 5th Ave W. to W Prospect St. and Queen Anne Ave. N. are also usually considered part of the Lower Queen Anne area. However, as no borders for neighborhoods in the city of Seattle have been clearly defined, the boundaries of Lower Queen Anne remain merely set by popular opinion.
in the bottom right, as seen from the Space Needle

Economy

The Seattle-based newspaper known as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was located in Lower Queen Anne.
It is also home to numerous small-to-medium-sized high-tech companies including the corporate headquarters for F5 Networks. It was the home of Quicksoft, the first company to score commercial success with shareware. Prior to its dissolution, Pro Air was headquartered in Lower Queen Anne.