Living in Central District, Seattle

Jimi Hendrix Park's guitar-shaped paths and wave sculpture climb a rise at 24th Avenue South and South Massachusetts Street, its butterfly garden and small stage built into the hillside above the surrounding blocks. The Northwest African American Museum sits next to the park inside the 1909 Colman School building, its galleries tracing African American art, music, and history across the Pacific Northwest. Garfield High School's brick campus anchors the neighborhood to the north, its auditorium a longtime venue for the jazz scene that once filled Jackson Street's clubs with music into the early hours. Twenty-Third Avenue carries the neighborhood's small businesses today, a corridor of cafes, barbershops, and corner stores running through a grid of early-1900s houses that make up one of the city's oldest residential neighborhoods.

The commercial strip stays compact, and a full grocery run often means a short drive to Capitol Hill or the Rainier Valley rather than a stop within Central District's own boundaries.

Residents who settle in near Twenty-Third Avenue tend to build their routines around the corridor's small businesses, treating a stop at the museum or an afternoon in the park as an errand rather than an outing.