Broadway Park, City Hall Now Listed On Nat. Register Of Historic Places

[Mike]

The City of Bellingham received notice earlier this month from the
Washington State Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the
United States Department of the Interior that Bellingham's City Hall
and the Broadway Park Historic District in the Cornwall Park
Neighborhood were both listed on the National Register of Historic
Places.

Bellingham resident Lynette Felbert applied for the City Hall
designation, with unanimous support from the Bellingham City Council.

The City Hall Building, constructed in 1939 and located at 210 Lottie
Street, is historically significant for its direct association with
New Deal federal relief programs. (The "new" City Hall replaced the
old 1892 City Hall located at 121 Prospect Street, which was preserved
and is now part of the Whatcom Museum campus.) Bellingham's City Hall
is an important example of the Public Works Administration Art Deco
style, and was designed by prominent Seattle architect, Leonard
Bindon, who lived and practiced in Bellingham from 1935-1940. Other
notable Bindon designs include the Henry Suzzallo Library Building at
the University of Washington, the Music Building and Women's Dormitory
at Western Washington University, and several large Art Deco/
Streamline Modern style homes in the Edgemoor Neighborhood.

Also listed this month was the Broadway Park Historic District,
Bellingham's seventh historic district, which was nominated as part of
a grant from the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation.
Located in one of Bellingham’s early neighborhood developments in the
Cornwall Park Neighborhood, the 65-acre Broadway Park Plat was opened
to residential development by the Bellingham Bay Improvement Co. in
September, 1906. Originally designed as a “streetcar suburb,” the plat
was created to coincide with a trolley-line extension connecting the
new neighborhood with the central downtown trolley system, and
provided new housing opportunities for Bellingham’s growing
population.

The Broadway Park Plat remains much as it did 100 years ago, and is
bounded by Ellis Street on the east, North Street on the south,
Illinois Street on the north and roughly the alley east of Grove
Street on the west.

The National Register records the tangible reminders of the history of
the United States and is the official repository for documentation of
cultural resources worthy of preservation. See the Historic
Preservation section of the City website for more information,
including details on the 35 other buildings, 6 districts and one
highway in Bellingham listed on the National Register.