Construction on the Montlake Lid over Highway 520, between Portage Bay and Lake Washington, can be seen in the middle distance. A future 520 lid connecting Roanoke and North Capitol Hill will be built over the open space you can see at the bottom of this photo. Credit: LESTER BLACK

Construction on the Montlake Lid over Highway 520, between Portage Bay and Lake Washington, can be seen in the middle distance. A future 520 lid connecting Roanoke and North Capitol Hill will be built over the open space you can see at the bottom of this photo.

Construction on the Montlake Lid over Highway 520, between Portage Bay and Lake Washington, can be seen in the middle distance. A future 520 lid connecting Roanoke and North Capitol Hill will be built over the open space you can see at the bottom of this photo. LESTER BLACK

The intersection of Montlake and Lake Washington Boulevards was once a beautiful area. The tranquil Portage Bay sat to its west, the green wetlands of the Arboretum to the east, and the collegiate gothic buildings of University of Washington to the north just across a drawbridge.

Then the highway came.

In 1963, State Route 520 opened over the protests of the neighborhood and brought the roar of thousands of cars an hour. Victor Steinbrueck, an architect who helped design the Space Needle and saved Pike Place Market, called 520 “unimaginative” and full of “naked brutality.” A 1956 letter to the editor in the Seattle Times called for choosing a different route for 520, so a highway wouldn’t “mar the beauty of one of Seattle’s outstanding assets.”

Lester Black is a former staff writer for The Stranger, where he wrote about Seattle news, cannabis, and beer. He is sometimes sober.