Welcome to Bell Street! As with many of the streets you’ll see throughout the tour, Bell Street was named for one of the families that arrived to the area on the sailing ship Exact. William Bell and his wife, Sarah Bell, arrived with the original Denny Party in 1851. Olive, Virginia, and Stewart Streets are all named after William Bell’s children - quite a family legacy.
Amazon is passionate about fostering small businesses. Did you know that over half of items sold on Amazon.com come from small and medium businesses?
During the pandemic, when our 55,000 Seattle-based employees were working from home, we immediately (in four days!) created the Amazon Neighborhood Small Business Relief Fund to provide grants and free rents to the local businesses in South Lake Union, including food trucks that come daily to serve our employees. We invested $19 million dollars to make sure they stayed afloat and were ready to come back when the situation improved.
Looking slightly right of the Space Needle, two blocks north, you might catch a glimpse of Denny Park. This was Seattle’s first park - and fun fact, its first cemetery too! Amazon supported the restoration of Denny Park while building the headquarters campus. Today, it’s a vibrant community park with farmers markets, concerts, and art exhibitions held all year round.
A great way to take in all of the sites is utilizing Seattle’s bike network, which passes right through Amazon’s headquarters in South Lake Union. During the planning phases, it became clear that the community would need ample paths and bike parking. Amazon worked with the city of Seattle to refine the bike network and build better infrastructure for those who like to commute on foot. We provide our employees with bike subsidies, underground parking, locker rooms, and repair areas to make use of Seattle’s vast bike network to keep more cars off the roads.
