April 21, 2013 - Fremont Lenin

This 16 foot high, 7 ton bronze sculpture of Vladimir Lenin took Bulgarian sculptor Emil Venkov 10 years to complete.  It was installed in 1988 in Poprad, Slovakia, but quietly removed following Czechoslovakia's 1989 Velvet Revolution.  The statue was saved from scrap by Lewis Carpenter, an English teacher, who purchased it for $13,000 and moved it to Washington for another $41,000.  Mr. Carpenter died in a car accident in 1994 just a year after purchasing the statue.  His family had it temporarily installed here in Fremont.  The statue is for sale.

"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representative of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament. " - V. I. Lenin "State and Revolution" 1917

April 21, 2013 - Freedom to be Peculiar

Adorned with the unofficial neighborhood motto "De Libertas Quirkas", Freedom to be Peculiar, if one is to believe the sign, the Fremont Rocket points skyward towards a waxing gibbous moon.  The rocket, actually a tail boom for a C-119 Flying Boxcar, was destined for the scrap heap from its home at a surplus store in Belltown when it was rescued by the Fremont Business Assocation in 1991.  According to the sign out front it actually took a lot of work to "get it up".  It finally touched down in its current location in June of 1994 in time for the annual neighborhood solstice parade.

August 10, 2010 - (Almost) Last Call

Catch it while you can! The Buckaroo Tavern, established in 1938, will be closing their doors and turning off the quaint neon sign on September 17th.


The neighborhood bar is located on the northern edges of Fremont, a Seattle neighborhood that claims to be "The Center of the Known Universe". The eclectic neighborhood is home to the world headquarters of Getty Images, a statue of Lenin, a Volkswagon crushing troll, nude bicyclists and was where Nirvana's "Bleach" was recorded.