This is the first honorary renaming we‘re covering on Writes of Way. It was named for the former “Mayor of Ballard,” Rob Mattson (1949–2018), the year after his death.
Honorary renamings differ from straight renamings in that:
- They are done via resolution rather than ordinance
- They do not replace the original street name in official records and addresses
- They appear on brown, rather than green, signs
Speaking of signs, there appears to be some variation in their design; compare that of Rob Mattson Way, below, to that of Gerard Schwarz Place.
Rob Mattson Way covers 22nd Avenue NW between NW 56th Street and NW 57th Street.
Born and raised in Seattle, Benjamin Donguk Lukoff had his interest in local history kindled at the age of six, when his father bought him settler granddaughter Sophie Frye Bass’s Pig-Tail Days in Old Seattle at the gift shop of the Museum of History and Industry. He studied English, Russian, and linguistics at the University of Washington, and went on to earn his master’s in English linguistics from University College London. His book of rephotography, Seattle Then and Now, was published in 2010. An updated version came out in 2015.