Microsoft's backyard

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Showing at Victor's Coffee in Redmond May 28th through June 4th, 2023

Growing up in Microsoft’s backyard

In the late 1970s, the Eastside was a suburb of Seattle; its primary industries were housing and retail. Over the next few years, farm fields were replaced by office parks, houses with townhomes, and a feed store with apartments and gourmet hamburgers. With my project, “Growing up in Microsoft’s backyard,” I explore how Redmond has changed and the experience of two generations growing up alongside a tech giant.

Starting in the mid 1930s the King County tax assessor’s office has surveyed all structures in the county creating a visual archive of the architecture, economy, and land use of the region.

Showing the visual changes is only part of the story. To explore the experience of growing up in Redmond I interviewed my mom and uncle, Laurie and Steve. They moved to Redmond in 1970 at age 10 and 3 when my grandparents bought a house blocks from where Microsoft is now. At that time Redmond was a small town and Microsoft’s main campus was a field of grass and trees.

By the mid 1990’s Redmond had become a growing city and a driving force in the region. The tech industry brought Christina and Victoria’s family to Redmond’s Education Hill at a similar age as my mom. Growing up in this changing, technology driven world shaped both of their lives.

Today Redmond has grown into a bustling, high speed city that bears little resemblance to its farm town past. To show how the region has changed I photographed both the locations from the archival images and the life of residents today. By printing these images on computer scrap I hope to highlight the impact the tech industry has had on shaping the city. As we approach 40 years since Microsoft moved to Redmond these stories can help remind us what has made our region unique over the years.

"When we moved to Redmond in 1970, I remember it was a lot greener than California for sure."

- Laurie

"Where we lived I loved having a big neighborhood off of busy streets where we could skateboard and ride our bicycles. We'd walk to school. Walk to grade school. Ever since I can remember, we would walk to kindergarten, first grade. It was K through six. "

- Steve

"Our house happened to back up to the woods, so our back yard didn't even have a fence along the back. It just opened right up into the woods and that was nice not to have a neighbor right behind us. There were other kids my age in the neighborhood, so a lot of time was spent just biking or being outside. There was a lot of open area for bike riding, too, not just along the sidewalks but in paths and fields."

- Laurie

On growing up in Redmond's Overlake neighboorhood in the 1970's

"One of my first memories is riding around in the car with my dad. Very fond memories. We'd always stop at a little drugstore and get a package of peanuts as we drove around so he could get used to the area. I remember it being a really rural, small-town, and it just seemed so big to me because I was so small."

- Steve

"One school project was to think of something in your area that needs improvement. I remember specifically saying 51st needed a sidewalk and it needed more streetlights. We didn't spend a lot of time walking or biking on it, but it seems like from Marymoor on the corner at West Lake Sammamish, it wasn't houses. It was a field and maybe one house. On the other side there weren't any houses there either, it seems like it was just undeveloped.

"The freeway goes through there now, into Redmond, but when we lived there it ended in a street light. You couldn't take it all the way down to Marymoor and Redmond. You came to the light and made your turn."

- Laurie

On growing up in Redmond's Overlake neighboorhood in the 1970's

"As you got up to where you turned into our development, there was the little development sign and our houses. Again, on the other side of the road it was just undeveloped. Past our neighborhood I think there were horses, maybe pastures. A lot less houses."

- Laurie

"The big deal for us was 7-Eleven. When they first built the 7-Eleven on 148th across from the golf course. Looking at the golf course, climbing the fence, trying to find golf balls that we could then sell and try and make some money. Going to the 7-Eleven and playing Asteroids Defender and getting a pop and a candy bar, and just being ecstatic that we had one close enough to walk to. I can remember my dad thinking it wasn't a good idea that they put a 7-Eleven there because he was worried it was by a busy street."

- Steve

On growing up in Redmond's Overlake neighboorhood in the 1970's

"We moved to Redmond’s Education Hill in 1997 when I was 6. As a kid it was just fun being able to go out and play then having a yard and then the neighbor seemed friendly. It was full of a lot of people who just worked locally, and there were quite a few people who had grown up in the area. I enjoyed getting to know the neighbors and getting to know the neighborhood kids. There were a couple schools, and it was a lot of fun with their old playgrounds."

- Christina

"They even had some kind of event truck for kids' programs, that would stop at Meadow Park near our house. I remember going there a lot of the time and they would have fun, different interactive projects."

- Victoria

"There was the local ice cream parlor that was just down the street. We would generally drive there because the street didn't have good sidewalks at the time, and it was a busy street, but it wasn't very far, so that was a lot of fun going there to get ice cream at Theno's Dairy."

- Christina

On growing up in Redmond's Education Hill neighborhood in the 1990's and 2000's

"We used to have a lot more farms in our neighborhood where you could see horses and things like that, and those got torn down and then the houses that have zero yard were put in next to them, and then when that happened, you also had problems with coyotes and deer actually in your backyard."

- Christina

"I remember seeing land use actions and thinking as a kid, I need to do something, I need to tell them they can't do that they're taking the land from the animals and the birds. Unfortunately I never did anything. Who knows, they probably wouldn't have listened to me anyway, but I still regret not trying to do something about that."

- Victoria

"Driving home a few times and I'd see the coyotes and they'd be having some argument in our front yard and then they get split between the car and they're like "What are we supposed to do", and they're trying to figure out which direction to walk."

- Christina

On growing up in Redmond's Education Hill neighborhood in the 1990's and 2000's

"My first job out of college was at Safeway, now Qualstar, Credit Union. They were located on the corner of Bel-Red and 140th. Brick building there and at the time, right next door was the Eastside Group Health Hospital and Medical Center. You walked through the little woods to get to the Group Health, which was right next door. Convenient for me because that's where I had my medical care.

"Group Health felt like it was in the woods because they had little paths to get to the parking lot. There were big trees and rhododendrons. When you were at Group Health you felt like that was their complex. I don't really remember there being anything else nearby.

"On the other side of Bel-Red there is a gas station there now, but it seems like there was a little restaurant, because my friend's mom worked at a little restaurant there.

"Uwajimaya was there, definitely. Behind Uwajimaya there was a nursery that we did get a few plants at, just one of those regular big lots with plants. Nothing special. And of course down the hill, Sears was there and Fred Meyer."

- Laurie

On working in Bellevue in the 1980's

"Working in Bellevue for the last almost four years I’ve seen lots buildings being torn down and skyscrapers going up. Everything is being replaced by skyscrapers. Literally all the land around my office, according to my co-workers, is being replaced by 42-story skyscrapers. Keep in mind that our building is 26 stories. Barnes and Noble is behind us and while the building is just ugly, it's still Barnes and Noble. I don’t know if they’re going to move or be able to stay, but that building is going to be torn down and replaced. I can't imagine being right next to several 42-story buildings, that's insane. I'm not looking forward to that.

"Bellevue's very fancy now. There's a lot of fancy stores, there's a lot of fancy restaurants, there's a lot of posh people. There's also a lot of poor people hanging around the transit center. On the whole I think Bellevue prides itself on being this really expensive, posh, kind of environment. Which really isn't that homey."

- Victoria

On working in Bellevue in the 2010's

"Started off with a paper route and then ended up in the food industry. My paper route, always trying to go big, I took apartment complexes up off of 148th. I would ride my bicycle up to the paper route shack and get all my papers, and then go up 51st, get on 148th heading towards Overlake area. Hit the apartments and just do a ton of papers up there.

"A lot of work but it was good work and it was nice to have that first job. That was neat too because back then, that was almost like a given. If you wanted to do a paper route, you could have a first job and that's no longer an option."

- Steve

On working in Redmond's Overlake neighborhood in the 1980's

"Our dad is the type of guy who would bring us kids in and try and get us involved in the type of work he was doing. Just to show us what life as an electrical engineer was like. He showed me how to repair Xboxes, trying to get me involved in triaging things and stuff like that. I think the fact that he had the opportunity to work at Microsoft helped, but I would have had that experience regardless of where he worked.

"I had a highschool internship at Microsoft and it was great having that opportunity for a company that would actually offer high school internships. I feel like most smaller companies wouldn't offer that 'cause it's not beneficial to them. But since Microsoft was such a big company it has that program."

- Christina

On working for Microsoft in the 2000's

"I guess I would've been probably 11 through 13 and transitioned from BMX bikes to motorcycles. Doing a little bit of both. My dad got me a used YZ80 and it was great. Kept up with all the new bikes.

"We would ride at a place called 80 Acres, which was where Microsoft ended up building its campus. But back then, it was tracks, woods, hills, and it was a big expanse area where you could ride your motorcycles, and it was close to home. It was fabulous.

"In fact, we used to ride our motorcycles on 520 when they were building it, and the construction personnel had no problem with that at all. They were fine with us and we thought that was pretty cool because we got a pretty wide range that we could take our bikes on.

"We knew that was gonna go away some day and it was gonna be a freeway and we were bummed out about that. We were really bummed when we heard that a business was going to set up camp in 80 Acres. So much so that we would always talk big talk and we were going to link arms with our motorcycles and not let the bulldozer go and dig up land, but that never happened. Just talk."

- Steve

On working for Microsoft's campus in the 1980's

"Microsoft itself is like it's own little city. It has its own malls, its own shops, and everything which is crazy. It even has its own transportation system.

"If you're working for Microsoft you'd stop in at the main transit center and from there you could take your own bus to wherever you worked in the Microsoft campus.

"It was cool 'cause they also had their own housing district just for people who were from out of town. If you work for Microsoft and need to visit the Redmond camps for whatever reason they'd have places available to you. Which I thought was awesome as a company, because it's a pain having to find your own place for a short while just to visit when you're traveling. I thought it was crazy that they had their own mall though that seemed a little bit over the top.

"Once you left Microsoft campus, the area around it just feels like suburbia because you don't really have mall malls, more like strip malls and then it was mainly housing. It feels like the outskirts of Bellevue or the outskirts of Redmond once you leave the actual campus."

- Christina

On working for Microsoft's campus in the 2010's

"I do really like things that Microsoft has done, but I don't like how it's making everything more expensive around here. I kind of target Microsoft because I know it's continuously growing, so I know it's bringing in people from all over the world who work there. Those folks are buying apartments that I can't afford and they're making things more competitive which means the prices can rise because they know that people are going to pay them.

"I remember for the first time looking at how expensive apartments were in Redmond. I was young, I wasn't even at Running Start yet. I don't remember how much they were, but I remember thinking, oh my gosh! How could anyone afford that? And now I'm sure they're probably double if not triple whatever they were then."

- Victoria

On Microsoft's impact in the 2010's

"If we wanted to go see a movie we had to go all the way to Bellevue and it did feel like all the way to Bellevue. Bellevue was the city. Redmond was where we lived but Bellevue was the city. So anyway, that's where we would do major shopping and also go to movies."

- Laurie

On Bellevue in the 1970's

"For shopping, we would go to Bellevue Square. There was JC Penny's, which is where we did some shopping. Frederick & Nelson, The Bon Marche and, if you really wanted to spend money, you'd go to Nordstrom, but that isn't where we did most of our shopping. We were more the Penny's people

"Bellevue Square then wasn't all connected as an indoor mall at the time. It was separate stores, so you had to walk outside to get in between them. Not as many restaurants and all those extra things."

- Laurie

On Bellevue in the 1970's

"We'd go to Bellevue Square every once and a while. Not too often because it was crowded compared to Redmond Town Center. The few times we did go to Bellevue it was mainly for the mall and oftentimes I'd wander to the bookstore."

- Christina

"We would go to Crossroads more often than Bellevue Square. It was nice. Sometimes they would have a musician or an author reading or some kind of public speaker in the center area where they had the food court."

- Victoria

On Bellevue in the 2000's

"It was kind of expensive to go shopping at Bellevue Square. Sometimes we would go to Macy's. We would go to the movies in Bellevue sometimes, but we had Bella Bottega in Redmond, so it wasn't really that much different."

- Victoria

"The other thing that sucked was there was no good bus system to Bellevue. It used to be you'd have to go to Seattle to get to Bellevue. Then they finally did put in a bus to Bellevue but it was a bus that would weave through all these neighborhoods before it would get to there. So it was an hour on the bus when you could have driven in half an hour which was a pain. But at least it was a route instead of having to go to Seattle and back.

"Bellevue also had different selections of food, I think they actually had bubble tea and stuff like that. Redmond for the longest time didn't have any of those options, so we would go to Bellevue for that."

- Christina

On Bellevue in the 2000's

"We'd ride our bikes everywhere. From Redmond to Bellevue, we even talked about going to Seattle. Pretty common to ride down the Bridle Trails to downtown Redmond."

- Steve

"I remember going into Ben Franklin for crafty things. My favorite store though was Lakeside Drugs. It always had the best greeting cards and you could get your school supplies there and your various holiday supplies."

- Laurie

On Downtown Redmond in the 1970's

"We would go to the Honda shop, and just drool over the motorcycles that we wanted to have someday. Right by the Honda shop there was the grocery store, the drugstore, there was a Pizza Hut back then, and the Kentucky Fried Chicken was right down there in that area.

"Past KFC where Redmond Town Center is used to be a golf course and I can remember my mom working there and getting milkshakes from her, and thinking that was pretty cool that I could take my friends inside there and get free milkshakes that my mom would give us. Never got a chance to golf there. They started tearing it down to make town center before then but my dad, I can remember him golfing there many times, and always asking my dad how he did and he would tell me that he had fun. Now I know what that means because I golf. You don't give out your score, it's hard to shoot a good score."

- Steve

On Downtown Redmond in the 1970's

"Redmond Town Center was relatively new when we moved there, and that was a fun place to go. It was different. You used to be able to actually drive through the middle which was a big mistake because there would be so many pedestrians walking across that you never wanted to go there anyways.

"I remember some of the toy stores that used to be in the area and they're gone now. I feel like one was called Crazy Brains or something like that. It was near the Redmond Town Center, and it's no longer there

"There used to be a feed store downtown, where you could get chickens and chicken feed. There was the old train track that went through town and I think when we first moved here, it may have been in use, but soon after it was no longer in use. It was just train tracks that we could walk along. The feed store is now gone. I remember my mom was super excited about it when we moved here and then when it closed she was very upset."

- Christina

On Downtown Redmond in the 2000's

"Redmond Town Center changed a lot too. Borders left and that was pretty sad because they would have story time, and I remember going there. That was pretty sad and it was kind of odd because it was very vacant for, I wanna say years, nothing moved back in there.

"I also remember the movie theater in the Redmond Town Center used to be all ages and I could go there. Then it changed to 21 and up, and I was so pissed off. At first I wanted to boycott it, and then of course, at some point, that thought process changed and I was like, "Oh I can't wait to go to 21, then you can eat food and have cool seats". Of course I have yet to go back to that movie theater."

- Victoria

"For restaurants, we would try different places. We always liked exploring different restaurants."

- Christina

"If we asked dad he would always say teriyaki. We would get teriyaki a lot."

- Victoria

"I feel like the problem was restaurants would change on you. You’d go somewhere and then the next year you find a different restaurant in that place and just eat there instead. I remember there were quite a few coffees that would change on us. There was a cool coffee shop where they actually had seating areas and games that you could play, and then a year or so later, it was a totally different coffee shop or maybe even a beer shop, I don't remember.

"One year there was this high tea place where you could get the miniature pastries and the fancy sandwiches and fancy tea, and then it was also gone after a year or so. It was a little sad but it was cool getting to try them out."

- Christina

On Downtown Redmond in the 2000's

"I don't know if it was Derby Days, but I do remember some summer celebration. My dad was a member of a service group called the JCs. They did raft races. They actually built rafts that went down the Slough. That was a big deal. I remember watching from above as they went under the overpasses. I don't know that we see a lot of watercraft going down the Slough now."

- Laurie

On Redmond activities in the 1970's

"I feel like one year they just suddenly started doing Redmond lights. Or maybe we just found out about it for the first time. It was one of the most amazing things I remember as a kid. I thought it was awesome, the way they had the actual lights and I think back then they might have actually had candles before they finally got smarter and upgraded to LED lights.

"They would have the whole trail lined up with the lights and then there would be people on paddle boards doing cool tricks in the water, and then there would be people singing and performing at different areas along the trail."

- Christina

"I remember there was a gentleman who had a steel drum and I remember hearing it and thinking, "Oh it sounds like the Little Mermaid" and I loved the sound of the steel drum. I thought it was so cool. That was probably the most memorable musician that we passed."

- Victoria

"You'd eventually get to the Redmond Town Center, and all the local restaurants tended to have a little stall and they would be serving some food for free, and then you could check out various things. There would be arts and crafts for kids.

" I feel like the first few years, it was a lot smaller and not too many people knew about it, so it was great. It would be the whole town would be there and you'd be there for the lighting up of the tree could walk all the way to the Redmond Town Center, but there weren't insane lines to get the food and stuff. It was the fun local thing to do."

- Christina

"Now, I've heard one of my managers has actually boycotted it because she said it's impossible to move. You go there. There's so many people, it's like in the beginning of a race and you can't walk anywhere 'cause there's so many people, so they actually don't like it."

- Victoria

On Redmond activities in the 2010's

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