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Tag: Troll Avenue

Fremont Public Art: Three Billy Goats

Posted on by Valarie

Fremont’s famous Troll, built in 1990, is based upon the Norwegian folktale of three billy goats who wanted to get across a bridge where a troll lived below. Fremont’s Troll is underneath the Aurora Bridge at the intersection of North 36th Street and Troll Avenue.

In tribute to the Troll, on the corner of North 35th Street and Troll Avenue there is a metalwork group of three billy goats, created in 2015.

The three billy goats represent the work of one of Fremont’s volunteer groups, the Friends of the Troll’s Knoll. This group has done other artworks such as an arched garden gate, has done plantings for erosion control and they have periodic clean-up work parties.

Fremont Public Art: The Fremont Troll

Posted on by Kathleen

On North 36th Street, underneath the Aurora Bridge, lives the Fremont Troll.

The Norwegian folk tale about a large and ugly troll living under a bridge and the three hungry billy goats who are afraid to cross is forever immortalized in this iconic statue designed and executed by Professor of Architecture Steve Badanes and his students at the University of Washington, in response to a contest sponsored by the Fremont Arts Committee. Intended to fill up a “problem area” below the Aurora Bridge, the popular Fremont Troll was dedicated October 31, 1990 and continues to attract hundreds of visitors (and locals) with their cameras every year.

In the years before it was made into Highway 99, Aurora Avenue was an ordinary residential street.  Its last segment in Fremont is now underneath the Aurora Bridge.  In the year 2005 the City of Seattle passed an ordinance to rename this two-block segment of Aurora between North 34th to 36th Streets “Troll Avenue” to help people find the Troll artwork at the intersection of North 36th Street.