Susan Gulkis, who plays principal violin for Seattle Symphony, practices in her Queen Anne home. "I love it up here," she says of her neighborhood.

Upper Queen Anne is a combination of single-family homes, apartment buildings parks and businesses. The old high school sits atop the hill.

Seven-year-old Francesca Belgrano, center, chats with friends in her first-grade class at St. Anne's School.

Rosie Sayyah runs a small, funky jewelry sales and repair business called Rhinestone Rosie.

Jodi Nicole takes advantage of a quiet spot in Cafe Ladro, an art-filled coffee joint on Queen Anne.

Thomas Immel works on a cello at Rafael Carrabba Violins, a nationally known Queen Anne company.

Violins await restoration at Rafael Carrabba's Queen Anne shop.

Lisa Emerson and her son, Langston Guettinger, share a book at Queen Anne's public library branch.

Don Nelsen works in the Queen Anne grocery founded by his father and his aunt in 1919.

Rick and Julie Friar run A&J Meats, a Queen Anne fixture for many years. Rick's father Jerry started the business with a partner in 1951.

At the flower stand in the Queen Anne Larry's Market Kathleen Bettencourt offers customers a little whiff of heaven.