Fremont Troll
📍 Washington, Seattle
An 18-foot concrete troll crushing a real Volkswagen Beetle in one giant hand, lurking under a Seattle bridge — public art with a hubcap eye and a great backstory.
The thing under the bridge
Beneath the north end of the Aurora Bridge, an 18-foot troll of steel rebar and concrete hauls itself out of the ground, one hand crushing a real Volkswagen Beetle, a shiny hubcap for an eye. Sculpted by Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter, and Ross Whitehead, it took up residence on Halloween 1990 after winning a neighborhood art competition to reclaim a dumping ground under the span.
It has since become Seattle’s unofficial neighborhood mascot — climbed on, photographed endlessly, and celebrated each Halloween at “Trolloween.”
Visiting
- Free, always open, at N 36th St and Troll Ave N in the Fremont neighborhood.
- Climb on it — it’s built for it — and check the VW for changing surprises.
- Pair with Fremont’s other oddities (the rocket, the Lenin statue) for a full quirky-Seattle walk.
🐿️ Cinnamon was here
Field report
Word of a bridge troll travels fast in the small-mammal community, so I approached Seattle's Fremont Troll with protocol: slowly, from above, ready to negotiate.
He's eighteen feet of concrete crouched under the Aurora Bridge, one hubcap eye gleaming, one enormous hand crushing an actual Volkswagen Beetle — a real car, entombed. The neighborhood built him in 1990 to fix a dumping ground, which is the best municipal decision I have ever documented. I sat in his hair. He didn't mind. We're colleagues now.
The humans climb all over him for photos, which he tolerates with stony grace (his one weakness: he is stone). Free, always there, best in low fog. Bring nothing; he takes VWs, not acorns.
— Cinnamon 🐿️
📸 Cinnamon's camera roll
Snapshots from our very good boy on the road.
Where it is
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