The name goes back to the streetcars. In 1907 a new line running down California Avenue crossed the line on Alaska Street, and the stop where they met became the Junction. Shops grew up around the crossing, and it has been West Seattle's main street ever since.
Look up as you walk. Between 1989 and 1993 the neighborhood painted eleven murals of its own past, most of them here in the Junction, from old photographs of the peninsula.
On Sundays the West Seattle Farmers Market sets up in the Junction, 10 to 2, all year. The rest of the week it's records, bakeries, coffee and a deli that has been scooping ice cream since 1932.