One Less Landmark

[Hugh Conway]

Vacancy rates have increased and the average number of persons per household has declined. At this rate, in another twenty years there will be no families whatsoever living in Seattle.

 

They'll live out in the burbs, you know, places like..... Woodinville

[tvashtarkatena]

Families can suck me.

 

Just give me the night.

[ZONK]

Ballard has not been "Ballard" for a lonf time.

 

 

 

[mattp]

True that. First Hattie's Hat was taken over, then we got wine bars on Ballard Avenue. They built a new library and planted grass on the roof. What's next? Mike's Chili gonna start serving sushi?

[tvashtarkatena]

Even the Sloop has gone hipster, thanks to the sporto crowd. It's like you can't even get in a good push fight with a toothless barfly anymore with worrying about knocking over some Ema Peel wannabe's Ducati. Wankers, all of you. Wankers, I say.

[ZONK]

I use to love to get drunk there on a Saturday night with the Ex brother inlaw. We could stumble back to his Grandparents house with out a worry. I remember when they passed away and the family got pissed because the family member whole got there house sold it for well over a mill in the late 80's a neat little place with a hugh lot that had a Barber shop in the basement and a Chicken coup out back. Grandma sold eggs. His family had been there from day one for Ballard, coming from Wales

I thought then the place was gona change, and it did !

Went there last fall with the kids to walk around on one of our "Trips to the City" the place is now just empty and void of any real identity, kind of like the rest of Seattle, Just plastic and Fake the Heart and soul seems to be gone.

 

[knotzen]

Shootin' pool and buying pitchers at the Sloop! Brings back memories...

[tvashtarkatena]

The soul of Seattle is gone. It was part of Chubby and Tubby's excess inventory.

[tvashtarkatena]

It sucks having all these new condo-dwelling hotties walking around my neighborhood now. Where have all the muttering blue hairs gone?

[tvashtarkatena]

Like old Ed from up the street, who "damn near tore a poor guy's goddamn ass off" while the guy was in a phone booth because the old fuck confused the break of his sunbleach blue Battlestar Galactica station wagon with the accelarator. His wife was a "spaghetti bender", his garage was built entirely from pilphered county (his employer) construction material, and his Sweet 100s were his pride and joy.

Edited June 24, 2008 by tvashtarkatena

[olyclimber]

my old neighborhood on queen anne had a opera singer who had lost her mind (and she lived with a guy from Boeing who had done the same!) as well as Telly, the tallest man in Seattle from 1963-64. also the girl upstairs wore highheels around naked when she didn't have company. there were also a group of "mutterers" that would get on the bus at my stop with my every morning.

[mattp]

I don't know about you Tvash, but I for one DID find some aspects of "old Ballard" to be charming and part of that had to do with the fact that it was long a semi-forgotten neighborhood and had become a concentrated area of old quirky people and old quirky businesses. I moved here as one of the yuppies who brought about the very changes I am complaining of, but to be sure the wave of development and the turnover in populations is a mixed bag.

 

I realize you commented on the architectural deficits of the Mayor's redevelopment plans, but there are real cultural changes happening as well - and the loss of an affordable neighborhood is something that we may well regret some years down the road after we're all done making money off the boom times and living on fixed incomes and not really interested in moving to wherever it is that we can afford to live at that time.

 

Despite what you or our right wing buddies may think about the landmarks preservation process or whether the City should be regulating development at all, that old Denny's was cool and even though Denny's is trash I'll miss it. The new building going in? There are already at least a dozen just like it that have gone up within six blocks over the last five years.

 

Denny's will be replaced by a Teriyaki joint or maybe World Wraps and there will be an espresso shop, too, along with a real estate broker or tax preparer or whatever. I'll still be able to go out for breakfast but it won't be the same and that corner of Market and 15th is gonnna look a lot like dozens of corners anywhere in Seattle.

[Stefan]

the only way to stop the condos is to stop human population growth

 

humans need to exist somewhere

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

the world changes; deal

[mattp]

Deal we will, KK. And I may even get some new clients out of the deal.

[tvashtarkatena]

What? Is it my delivery? I liked the old Seattle. Didn't that come across.

 

My neighborhood, however, is 10 times better than it was. Whereas I used to love perusing the used appliance stores, antique shops that were never open, and autobody joints, I'm now forced to put up with trendy pubs and bars, good restaurants, bookstores, and coffee joints, all full of hotties. It sucks.

 

What I miss most:

 

Chubby and Tubby.

The Palm Room.

The Twin Teepees.

The Phinney Ridge Bakery 2 owners ago when they had the best donuts in town.

 

Denny's was cool, too.

[knotzen]

the only way to stop the condos is to stop human population growth

 

 

"Condoms, not condos"?

[tvashtarkatena]

I will say one thing, if I see one more feaux-ethnic play on place names (Move in now! Fini Condominiums), I'm going to take up arson as a hobby.

 

Ballard's also got some fake scandihoovian named 'neighborhood', but I can't remember what it is right now.

[MarkMcJizzy]

The amazing thing is that all of this new development isn't actually resulting in increased density. We're simply replacing single family homes that housed 4-5 people with four apartments which house a single person each.

 

If you look on the census bureau web site, you'll find that while housing units are increasing in Seattle, the population has actually declined since 2000.

 

Vacancy rates have increased and the average number of persons per household has declined. At this rate, in another twenty years there will be no families whatsoever living in Seattle.

 

Population of Seattle, according to Seattle's own web site:

1960: 557,087

1970: ~552,000

1980: <500,000

1990: 515,000

2000: 563,000

2004: 572,000

 

If you compare the population trend of Seattle to the remainder of Metropolitan Puget Sound, it is obvious that Seattle has missed the pains of population growth. Fifteen thousand additional people since 1960? Come on, Woodinville and Bothell have both exceeded that, as have untold other communities in the Puget Sound area. Seattle's infrastructure has been heavily hit, because that is where the majority of people continue to work, but do not cry about the increasing density, when it is not true.

 

For the record, as a life-long Seattle area resident, and the third generation of my family to be born in the Pacific Northwest, as well as a construction superintendent. I abhor the soulless piles of shit being built now.

[olyclimber]

i think they should only build farm organic freerange shadegrown housing, regardless of the cost. myself, i'm buiding a strawbale garage and sweat lodge.

[canyondweller]

i'm buiding a strawbale garage and sweat lodge.

 

Good luck attaching hurricane straps to that.

[prole]

Let's all move to TWISP!

[G-spotter]

Seattle should secede from Washington and join BC. That way you could be a cool city, like Vancouver.

 

[prole]

Aurora/Hastings here I come!

[knotzen]

What I miss most:

 

Chubby and Tubby.

The Palm Room.

The Twin Teepees.

The Phinney Ridge Bakery 2 owners ago when they had the best donuts in town.

 

Denny's was cool, too.

 

I miss the Bubbleator in the Seattle Center House. And there was this spooky shop in the basement of the Center House--something like "Madame 's House of Mystery." Wish I could go back and check out that place as an adult. It was irresistibly creepy when I was a kid.

 

Of course, that was back in the 70s. Um, like, 40 years ago.