Comments

1
"Breaking out the Fendi wallet" says it all.
2
Why not have the Pike Place Market stay open later? Or maybe some of those businesses who are worried should stay open later instead of downtown shutting down at 6:00 pm when most people are getting off of work.
3
Gosh, it sure would suck if the market suddenly decided to have housing for the elderly, there'd be murders and death galore there.
4
This is the big city. Grit = charm.
5
@4 absolutely! ...ever been to Berlin's Turkish quarter on a Saturday morning at 1am?! no? well... neither have i - but the stories i've been told would curl yer waistcoat.

grit is city charm. you want no grit? move to Lyndon(WA)
6
Dominic, if you can find photo's/footage of the market in the 70's, after the Boeing-layoffs, you should post it. I was a kid then, and nothing going on right now compares to the mean, gritty memories I have of the market back then. Capital Hill, as well.
7
lets give the bums power-washers and pay them minimum wage to clean up after their done urinating
9
@6, I remember a local luminary posting somewhere about his memories of the Market around the depression, how fucking awful it was for him and his mother to be destitute and begging and surrounded by people in terrible pain who were dying and lashing out and all.

That said, having read his whole opinion piece I don't think Stusser's heart is in as wrong a place as you seem to think, Dom. You might read it again tomorrow and see if it strikes you the same.
10
@6 - The documentary Streetwise about teen prostitution and runaways in the early 80s is mostly in a one-block radius of 1st and Pike.
11
I work at PPM, so I can say it's a delicate balance down there.

scojomojo, we can't stay open later. When we get in and get out is decided by the Pike Development Association, a non-profit that also runs the clinic, daycare, senior center, and food bank down there. The PDA primarily listens to the farmers (I work for artist/crafters) who get in VERY EARLY and so get out at no later than 6. The crafters are not allowed to be there later than 7pm and are usually gone earlier (we can leave at 4) during off-season weekdays due to poor sales traffic. It just doesn't pay off to stay longer; I know, I've tried. Anyway, It's not just about "staying open later", it's a byzantine, overtly political system and you almost have to live in it just to understand it. I've been there for two years and I'm still getting used to it.

Baconcat, there already is section 8, senior, and low-income housing run by the PDA at PPM. Or maybe you were being sarcastic and already knew that. Most people don't, however.

Frankly, for a lot of the retail, it's not the locals who drive the sales, it's the tourists. Locals forget about us. I hear all the time from my friends/neighbors/not-PPM colleagues "Oh, it's been so long since I've been there! I should really go down there..." Yeah, you should. The PDA requires (except for a few grandfathered vendors/farmers from before the changes in the 70's) ALL producers/artists to be local. All the art has to be handmade and it is a lengthy, competitive process to jury in. Whenever you buy at PPM, it is 99% likely that your money is going *directly* into the hands of a local artist or farmer, so for the "Shop Local!" supporters it is the best use of your money that I can think of. I would say what would be more effective than simply later business hours is a positive advertising campaign aimed at local consumers to get them into the Market. Reports like this are the opposite. The security at PPM is really pretty good at bouncing the weirdos and the transients and drunks are all basically hot air and no threat to anyone but themselves.

Fuck you, PI. It's a city, it has grit. Deal.
12
I remember when the alleyways smelled a lot more of pee.

But then, the millionaire non-citizens who live down the Hillclimb probably want all their condos worldwide to be ultra spic and span.

IT'S A PORT DUMBFUCKS!
13
@12
functioning port? you really think they offload all those goods sold at PPM from the docks?
hahahahahhaha
14
@8 - Thanks for the link - great photos.
15
@8, no shit. Lovely stuff.
16
I didn't say "functioning" port. They're pretty much all like this worldwide at fish and produce markets near ports.

They just like to whine.
17
How can a guy shopping shopping for Ginsu knives not remember the 80's?
18
@11 Yeah, I know about the PDA and its labarinthine rules and regulations. I think they need to remove the restriction of sataying open later. Allow businesses that can afford to, stay open later. I'm really just about more foot traffic downtown later in the evenings. I live there, and I'm sick of it turning into a ghost town after 6:00pm.
19
@8 - awesome link, thank you.
20
A few cops around policing the criminals would be nice. Wouldn't matter if the criminals were homeless or not, but just letting it all go makes it look like Thunderdome to the tourists.
Seattle must really look like one big bum infested cesspool if you just go from one tourist destination to the next. Wait, maybe the city IS just one big bum infested cesspool?
21
DOMINIC -
22
Thank you for spelling "wracking" correctly.
23
So Biff and Muffy were going to buy a million dollar condo then they saw Deja Vu and the winos and the homeless.

Where the fuck do these people come from? Pike Place market has always been gritty.
24
@18

You're welcome to try and get them to change. It's tough, but I say go ahead. Me, I just work there as a day gig. Part of the staying late for craftspeople that's tricky is because you don't just have shifts: people work a day or there's nobody there for that artist. It's not like someone comes and opens and someone else closes, like in a storefront. If I'm there from 8:45-7pm (9am roll call, set up for an hour, hang around, start tearing down at 6pm, put the cart back downstairs) like I was on Friday, I'm fucking going home. Also, because of the way agents like me get paid (base+commission, the lion's share of which is commission), most artists probably couldn't afford to pay an hourly wage to openers/closers to make it worth their while.
25
"That Pike Place Market is a rat's nest of hippies." (1970)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemuni…
26

Pike Place Market? That's a veritable Kew Botanical Gardens compared to when I walk from 3rd and Seneca down to the King Street Station.

Today I was treated to a display that would be worthy of Cristo on the park adjacent to the courthouse -- homeless drug addicts swaddled in grey blankets at 5pm, laid out in the sun like excavated mummies.

Or try going by the Union Mission or any of the other venues along 3rd in the morning.

Let's face it -- as much as Seattle promotes density and urban living, the biggest investments like Pioneer Square, Sodo and yea, even Belltown, have gone tits up!
27
@8: thanks for the link. Those photos from the market are killer (although "Pikes" Place!? Sheesh. I thought anyone who'd spent more than 20 minutes there would've have been disabused of that).

Love that there's a photo of The Donut Shop ( a reference anyone from 70s or 80s Seattle would instantly recognize. There was only one donut shop.). Now that was gritty Seattle.
28
Damn...those photos really are awesome. That was the Seattle I fell in love with. Not the hideous craptastickness that followed the late 80s "redevelopment."
29
"Streetwise" is in YouTube. Every Seattle resident should watch it.
30
@#2 - I urgently want the market to stay open later. I do most of my grocery shopping there, and can barely get there before they close!!
31
I've lived in Seattle for 11 years and I won't go to Pike Place Market for one very simple reason: parking. You just can't get there unless you are willing to pay out the nose to park 10 blocks away from anyplace you want to visit. Why bother with the hassle? Stinky, drunk, panhandling homeless people just are not that great of an attraction. It's actually more fun to drive to Bellevue than go to Pike Place.
32
@4 in particular, plus Andy, Will, and Seattle-centric clueless twits in general.

I spent the entirety of today walking back and forth throughout Boston and its environs. (Ever hear of it? It's much more populous city than Seattle.)

My travels took me busy areas, less busy areas, side-streets, markets, parks, and a part of Dorchester where they tell the white tourists not to go.

Total number of times I got harrassed by deranged winos or offered drugs: ZERO.

So fuck you and your dumbass misconception of what makes "a city."
33
@31 park further away and walk you lazy ass

http://dcisgoingtohell.com/?p=558
34
I like the market being gritty and a little nasty. It's the only part of downtown that hasn't become gentrified and yuppified. And it's fucked up that they put a fucking Hard Rock Cafe down there.

My only complaint about it would be the hours need to be expanded. And those of you who don't like the Pike Market being gritty get your asses over to Redmond Town Square; that's probably more your speed.
35
I don't understand why you naive white Seattle gayboys want every place to "progressively" become a third-world-style shit hole.
36
My, those old Seattle pictures are wonderful! That's the Seattle I remember, and the Seattle I loved: Folksy, but slightly sinister, surrounded by surreal natural beauty.

And look at all the old people in those pictures. Downtown used to be full of old people, who lived in old apartment buildings and hung out at places like the Athenian Grill and the Gay 90's. Most of them were a hoot.

Change is inevitable of course, but I still maintain that the worst thing they did to downtown was build Westlake Center. The old Westlake was much more interesting and lively.
37
I will change the Pikes Place to Pike Place. For some reason, as I was growing up, we always called it that. See www.wanderinginseattle.com for more Seattle photographs.
Steve
38
"grit is city charm"

Oh yes, the suffering and misery of drunk druggie bums is awesome entertainment. Seattle's gigantic concentration of bummy junkies and alkies is what makes the diffrence between Seattle being a provincial small "big town" and a "world-class city"!
39
"grit is city charm"

Oh yes, the suffering and misery of drunk druggie bums is awesome entertainment. Seattle's gigantic concentration of bummy junkies and alkies is what makes the diffrence between Seattle being a provincial small "big town" and a "world-class city"!
40
I'm baffled that anyone feels 'threatened' by the Market. You guys should have seen Times Square in the early-mid 1990s. The Market (and most of Seattle) is Disneyland compared to that.

Is Steinbruek Park a little skeezy? Sure, but then explain away the army of tourists with kids that park there and who obviously never seem to care about the homeless drug addicts sleeping on the grass 10 feet away.
41
"You guys should have seen Times Square in the early-mid 1990s"

Been there and seen it back then.
NYC also has multitudes more blacks and latrinos, which is the precise reason for the high violent crime rate there. If you dispute this statement, I will completely destroy your naive outlook using solid facts.
Here is the truth about violent crime in NYC:

Blacks committed 66 percent of all violent crimes in the first half of 2009 (though they were only 55 percent of all stops and only 23 percent of the city’s population). Blacks committed 80 percent of all shootings in the first half of 2009. Together, blacks and Hispanics committed 98 percent of all shootings. Blacks committed nearly 70 percent of all robberies. Whites, by contrast, committed 5 percent of all violent crimes in the first half of 2009, though they are 35 percent of the city’s population (and were 10 percent of all stops). They committed 1.8 percent of all shootings and less than 5 percent of all robberies. The face of violent crime in New York, in other words, like in every other large American city, is almost exclusively black and brown.
42
@40

While I don't think the market is a shithole, I do take issue with the "if you think______ is bad you should have seen ______ back in __________" argument.

You think Times Square was bad back in the day? Try Stalingrad in 1942. That was really fucked up! (see why that doesn't work? Apple and oranges and all that).
43
@20 i laughed out loud at your 'thunderdome' comment. that's awesome.
44
#36 - you used to see more old folks on fixed incomes living downtown because there used to be a lot of SRO (single room occupant) hotels. They're all gone now, pretty much, or else they're overrun with crackheads and people who belong in mental hospitals. You used to be able to live in a room with a shared bath on the floor, and NOT be set afire in your bed or have your shoes stolen every night. They're no longer a viable option for the working poor; now they're all filled with the people who used to be kept in padded rooms.
45
@38 (and @39) hit the nail on the head.

Gigantic thanks to this entire thread for reminding me why I need to move the hell away from this cesspool of quasi-progressivism and logical fallacy.
46
not really surprising....
47
Geni, most of the SRO stuff went out when the Ozark Hotel burnt down in 1970. The old people from my day were from the many apartment houses downtown and on Capitol and First Hill that were torn down or gentrified in the '90's. Places like the Waldorf, or the Town House (now the Electra Condominiums)

I suppose SHAG fills the gap for a lot of today's old people, but that's a bit too segregated for me. My hope is that when I'm old I can move back to a little studio on Capitol Hill and be a dirty old man.
48
@47 - True, although I remember a few lingering in the 70's that had older folks in them. But you're right, the low-price one-bedroom apartments that were centrally located and convenient for old folks (near shopping, hospitals, bus lines) are almost all gone.

The first apartment I lived in, kitty-corner from St. James on 9th and Madison, had tons of single older folks living in it. Our one-bedroom apartment there was $160 a month. It was more than I could afford, so I shared it. It was a crappy little place, but had a lot of advantages. Until Sunday mornings, when that damned cathedral bell started up.
49
I remember when I was a kid in the 60's- there was a billboard that stated " Will the last person to leave Seattle please shut off the lights?" in response to Boeing's woes.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.