Ohh this is the worst! Silly, naive-college-student, 2-block-radius silliness. Ah, dear stupid writer, I was once like you. And then I became an adult.
As a transplant from back East that moved here in 2005 and married a 3rd generation native, I can now say I finally understand Seattle because of this blog post.
A single person's opinion becomes a Definitive List On Some Website. Literally this is just what some guy thinks. Let's all make a list. They will be equally valid.
I, for one, moved from the U-District to Ballard last month and do find Ballard very boring so far. It seems rare to find/meet anyone that isn't a married 28-year-old with two children under four, there doesn't seem to be live music or people that care about music at all and it takes a herculean effort to get anyone I know elsewhere in the city to head "all the way out" to Ballard anyway. But, I've been broke and not drinking out as much as I'd like, so, small sample size I guess; I'll stay optimistic.
@11 Uh, three things: The Sunset, The Tractor, The 2 Bit Saloon.
Pretty much the only reason I ever go to Ballard, aside from visiting the Fred Meyer that's the size of a small country and the occasional wedding at Golden Gardens, is live music.
People who diss Ballard are idiots. No it's not the center of live music in Seattle (duh) but if you are even remotely paying attention and have halfway decent and varied tastes, you can find at least a couple good-to-great shows a week at tractor/sunset, and even occasionally at Lock and Keel. There is an abundance of beautiful food and a wide variety of different bar scenes. There are oodles of boutique-y shops and businesses. Best of all, the place still has a working neighborhood character, with the old creaky docks and fishy-smelly warehouses. Also, the strolling in the leafy neighborhoods just north of Market is terrific.
But you know, it probably isn't the best place for a person in their 20s. It's more for people with a bit more seasoning who have let down their guard a little, who aren't always trying to impress everybody. So continue staying the fuck away and let me enjoy it in peace.
@ 15, @ 11, strikes me as someone who must be college age. Who else would write "28" as if it were the average American's life span? It's doubtful that this person would like the music featured at those venues.
I love it when people complain that things are "dumb" or "boring" as if it somehow deflects from their own lack of imagination or ability to keep themselves occupied for more than 30 seconds.
Articles like this are written purely for page views. His "editor" (i.e., search engine optimization specialist) gave him a headline derived from analyzing popular search keywords and told him to fill in the rest with overstatements, understatements, hyperbole, polemics, and anything else that causes people to click it or link to it.
The author probably believes less than half of what he wrote here. Yet Paul dutifully links to it, and the rest of dutifully debate it.
@4 I like the tractor as a place to see live music--very spacious, unlike the Sunset--but not enough rock and jazz, too much wishful white hipster country nostalgia for my taste. A lot of good places to dine otherwise.
@6, he's out to lunch on this--people around here tend to be rather complimentary about Portland--good food, live music, less corporate, less pretension and preservation of nice old buildings that haven't been demolished by developers
@14, I do agree about the Space Needle, but as far as upper belltown, lower queen anne, you at the very least have On the Boards--one of the few places in the city displaying some edgy performance art/theater.
Schmacky, I WISH Ballard were less exciting for people in their twenties, since Friday and Saturday nights are being increasingly taken over by the frat/sorority types that ruined Fremont a few years back. I live on Ballard Avenue and every weekend night, I wonder where all these douchey early-twenty-somethings came from. Curse them!!!
Can't decide whether I hate them or the Mars Hill hipster fundamentalists more. (ok, it's the Mars Hill folks. No real contest.)
My problem with Ballard is purely its location. If you love on the hill and don't have a car it's super hard to get to. I'm sure it's lovely but I rarely got all the way there.
Well, the racism is gross but he's right about Belltown; it's one block of fun surrounded by yuppies and crack. And, Queen Anne IS boring. Ballard is "meh" now since rampant gentrification. But, he's wrong about Georgetown, and his love for Capitol Hill is a bit extreme. Also: we don't need any more visitors, thanks.
Do you know what is more boring than Ballard? Phinney Ridge neighborhood! It's the worst place in the entire world. Anyone who lives there can't wait to leave and everyone there is a very bad, terrible not-nice person. Everyone would do very very well to stay far far away from Phinney Ridge. Tell your friends and family to go up to Capitol Hill where all the cool fun hipster people live and stay far far away from Phinney. Oh, and it rain there more, too!
@21 is correct. The guy who wrote the thing didn't spend a fraction of the time thinking about this piece that you all did.
@24, the U District has Magus Books, University Book Store, Half Price Books, and Neptune Records. That's all you need to know. Ballard has John Lang, which is cool, and a mediocre Easy Street, and that's it. Book and record stores are the reason neighborhoods exist, full stop. And yes, I felt this way at 23 as well (when the bookstores were better and the record stores worse).
Hernandez, The Fred Meyer in Ballard is an exact premonition of Hell. Specifically the shoe department and the furniture department. That's where all of us will spend eternity suffering.
@26; I must come to the defense of the group of early 20-somethings you mention in your comment. I am 23 and me and my tight-knit group of friends were born and raised in Ballard, went to elementary, middle, and and high school in Ballard, and now that we are old enough we frequent the bars in Ballard. While I agree with you that the bars in Ballard have definitely been taken over by obscenely enormous groups of frat guys and sorority girls on the weekends, I don't like being lumped into that same category just because I am the same-ish age as all of them. Lately I've been feeling a general vibe of disgust toward my friends and I just because we tend to dress a little "nicer" or "trendier" on the weekends, and then people automatically peg us as sorority girls or frat guys who are invading their precious little Ballard. Before jumping to that conclusion, people need to realize that they are not the only ones who call Ballard their neighborhood. I love Ballard with my whole heart, it is where I have lived my entire life. Now I wish I could feel a little less judgement and a little more love when I frequent the bars and restaurants of my neighborhood.
The Internet loves lists!! We'll be famous.
People like lists. People have opinions. This is the internet. blah blah blah blah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhYrMb6pJ…
26. Washington is now more au courant than Seattle.
Pretty much the only reason I ever go to Ballard, aside from visiting the Fred Meyer that's the size of a small country and the occasional wedding at Golden Gardens, is live music.
But you know, it probably isn't the best place for a person in their 20s. It's more for people with a bit more seasoning who have let down their guard a little, who aren't always trying to impress everybody. So continue staying the fuck away and let me enjoy it in peace.
Three halves! That's how great the buses are - we can fit three halves on them!
The author probably believes less than half of what he wrote here. Yet Paul dutifully links to it, and the rest of dutifully debate it.
@6, he's out to lunch on this--people around here tend to be rather complimentary about Portland--good food, live music, less corporate, less pretension and preservation of nice old buildings that haven't been demolished by developers
@14, I do agree about the Space Needle, but as far as upper belltown, lower queen anne, you at the very least have On the Boards--one of the few places in the city displaying some edgy performance art/theater.
He's certainly not wrong about that.
Can't decide whether I hate them or the Mars Hill hipster fundamentalists more. (ok, it's the Mars Hill folks. No real contest.)
@33 I see what you did there.
@4
@24, the U District has Magus Books, University Book Store, Half Price Books, and Neptune Records. That's all you need to know. Ballard has John Lang, which is cool, and a mediocre Easy Street, and that's it. Book and record stores are the reason neighborhoods exist, full stop. And yes, I felt this way at 23 as well (when the bookstores were better and the record stores worse).
Hernandez, The Fred Meyer in Ballard is an exact premonition of Hell. Specifically the shoe department and the furniture department. That's where all of us will spend eternity suffering.