Jack Nelson stands at the edge of Little Brook Park in Lake
City—just a few blocks from the northern Seattle city
limits—next to a large, shiny playscape. Around him, used
condoms litter the ground and a nearly empty can of Steel Reserve sits in
the branches of a nearby tree.
When the city purchased the football field–sized
lot—which Little Brook Park now sits on—in 1994, neighbors
called it “the last open space in Lake City.” Now the area around
Little Brook Park has a new name, used by neighbors and police alike:
Little Beirut.
“It’s basically a war zone,” says Nelson, who manages an apartment
building overlooking the park. Little Beirut, depending on whom you
ask, stretches from about Northeast 130th Street to 145th Street along
32nd Avenue Northeast. “We have a lot of crack-dealing right out in
front of the park. We’ve got winos, we’ve got the
prostitutes—we’ve got the whole works out there.”
In the last few years, neighbors say the park has become a hub of
criminal activity. At night, they say, it’s filled with drug dealers
and prostitutes who bang on passing cars trying to drum up business and
who heckle passersby. In late January and early February, Seattle
police were called to the neighborhood for several strong-arm
robberies, reports of gunfire, and a drive-by shooting.
With an increase in youth violence and gang activity in the South
End drawing massive attention from newspapers and the Seattle Police
Department, some neighbors have started demanding some attention from
the city and the police in the North End. On March 5, residents invited
police to a sizable community meeting at the Lake City branch library.
At the meeting, residents prodded police about failing to do anything
about prostitution—which, SPD North Precinct captain Mike
Washburn told residents at the meeting, is “not a high-priority
call”—and chided the department for assigning police to set up
speed traps near Lake City, rather than dealing with crime in the
neighborhood.
Although Washburn did announce at the meeting that the department
would add bike patrols in Little Beirut one day a week, Nelson isn’t
waiting around for SPD to swoop in and clean up his neighborhood.
Nelson is an imposing man. At about six foot three, the denim-clad
ex-machinist and shipyard worker looks a bit like Santa Claus, if Santa
Claus were a member of the Hells Angels. Because of his intimidating
stature, Nelson—a Kansas transplant by way of Lynnwood and
Marysville—hasn’t been shy about confronting the problems that
plague the park just outside his living-room window. He knows the
prostitutes in the park by name, he knows which apartment buildings
house drug dealers, and he knows which neighbors have put up fences in
hopes of preventing any more police foot chases from going through
their yards.
“I sit on my couch and watch the park from my front window,” Nelson
says. “In the summer nights, I can look out the windows and see
[prostitutes] being picked up by johns and dropped off 15 minutes
later.”
Nelson’s confrontations with Little Beirut’s regulars—he says
he’s chased “gang bangers” and their pit bulls out of the
park—have earned him about a dozen death threats from drug
dealers in the last three years. “I don’t take it much into account,”
Nelson says, adding—without a hint of irony—that he
“know[s] 19 ways to kill a man with one punch.”
On a recent Saturday afternoon, Little Brook Park was empty, save
for a few children playing. Whether Nelson can take credit or not, SPD
will ultimately need to make its presence known to really clean up the
neighborhood—a job that may be harder than it sounds. Although
SPD is ramping up patrols in Little Beirut, the department may be
fighting an unwinnable war against public perception.
At the March 5 meeting, SPD’s Washburn told the crowd that the
department recently performed an “experiment” in Belltown, parking a
squad car on a high-crime corner. After officers made an arrest at the
spot, they waited for another squad car to show up and replace them on
the corner before leaving. Despite the constant police presence in that
part of the neighborhood, Washburn says residents still complained
about the department’s lack of presence in Belltown.
If the police want a real barometer of how they’re doing, they’d
probably do well to ask Nelson. For now, Nelson is glad to see the bike
patrols through the neighborhood on Friday nights, but he isn’t happy
about how long it’s taken. “I wonder if a bunch of these winos stood in
front of Greg Nickels’s house and yelled… all night long, I wonder
how long it’d take the police to clean it up?” Nelson asks. “I bet
pretty fast.” 
big deal
read again, what is the story?
park problems over the centuries, whores, old men, litter and late night fucking
zzzzzzzzz
Have you visited Beirut lately? It is opulent and vibrant; a culturally and architecturally resplendent Mediterranean city that has almost fully recovered from the mistakes of generations past. I am not Lebanese, but quite familiar with the city. I can only imagine how fed up Beirutis must be to constantly have to read articles where their home is the fallback metaphor for all festering, local eyesores. I implore civic employees and journalists to discover some more up-to-date and accurate ways to describe your urban embarrassments and leave Beirut out of it, so the city can enjoy its renaissance!
As organizers of the march 5 meeting, we strongly encourage residents to contact us at lakecitycommunity@gmail.com.
The story is that this is a neighborhood forgotten about, much deserving of some attention. The story is that the violence in the south end is in the news while the north end is ignored. The story is that this issue is solvable. Finally, the story is that over 3000 people live within two blocks of a park that many are afraid of. Our neighborhood would like to change that.
Thank you
Aram & Angela
Lakecitycommunity@gmail.com
I grew up in Lake City, and spent my entire childhood and teenage years there, and even went back in my early twenties for the cheap rent. Now that I’m all grown up and have joined reality in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, I have realized that most of Seattle is completely sheltered and unaware of some of the terrible crime that happens in the north end. As a child, three people in less that two years were shot and killed in the drive-way of the complex I lived in with my family. I saw drug deals and prostitutes on an almost daily basis, and I have a distinct memory of having to step over a dead body to get my scooter out of the alley near my home. People forget that Lake City is part of Seattle, and it deserves equal treatment. The area between 130-145th are fucking war-zones, and I’d invite any Central District or Capitol Hill kid to walk alone at night there just once. The CD is a fucking cake-walk compared to those backstreeets. Thank you, Jonah, for illuminating the public on just how shat-upon Lake City really is.
Lake City is the forgotten neighborhood of Seattle. When I tell Seattlites I live in Lake City most of them have no idea it exists. Lake City’s trying to get itself on the map. It deserves to be recognized as a legitimate neighborhood.
Check out this Lake City Blog
lakecitylive.neighborlogs.com
What??? I thought the only problem in all of Lake City was Rick’s??? Maybe the SPD should re-assign part of the lapdance patrol to this park. Lake City has always been a shithole — even if they do have a pretty new Blog.
I live in Wedgewood, right on the Lake City Border. If I head South (towards the UW) things are fine, but if I head North, things get sketchy really quick.
Granted, I’m kinda a puss about everything, but there is a lot of poverty up North, and unfortunately the crime goes hand and hand. I’d be happy to see a bigger police presence. Especially considering Nathan Hale High School and Summit are pretty close to the park in question (or did Summit get closed?).
There’s a crime problem in Lake City, a gang problem in the south end, a break in problem in Ballard, rampant drug dealing and assaults in Belltown, and every one of these is answered with SPD saying they don’t have enough police to patrol these areas. Obviously we need more cops on the street.
I live like 100 feet from Little Brook Park . Funny observation : due to the economy ,many ex-affluent folks have been moving into Lake City. This alone seems to have up the property value around here . I moved from Kirkland where there is little to no police presents and little to no crime. Maybe its more about what the community will put up with in their neighborhood . The cops can’t always be there.
Mick must not live in Lake City since he doesn’t have much to say. Since you obviously are not part of the solution I guess all that is left is part of the problem.
I live in Lake City by one the shit hole parks that we speak of, one night an officer told me “the city is not concerned with underage drinking and drugging so they consider that a low priority call” explains why they never show up when you do call. one night I phoned the police because it sounded as if a teenager was being savagely beaten, still no show, I think the cops are just fucking lazy. I grew up in Everett where the cops were thought to be dicks, now I know that that is a good thing because it means they were doing there jobs and patrolling like good cops do, Seattle cops just got a huge raise that makes them very well paid, they need to start earning it and not be afraid of the paperwork that it takes to put these criminals that infest our parks in jail!
There are good quality people in Lake City! We are small business owners in the area (husband is a physician) and bought our home here 10 years ago. This problem is worsening and we are doing what we can to help be a part of the solution but are getting discouraged. When the best news about your neighborhood is the publicity it is getting for how BAD it is, that cannot be good. 🙁
I wish I could find a job there in Seattle that paid enough so I could afford to live in Lake City, Renton or even Sumner for that matter.
Compared to anywhere in Texas, Baghdad, Kabul or Kuwait- Lake City is paradise!
Western Washington is great- but the wages are relatively too low, jobs too few and the cost of living way too high.