During work breaks I would join Jane out front and share a cigarette. Last winter our favorite topic of conversation was the atrocious new condo complex being built just kitty-corner to the cafe. The previous occupant of the site had been a solid old brick-and-timber building. The new building was a three-story fuchsia muddle, trying hard to blend in with its retro-Craftsman look. Jane and I made bets as to how long it would take to fill up, and we both felt that the street-level businesses of the mixed-use project would be vacant for a long time. After all, Tangletown already had plenty of little shops and services. We lived in a vibrant neighborhood with a solid sense of community.
At some point, though, that solidity began to erode. It coincided with the demise of M&R Produce, a small neighborhood grocer across the street from Zoka. M&R was in a long, low building, the same building that housed the Honey Bear Bakery. The viability of both businesses came into doubt when the owner of the building decided to do a remodel that would raise the structure another story, making space for offices and apartments. Hundreds of Tangletown residents attended public meetings, voicing their concerns about the proposed project. Among the chief concerns was the very real possibility that M&R would not be able to survive the long remodel closure, not to mention the expected raise in rents.
The community's fears were realized when M&R told its regular patrons that it would close. This deeply changed the whole dynamic across the street at Zoka Cafe. Regular cafe customers were used to going across the street for snacks. People often sat outside and ambled from one establishment to the other throughout the day, and Jane was one of them. On the night of M&R's closing party, the 200 or so locals who showed up got an earful of bagpipes. A solemn, fully kilted piper marched up and down the sidewalk, at Jane's invitation. After all, what's a wake without pipes?
The following months saw other changes in Tangletown. The Honey Bear Bakery closed its doors. The bakers showed up one morning and the doors were locked. The funky little coin-op Laundromat up the street shut down, and the young people who used to idle around the block--sneaking over to Leny's Tavern for a cold one, or up to Zoka for a hot one--soon disappeared. A small home on the corner one block east of the cafe was demolished to make way for a three-story mixed-use building. The proposed unit would run from property line to property line, leaving the single-family home next door with an interesting view of a wall or perhaps a 10-foot-high trellis. The pace at Zoka has changed with the times. Customers now run in and out the door, giving the baristas little time to talk as they crank out drinks.
One day in late fall I walked over to Jane's apartment. Outside her door she had arranged odds and ends from her street-scouring missions. Bits of metal, old pieces of wood, discarded flower boxes, all artfully arranged and covered in slowly cultivated mosses. Jane had moved to the little apartment complex in 1998 after selling the neighborhood home she once shared with her husband. The small front room of her apartment is cluttered. Her artwork crowds the walls, and every flat surface is layered with books, magazines, and papers. A neat box in one corner holds her poems, all neatly scratched out on index cards, napkins, and stationery, with dates and signatures.
Jane sits amid her life and shakes gently. Her eyes are red-rimmed from crying, and she holds my hand as we talk. "I have anxiety attacks," says Jane, as she lights a More and squeezes my hand. "Everything seems so different now. I don't know what to do with my time." She is still mourning the loss of that little store. It seems that the community she relied on has moved away. Jane talks about her fears, her uncertainty about the future. She knows she is getting older, and she knows she has limited resources, and now this, these crippling bouts with depression and anxiety. Over the next few months I see her in the cafe only in the mornings, and she never stays long.
Every neighborhood in Seattle is experiencing rapid development, and for many the sudden changes are shocking. It's tempting to find some culprit, some person or group to blame for the changes. First it was Californians, then dot-commers, and now greedy developers. But it's not that simple. Too many forces play a part in the changes that neighborhoods like Tangletown are experiencing, and while a group anxiety complex is perhaps inevitable, in the end we can't resist change. We can only try to embrace change with some dignity and clarity.
Things are going to be busier here in Tangletown this summer, the pace quicker, the buildings less human-scale. But we'll remember the summers before, when people mingled in the street. We can remember that it was the people who inhabited the buildings around us who made the community what it was. We can remember the poems in the window at Zoka, and the special purpose they served at a specific time, and we can hope that sometime soon they will appear again. Tangletown is changing and the population is growing, but hopefully there's still room here for old ladies and poets.
