Dispatch from Seattle: The Elephant in the Room? (Neighborhood?)

 

At the top of local KOMO website Friday was an article with the headline, “Seattle Nightclub, El Corazon, site of Pearl Jam’s first show, is getting demolished.” When you open the article, there is a big picture of the building in question, taken from across the street. But something comes in between the camera and the building.

Welcome to Seattle, where you can’t go anywhere downtown without encountering a new form of housing. Yes, that would be the requisite homeless encampment. Which, by the way, is not referred to in the article even once. The article states that the building (which is easily visible from I-5 southbound) is being demolished to make way for a new residential tower. I wonder if the residents of that new tower will like the view.

Published in Culture
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 31 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Al French, sad sack Moderator
    Al French, sad sack
    @AlFrench

    From City Journal: Seattle elites show little sympathy for a woman raped by a homeless man.

    https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-elites-homeless-crime

     

    • #1
  2. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    They’ll get better over time with photo editing.  The early Soviet work was almost as unpolished.

    • #2
  3. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    Coming soon to your city, folks.

    • #3
  4. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):
    Coming soon to your city, folks.

    Only if the state or city goes lefty. This is all the creation of lefty nonsense.

    • #4
  5. Franco Member
    Franco
    @Franco

    I wonder if the guy with the nice camping tent is a better beggar than the guy with the blue tarp. Maybe he just works longer hours? Has a better spot at the intersection?

    Does he share his space? I think that model tent advertises “sleeps four” if I’m not mistaken.

    • #5
  6. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Al French, sad sack (View Comment):
    From City Journal: Seattle elites show little sympathy for a woman raped by a homeless man.

    https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-elites-homeless-crime

    So much for “Believe the woman” . . .

    • #6
  7. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    RushBabe49: When you open the article, there is a big picture, of the building in question, taken from across the street. But something comes in between the camera and the building.

    I wonder if KOMO fired the person who forgot to photoshop out the tents before posting . . .

    • #7
  8. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    Seattle just hasn’t perfected the architecture yet.

    • #8
  9. JoelB Member
    JoelB
    @JoelB

    <Maybe it’s my monitor or my eyes, but I had a hard time spotting the link to the article. Seems to me that the old colors had much better contrast. Given what I perceive to be the demographic here on Ricochet, designers need to take visual clarity into account to a greater extent.>

    And they wonder why nobody wants to go downtown anymore

    • #9
  10. Jimmy Carter Member
    Jimmy Carter
    @JimmyCarter

    JoelB (View Comment):
    And they wonder why nobody wants to go downtown anymore

    In Seattle, downtown goes to You.

    • #10
  11. The Great Adventure! Inactive
    The Great Adventure!
    @TheGreatAdventure

    Franco (View Comment):
    I wonder if the guy with the nice camping tent is a better beggar than the guy with the blue tarp. Maybe he just works longer hours? Has a better spot at the intersection?

    Does he share his space? I think that model tent advertises “sleeps four” if I’m not mistaken.

    I would suggest it is stolen – likely from a family member.

    • #11
  12. Al French, sad sack Moderator
    Al French, sad sack
    @AlFrench

    The Great Adventure! (View Comment):

    Franco (View Comment):
    I wonder if the guy with the nice camping tent is a better beggar than the guy with the blue tarp. Maybe he just works longer hours? Has a better spot at the intersection?

    Does he share his space? I think that model tent advertises “sleeps four” if I’m not mistaken.

    I would suggest it is stolen – likely from a family member.

    I suspect homeless advocates hand them out. In Seattle and Portland government financed.

    • #12
  13. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    The larger tent can be very easily explained.  It belongs to the Dealer.  Drug Dealer, that is.  Many homeless camps are found to harbor one or more drug dealers, and some camps have been “shut down” numerous times when residents have been found to be doing a lucrative drug business.  That is why the camps’ garbage (liberally strewn around) often contains used needles (and condoms).  Camps can never be totally demolished, since city workers are required to offer residents various services, but the residents are under NO obligation to accept such services.  Camps that are “cleaned up” today, move to a new site and are up and running tomorrow.

    • #13
  14. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Could this be more perfect?  There is a new article up on KOMO this morning entitled “Seattle’s Plans to Clean up 7 Neighborhoods Brought with Mixed Reactions”.  You have to read this and see the comments of various Seattle residents and interest groups (Seattle is the home of the Homeless Industrial Complex).  And whoever composed that headline needs grammar lessons right away.

    • #14
  15. Basil Fawlty Member
    Basil Fawlty
    @BasilFawlty

    RushBabe49: Dispatch from Seattle: The Elephant in the Room? (Neighborhood?)

    You mean the donkey in the room, don’t you?

    • #15
  16. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Al French, sad sack (View Comment):

    From City Journal: Seattle elites show little sympathy for a woman raped by a homeless man.

    https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-elites-homeless-crime

    Al,

    The article is astounding. The left doesn’t just participate in doublethink, by the time these SJW idiots are through they are into quadruple think. With the mindlessly banal leftwing ideologues twisting this, it would take a miracle before any action to improve life in Seattle was taken.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #16
  17. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Have you seen this KOMO <a href=”https://komonews.com/news/local/komo-news-special-seattle-is-dying”> special report? </a>

     

    It’s titled “Seattle is dying.”

     

    I had 10 acres on Vashon Island for a retirement home. I had them for 25 years then sold.  The Island is probably better. I was there briefly 3 years ago. No homeless.

    • #17
  18. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    MichaelKennedy (View Comment):

    Have you seen this KOMO <a href=”https://komonews.com/news/local/komo-news-special-seattle-is-dying”> special report? </a>

    It’s titled “Seattle is dying.”

    I had 10 acres on Vashon Island for a retirement home. I had them for 25 years then sold. The Island is probably better. I was there briefly 3 years ago. No homeless.

    The Seattle City Council plans on offering taxpayer funded swimming lessons.

    • #18
  19. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    A local talk-show host warned listeners to watch out for local mainstream media outlets trying to diminish the effects of the KOMO special, and that’s exactly what happened. More than one other outlet tried to find reasons for the public not to believe the truth.

    • #19
  20. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Stad (View Comment):

    RushBabe49: When you open the article, there is a big picture, of the building in question, taken from across the street. But something comes in between the camera and the building.

    I wonder if KOMO fired the person who forgot to photoshop out the tents before posting . . .

    I wonder.  They actually had this program about the homeless and drug crisis in Seattle…..

    • #20
  21. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    RushBabe49: is not referred to in the article even once

    Yeah, I guess a homeless camp in Seattle is about as newsworthy as rain. If they weren’t there, then that would have made news.

    Watching the video, they said that the club will be rebuilt in the residential tower. An high-priced apartment over a rock club? Hopefully they can find nocturnal tenants.

    • #21
  22. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    I simply do not understand why folks can’t fix this.  

    • #22
  23. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    Vance Richards (View Comment):
    An high-priced apartment over a rock club? Hopefully they can find nocturnal tenants

    Or spend a fortune making the place sound prof.

    • #23
  24. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    I Walton (View Comment):

    I simply do not understand why folks can’t fix this.

    So many cities have turned so heavily Democrat, it’s easier for voters to move out than stay and vote for change. 

    • #24
  25. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Seattle is not losing population, it is gaining  Big time.  Techies are moving in, to work at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. New tech startups are sprouting everywhere.  And they don’t care that the Seattle city government despises them and only wants their money. Remember the “head tax” that their socialist city council member got passed?  Its nickname was the Amazon Tax, and they still want to impose one.

    • #25
  26. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    Seattle is not losing population, it is gaining Big time. Techies are moving in, to work at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. New tech startups are sprouting everywhere. And they don’t care that the Seattle city government despises them and only wants their money. Remember the “head tax” that their socialist city council member got passed? Its nickname was the Amazon Tax, and they still want to impose one.

    Let me rephrase my statement:  It’s easier for conservative voters to move out than stay and vote for change.  Still, there are interesting artcles out there about Seattle:

    https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/seattles-population-is-booming-except-for-where-its-shrinking

     

    • #26
  27. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Stad (View Comment):

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    Seattle is not losing population, it is gaining Big time. Techies are moving in, to work at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. New tech startups are sprouting everywhere. And they don’t care that the Seattle city government despises them and only wants their money. Remember the “head tax” that their socialist city council member got passed? Its nickname was the Amazon Tax, and they still want to impose one.

    Let me rephrase my statement: It’s easier for conservative voters to move out than stay and vote for change. Still, there are interesting artcles out there about Seattle:

    https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/seattles-population-is-booming-except-for-where-its-shrinking

     

    Many of the strategies recommended in the report are intended to recreate the environment that allowed those neighborhoods to develop in the first place. Among them: Allowing more units per building on corner lots and at the edges of single-family zones, removing the limits on unrelated people living together in single-family areas, and allowing more compact development and a greater range of housing types. To reflect a different approach, the report also recommends changing the name from “single-family” to “neighborhood residential” zoning.

     

    This is what destroyed the neighborhood I grew up in in Chicago. The multifamily housing units deteriorated and lower class tenants moved in.  By “lower class” I mean poor blacks for the most part. Blocks of single family homes that were quite nice, some luxurious, had three story apartment units at corners where residential streets met commercial streets, every fifth block in that area.  Crime and vandalism followed.

    • #27
  28. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    MichaelKennedy (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    Seattle is not losing population, it is gaining Big time. Techies are moving in, to work at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. New tech startups are sprouting everywhere. And they don’t care that the Seattle city government despises them and only wants their money. Remember the “head tax” that their socialist city council member got passed? Its nickname was the Amazon Tax, and they still want to impose one.

    Let me rephrase my statement: It’s easier for conservative voters to move out than stay and vote for change. Still, there are interesting artcles out there about Seattle:

    https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/seattles-population-is-booming-except-for-where-its-shrinking

     

    Many of the strategies recommended in the report are intended to recreate the environment that allowed those neighborhoods to develop in the first place. Among them: Allowing more units per building on corner lots and at the edges of single-family zones, removing the limits on unrelated people living together in single-family areas, and allowing more compact development and a greater range of housing types. To reflect a different approach, the report also recommends changing the name from “single-family” to “neighborhood residential” zoning.

     

    This is what destroyed the neighborhood I grew up in in Chicago. The multifamily housing units deteriorated and lower class tenants moved in. By “lower class” I mean poor blacks for the most part. Blocks of single family homes that were quite nice, some luxurious, had three story apartment units at corners where residential streets met commercial streets, every fifth block in that area. Crime and vandalism followed.

    Multi-family dwellings, fine.  High density housing (like apartments), always needed.  But the cost and availability of single family homes is (IMHO) by far the baseline measuring stick for the housing health of any town, city, or community.

    • #28
  29. JimGoneWild Coolidge
    JimGoneWild
    @JimGoneWild

    Stad (View Comment):

    Al French, sad sack (View Comment):
    From City Journal: Seattle elites show little sympathy for a woman raped by a homeless man.

    https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-elites-homeless-crime

    So much for “Believe the woman” . . .

    Perhaps if she had twitted #metoo this wouldn’t have happened. 

    • #29
  30. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Stad (View Comment):

    Al French, sad sack (View Comment):
    From City Journal: Seattle elites show little sympathy for a woman raped by a homeless man.

    https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-elites-homeless-crime

    So much for “Believe the woman” . . .

    Of course they believe the woman.

    Unless it’s  a Democratic pol.

    Unless it’s a homeless guy.

    Unless it’s an illegal.

    Unless it’s a muslim…..

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.