I recently spent a Saturday evening at the Delridge Community Center’s “late night,” a weekend after-hours for young people. I’d read a police report that said there had been a spate of recent assaults at the center because of a gang war between one gang with a really long name, which had been blacked out, and one with a really short name, ditto. When I called the police over there they said, “What gang war?” So I went to check it out. What I found were a bunch of kids playing basketball. I’m sure some of them were in gangs. One was wearing a diamond the size of my thumbnail in his ear. But the ballers were by no means all of a kind—it was the most diverse gathering I’ve seen in Seattle in a long time. And anyway, basketball seems like a good way to lure young hustlers off the corner, at least for a few hours. The sad thing is that the center isn’t open as late as it used to be—it now closes at 12 instead of 1—and staff has been cut.

One other interesting tidbit: The staff at Delridge said they do have occasional problems out in the parking lot. And they’re sure some of the fights are gang related. They also cited the temporary relocation of Cleveland High School from the east side, Beacon Hill, to the west side, on Delridge Way SW. Suddenly, the west-side kids are invading east-side territory. Not quite the Jets and the Sharks, but still an interesting twist in an old Seattle rivalry.