Does anyone remember the signs from the mid to late 90s?
"Please move to Capitol Hill so many of the institutions that existed before your residency will disappear years from now. Then in 10 years you'll get to complain about the same shit you're pulling now."
Yeah, it was so much better as an abandon Safeway and empty parking lot. That asphalt glistened like obsidian with the iridescent sheen of motor oil. Those were the days.
Dom beat me to it: The Brix replaced an abandoned Safeway with and a parking lot. Better a few dozen condo residents--I'm sure the street's restaurant and bookstore and African-import-shop owners would all agree--than a boarded up grocery store.
@6, but these condo's will be occupied by individuals with more money then some of the other people on capital hill. Not as much as the people who live in the mansions littering the place, but more then the students living 4 to a room, well at least until they graduate and become 'part of the problem'.
Dear Stupid Hipsters: For many years, since Seattle's founding, Capitol Hill was one of the wealthiest areas of Seattle. Ever leave Broadway or Pike/Pine and walk around 14th Ave (Millionaire's Row)? How about up Aloha near the park? Cross 15th and head east towards Interlaken. Capitol Hill has only been the bastion of the "counterculture" since the 70s or so. In relative terms, you, stupid hipsters, are the newcomers. This neighborhood was the bastion of the rich long before your arrival. So shut up. If anyone is "ruining" things, it is you.
Actually, if you want to talk about "ruining" the hill, it was "ruined" the day that white settlers came and started chopping down trees for their giant mansions. But I suppose that doesn't bother you as long as your dive bar doesn't get razed for new housing. Losers.
Posted by
Shove your signs up your... |
July 8, 2008 10:32 AM
@ 16, 20 - are you indeed moving to the nyc area (mileage sounds about right)? If so, I have to tell you the gentrification of seattle is downright unobtrusive compared to what they have done with brooklyn, queens, and the "gold coast" of NJ in the last few years. There are more wine stores in bedstuy now than laundromats. They are going to put a cheese store where my laundromat was. A CHEESE STORE. jeez. Not that you'll be able to get into it to buy cheese instead of doing your laundry, since it will be mobbed with gargantuan baby carriages made by hummer containing 8 year old children.
What is great is the $100,000 figure which shows how out of touch this group is. Your skyrocketing monthly rent could probably BUY a $100,000 condo if it actually existed. What will squeeze rents even more is having high fuel prices for the long term as people move to closer to the city and the uneasiness about the housing market as some people choose to rent instead.
Every time I drive by places like Quinn's and Boom Noodle and see it PACKED on a Tuesday or Wednesday with people plunking down $20-$30 a piece for a light meal and a beer I have to think that they are only adding to the "problem" of Capitol Hill's affordability.
The Hill's gone up (see old photos of timber-shaven hill with treeless spec houses all around) and down (trees regrew as robber barons moved to "Millionaire's Row") and up (frightened millionaires escaped to Bellevue, so mansions refilled with big middle- and lower-middle-class families, hippie communes and pioneer gays) and down (increasing values brought in the BMWs and guppies). It's poised to cycle up again (who wants a mortgage these days?).
It's amazing how many of the same people are cheering for density and gentrification yet also get cry foul when the city and The Powers That Be crack down on nightlife. The two go hand in hand.
Whoever made that sign is scared and unhappy and fearful that the New Capitol Hill is going to be dull, bland and over-priced. It scares me, too. Seattle has a shitty track record of urban design and planning. I have zero problem with Brix, (other than the fact it's blandly designed); good riddance to the shitty old Safeway and good riddance to vacant lots and empty buildings, but I'm also smart enough to realize that an entire hill full of Brix in a short period of time, is going to cause some drastic changes to the quality of life in our neighborhood. And many of those changes will be good, but a hell of a lot of them might not be so good.
Posted by
michael strangeways |
July 8, 2008 11:09 AM
michael, what about the change in quality of life for the people that are moving into those place? do you want to deny people willing and able to seek a better quality of life than the one they have?
I nominate #21 for I,Anonymous or at least Comment of the Day
Dear Stupid Hipsters: For many years, since Seattle's founding, Capitol Hill was one of the wealthiest areas of Seattle. Ever leave Broadway or Pike/Pine and walk around 14th Ave (Millionaire's Row)? How about up Aloha near the park? Cross 15th and head east towards Interlaken. Capitol Hill has only been the bastion of the "counterculture" since the 70s or so. In relative terms, you, stupid hipsters, are the newcomers. This neighborhood was the bastion of the rich long before your arrival. So shut up. If anyone is "ruining" things, it is you.
Actually, if you want to talk about "ruining" the hill, it was "ruined" the day that white settlers came and started chopping down trees for their giant mansions. But I suppose that doesn't bother you as long as your dive bar doesn't get razed for new housing. Losers.
who gets to decide what there needs to be a moratorium on? why do your preferences supercede another persons? are you suggesting that nobody actually utilizes these businesses once established?
I can never get a concrete answer as to why one's vision of the city one wants to live in should be mandated into law. unless there is the assumption they have the correct vision to begin with.
BA, the retail spaces in most buildings like Brix are unusable by interesting or valuable retail, so they default to low-value businesses like nail salons simply because nobody else wants them. That's not your precious free market talking.
Why do THEIR preferences get to supercede OURS? We ALL live in the same neighborhood, but we've been here longer, so shouldn't OUR preferences have precedence?
Or is it your contention that newcomers purchasing higher priced properties get to make all the rules for everyone else regardless of how long they've been here, or, how long they end up staying?
There should have to be a minimum tenure in a neighborhood before you're allowed to complain about how it's changed.
When I visit, half of what I see is completely unfamiliar, and the young people there are trying to make a case to hold on to it. The way we complain about gentrification is as much a product of our times as those $600,000 condos.
Once Fallout went under, everything else was barely worth a shrug to me. I'm sure you can still find someone in the U-district pining because there's no more "Toast Bars" around, or a feller downtown bitching that University turned into a fancy hotel.
COMTE, my contention is that claiming to be here first doesn't have any relevance to how good or valuable or worthy your vision is. There was a point in time you were new, and through your actions and decisions, shaped the world around you perhaps against what other people desired for themselves. Now that hte shoe is on the other foot you're claiming "first!"? Cmon now.
Part of the problems Washington faces now is due in part to the wacky notion that natives should get their way and not adapt to the situation changing around them.
Fnarf, how isn't that the market talking? The supply of retail space isn't easily substituted into the kind of retail you want to see. And does there even need to be retail on the ground floor? So make a law, levy a tax, propose a quota. That is the logical conclusion to your gripe, correct? Use the government to achieve aims more similar to what you view as correct and desirable. But just wait until someone else has the reigns of power and is ramming their correct vision down your throat.
If Brix had gone up on the site of one or more of Capitol Hill's beautiful old apartment buildings (you, know back when density wasn't hip) then I'd be upset. Going up on the site of that ghetto Safeway? Not a problem.
Actually, if you want to talk about "ruining" the hill, it was "ruined" the day that white settlers came and started chopping down trees for their giant mansions. But I suppose that doesn't bother you as long as your dive bar doesn't get razed for new housing. Losers.
Heh! That is *hilarious*! You're so touchy feely, it's so cute!
Also, I realize that the (re)development of Capitol Hill is "progress", and just the city's way of growing, but it still sucks. So much for affordable housing in a nice neighborhood. We've now pretty much lost Fremont, Ballard, the Hill to the yuppies and Microsofties.
Where we used to see drag queens and some funky alternative shops, we now have babies in strollers and a Subway. WTF?
I bet there'll be plenty of parking during Burning Man.
That is the market talking, and the market is wrong. Developers of condos and luxury apartments on Capitol Hill are using the Hill's amenities, nightlife, and retail to get people to move there. They're simultaneously destroying what's enticing people to buy those condos or pay exorbitant rent. Those developers are morons. We'll be lucky if Capitol Hill doesn't turn into another ghetto in 20 years, when nothing that makes it desirable is left.
kesh, at which point people then move back into Capitol Hill and the cycle repeats itself. you do understand that capitol hill 20 years ago was a scuzzy and cruddy place correct?
Yes, it was a scuzzy and cruddy place...GRUNGY even!
Oh, yeah! I plumb forgot that from all that scuzz and crud and grunge there was this fascinating naissance of music and art and energy!
Better to have things clean and neat and organized and dull. Thank goodness for developers and responsible change and managed, thoughful growth and urban developement!
Posted by
michael strangeways |
July 8, 2008 3:51 PM
Didnt Brix buy the property and force Safeway out? It wasnt abandoned... Anybody remember Jackie or Kat or or Joseph or Walt or Inga? Those were the good old days before I got raped everytime I walked the extra block to QFC...
Condos, in MY Seattle? I demand things stay exactly the way they are, or, or, or, I'm going to so put up some signs.
Does anyone remember the signs from the mid to late 90s?
"Please move to Capitol Hill so many of the institutions that existed before your residency will disappear years from now. Then in 10 years you'll get to complain about the same shit you're pulling now."
They're selling REAL ESTATE now? I thought Capitol Hill belonged to the dog-on-string brigade.
Yeah, it was so much better as an abandon Safeway and empty parking lot. That asphalt glistened like obsidian with the iridescent sheen of motor oil. Those were the days.
Don't they know that condos put EYES ON THE STREET?!#$@!
What the hell is wrong with condos anyway? They are like apartments, only you own them instead of rent them.
Why do people always resist change?
The thing that I find striking is that there likely wouldnt have been the complaint if some low income housing had gone up in the same place...
But then we'd be burdened with low income housing.
You cynics. That sign is going to save Capitol Hill and all you can do is crack wise.
Eyes on the street? EWWWW!
Dom beat me to it: The Brix replaced an abandoned Safeway with and a parking lot. Better a few dozen condo residents--I'm sure the street's restaurant and bookstore and African-import-shop owners would all agree--than a boarded up grocery store.
they're ~jealous~
@6, but these condo's will be occupied by individuals with more money then some of the other people on capital hill. Not as much as the people who live in the mansions littering the place, but more then the students living 4 to a room, well at least until they graduate and become 'part of the problem'.
property ownership is theft from society.
That's no chaaa-nge you can beli-eeee-ve in.
God I can't wait to be 3,000 miles away from Capitol Hill.
*2,851
are you moving to the Lincoln Tunnel?
I think the rest of us share the "can't wait" sentiment for you Mr. Poe as well.
$100,000 Capitol Hill property? That's cheap! Where can I get in on some of that action?
@17
How did you know?!?!1
Hey, let's get drunk tonight.
/out
Dear Stupid Hipsters: For many years, since Seattle's founding, Capitol Hill was one of the wealthiest areas of Seattle. Ever leave Broadway or Pike/Pine and walk around 14th Ave (Millionaire's Row)? How about up Aloha near the park? Cross 15th and head east towards Interlaken. Capitol Hill has only been the bastion of the "counterculture" since the 70s or so. In relative terms, you, stupid hipsters, are the newcomers. This neighborhood was the bastion of the rich long before your arrival. So shut up. If anyone is "ruining" things, it is you.
Actually, if you want to talk about "ruining" the hill, it was "ruined" the day that white settlers came and started chopping down trees for their giant mansions. But I suppose that doesn't bother you as long as your dive bar doesn't get razed for new housing. Losers.
If by "overpriced" they mean "market value", um, ok.
More sheltered doorways for the homeless to sleep in, huh?
@9 That was a joke...
What is it with lazy poor people and signs?
I don't understand why people in Seattle are so against urban density.
Wouldn't you rather utilize neglected land instead of promoting suburban sprawl?
I don't understand why people in Seattle are so against urban density.
Wouldn't you rather utilize neglected land instead of promoting suburban sprawl?
@ 16, 20 - are you indeed moving to the nyc area (mileage sounds about right)? If so, I have to tell you the gentrification of seattle is downright unobtrusive compared to what they have done with brooklyn, queens, and the "gold coast" of NJ in the last few years. There are more wine stores in bedstuy now than laundromats. They are going to put a cheese store where my laundromat was. A CHEESE STORE. jeez. Not that you'll be able to get into it to buy cheese instead of doing your laundry, since it will be mobbed with gargantuan baby carriages made by hummer containing 8 year old children.
What is great is the $100,000 figure which shows how out of touch this group is. Your skyrocketing monthly rent could probably BUY a $100,000 condo if it actually existed. What will squeeze rents even more is having high fuel prices for the long term as people move to closer to the city and the uneasiness about the housing market as some people choose to rent instead.
Every time I drive by places like Quinn's and Boom Noodle and see it PACKED on a Tuesday or Wednesday with people plunking down $20-$30 a piece for a light meal and a beer I have to think that they are only adding to the "problem" of Capitol Hill's affordability.
The Hill's gone up (see old photos of timber-shaven hill with treeless spec houses all around) and down (trees regrew as robber barons moved to "Millionaire's Row") and up (frightened millionaires escaped to Bellevue, so mansions refilled with big middle- and lower-middle-class families, hippie communes and pioneer gays) and down (increasing values brought in the BMWs and guppies). It's poised to cycle up again (who wants a mortgage these days?).
#28, if I had to guess, I'd say that Mr. Poe is glad to get away from the idiots that made these signs, not from "gentrification" (ie progress).
Wow, y'all want it both ways, dontcha?
It's amazing how many of the same people are cheering for density and gentrification yet also get cry foul when the city and The Powers That Be crack down on nightlife. The two go hand in hand.
Whoever made that sign is scared and unhappy and fearful that the New Capitol Hill is going to be dull, bland and over-priced. It scares me, too. Seattle has a shitty track record of urban design and planning. I have zero problem with Brix, (other than the fact it's blandly designed); good riddance to the shitty old Safeway and good riddance to vacant lots and empty buildings, but I'm also smart enough to realize that an entire hill full of Brix in a short period of time, is going to cause some drastic changes to the quality of life in our neighborhood. And many of those changes will be good, but a hell of a lot of them might not be so good.
michael, what about the change in quality of life for the people that are moving into those place? do you want to deny people willing and able to seek a better quality of life than the one they have?
I nominate #21 for I,Anonymous or at least Comment of the Day
Re:@20
Q: Why are Mr. Poe and Bellevue Ave friends?
A: They're both giant assholes!
I hope you jerks have killer hangovers tomorrow.
Bellevue Ave:
Yes.
There needs to be a moratorium on the number of tanning salons and Subways/Quiznos in any one neighborhood.
Those are no City Market signs. Sign maker should have printed t-shirts instead.
who gets to decide what there needs to be a moratorium on? why do your preferences supercede another persons? are you suggesting that nobody actually utilizes these businesses once established?
I can never get a concrete answer as to why one's vision of the city one wants to live in should be mandated into law. unless there is the assumption they have the correct vision to begin with.
@35 and?
BA, the retail spaces in most buildings like Brix are unusable by interesting or valuable retail, so they default to low-value businesses like nail salons simply because nobody else wants them. That's not your precious free market talking.
Well, let's turn that question around B.A.:
Why do THEIR preferences get to supercede OURS? We ALL live in the same neighborhood, but we've been here longer, so shouldn't OUR preferences have precedence?
Or is it your contention that newcomers purchasing higher priced properties get to make all the rules for everyone else regardless of how long they've been here, or, how long they end up staying?
There should have to be a minimum tenure in a neighborhood before you're allowed to complain about how it's changed.
When I visit, half of what I see is completely unfamiliar, and the young people there are trying to make a case to hold on to it. The way we complain about gentrification is as much a product of our times as those $600,000 condos.
Once Fallout went under, everything else was barely worth a shrug to me. I'm sure you can still find someone in the U-district pining because there's no more "Toast Bars" around, or a feller downtown bitching that University turned into a fancy hotel.
Does the street level retail of these new buildings suck just because the rents are too high and the spaces too large? Or is there some other reason?
The preferences of old, rich, white, heterosexual men ALWAYS supercede those of everyone else...
COMTE, my contention is that claiming to be here first doesn't have any relevance to how good or valuable or worthy your vision is. There was a point in time you were new, and through your actions and decisions, shaped the world around you perhaps against what other people desired for themselves. Now that hte shoe is on the other foot you're claiming "first!"? Cmon now.
Part of the problems Washington faces now is due in part to the wacky notion that natives should get their way and not adapt to the situation changing around them.
Fnarf, how isn't that the market talking? The supply of retail space isn't easily substituted into the kind of retail you want to see. And does there even need to be retail on the ground floor? So make a law, levy a tax, propose a quota. That is the logical conclusion to your gripe, correct? Use the government to achieve aims more similar to what you view as correct and desirable. But just wait until someone else has the reigns of power and is ramming their correct vision down your throat.
If Brix had gone up on the site of one or more of Capitol Hill's beautiful old apartment buildings (you, know back when density wasn't hip) then I'd be upset. Going up on the site of that ghetto Safeway? Not a problem.
@21:
Actually, if you want to talk about "ruining" the hill, it was "ruined" the day that white settlers came and started chopping down trees for their giant mansions. But I suppose that doesn't bother you as long as your dive bar doesn't get razed for new housing. Losers.
Heh! That is *hilarious*! You're so touchy feely, it's so cute!
Also, I realize that the (re)development of Capitol Hill is "progress", and just the city's way of growing, but it still sucks. So much for affordable housing in a nice neighborhood. We've now pretty much lost Fremont, Ballard, the Hill to the yuppies and Microsofties.
Where we used to see drag queens and some funky alternative shops, we now have babies in strollers and a Subway. WTF?
I bet there'll be plenty of parking during Burning Man.
@45,
That is the market talking, and the market is wrong. Developers of condos and luxury apartments on Capitol Hill are using the Hill's amenities, nightlife, and retail to get people to move there. They're simultaneously destroying what's enticing people to buy those condos or pay exorbitant rent. Those developers are morons. We'll be lucky if Capitol Hill doesn't turn into another ghetto in 20 years, when nothing that makes it desirable is left.
@48
Yeah, the developers are the morons. Brilliant!
kesh, at which point people then move back into Capitol Hill and the cycle repeats itself. you do understand that capitol hill 20 years ago was a scuzzy and cruddy place correct?
Yes, it was a scuzzy and cruddy place...GRUNGY even!
Oh, yeah! I plumb forgot that from all that scuzz and crud and grunge there was this fascinating naissance of music and art and energy!
Better to have things clean and neat and organized and dull. Thank goodness for developers and responsible change and managed, thoughful growth and urban developement!
Didnt Brix buy the property and force Safeway out? It wasnt abandoned... Anybody remember Jackie or Kat or or Joseph or Walt or Inga? Those were the good old days before I got raped everytime I walked the extra block to QFC...
@49,
You're right. I forgot about your existence. Now go run home and suck your thumb like a good little boy.
@50,
And thanks for proving my point. The market isn't the end all, be all of sense and good decision making.
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