Lets do this. People are just starting to gather round.
Let's do this. People are just starting to gather round.

5:39 pm: Happy 110th birthday to King Street Station, says Randy Engstrom, director of Seattle's Office of Arts and Culture. "This floor in this building is going to be a cultural space for as long as is humanly possible," he says.

Currently, the bathrooms are on the first floor. There will, however, be bathrooms up here on the third floor (and on the second floor). NO BATHROOMS IN THE CLOCK TOWER? Unbelievable.

5:43: Filmmaker and Stranger Genius nominee Shaun Scott says this process of figuring out what should be in this space specifically will take 10 to 12 months. It will have a race and social justice focus. It will incorporate questions of affordability and access in the midst of the homelessness crisis.

5:47: There are probably 100 people here. Scott is doing a history of the city since King Street's opening in 1906. He would like you to consider reading Emerald City. This Emerald City, not this one, but Jennifer Egan is an enjoyable writer.

5:51: In the middle of the 20th century, King Street Station falls into disrepair, Scott explains. The City of Seattle buys the station either for one dollar or ten dollars, Scott says, "which for an arts community, can make a difference." Jokes!

5:54: Scott's done research into places like Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and sees them as a precedent. "I think there's no reason why Seattle shouldn't be able to have a world-class cultural space along those lines," he says.

I like the sound of that. But nobody from here on out is allowed to use the phrase "world-class."

5:58: We have split up into our various groups. Mine, the fine number 7 group led by Elisheba Johnson, is 7 people large and meant to answer the question of how King Street Station can help alleviate what Mayor Murray calls the "crisis of unaffordability in Seattle."

After a little abstract preambling by folks, Johnson cuts to the heart and asks about personal experience. "Have any of you experienced displacement?"

A woman named Hanako tells the nightmare of looking for housing. For a four-bedroom run-down Craftsman in the Central District, the landlord said each of the roommates had to make three times the rent—individually. They'd each have had to make six figures.

6:05: Another woman whose nametag seems to say Rozarii (sorry, I'm sitting a bit far away) lost a studio when 619 Western went down. She'd like to see this space as an anchor in the arts community.

Johnson asks: Why isn't the tech community infiltrating the art community? Why are they so separate?

6:08: "I'd venture to guess the tech community didn't take a lot of arts and humanities classes," a woman without a nametag says. "I think there's an opportunity for education. ... We need to make them not just collectors but supporters."

Rozarii adds: "I feel like theres a bit of a fracture at the moment, a them and us, and I think that really needs to be addressed in the city. Maybe introducing them to the arts..."

6:13: Johnson moves to another question: Who has been hit hardest by the affordability crisis?

One woman: "I think everybody has lost. The funkiness of the city is lost, and that impacts everybody. The fact that a lot of the new stuff is coming in is very homogeneous affects everybody and that's a loss for everybody. Funky spaces tend to happen in less expensive real estate but that less expensive real estate is vulnerable to developers."

Another woman, named Bettie Luke: "I really feel for the service workers because as our population is greater and the demand for service workers grows and it grows more expensive, how can the service workers continue to live? I saw this in Las Vegas, where service workers had to ride in a half hour on the bus. So i'm interested in the best way to balance that affordability really smacks into families, and the newcomers who are mostly young and affluent, it's nice they make such good salaries, but there is a disconnect, and they really don't have any attention on the impact of the people in the city. If you talk about cultural space, I would really like to see it encompass both ethnic culture and culture of the arts. There's a lot that's interwoven. There's a lot of ways that the performing arts can interweave with other ethnic cultures. If, for example, people come for an ethnic cultural event, it's more of an opportunity for people to mix and talk and not assume that everybody is as well-off as they are."

Guess which woman was white and which was a woman of color?

CAN WE PLEASE NEVER SAY THE WORD FUNKINESS EVER AGAIN? Okay. Two words down.

6:20: A nametagless gentleman who is having a hard time hearing adds his two cents when Johnson encourages him. "This could house a lot of homeless people. A lot of homeless people could be housed in this area," he says,

Johnson said the Office of Arts and Culture staff will take up a fraction of the space here on this floor. She answers a question about whether this is zoned for residential, and she says it's not, it's zoned for office space and it's up for rezoning as arts space.

A woman says: "To play devil's advocate, what if you leveraged this space and got a high-rent tenant and put that money toward artists who are below market ability to pay?" Either here or elsewhere, she means.

Johnson: "I don't want to say it can't be a live/work space, because I don't really know, and this is about dream big, so if that's the recommendation, let's write it here."

Hanako says "living space is a whole different problem. In terms of this space, what are the ways to show high-quality art, but also everyone who can hold up to that caliber, as opposed to right now, with art spaces dwindling, the people who get to show or do stuff in the city is this little tiny group that has already been doing stuff in the city so they have a grip on spaces. Whereas the people who are getting pushed out or newer have a harder time finding opportunities... Even events like these, I feel like I see the same faces."

6:23: Another woman with no nametag: "I do think this place is more centrally located for people who aren't already in the arts. I work in Seattle Center and a huge barrier to access for people is being in Seattle Center, being in north Seattle or sometimes even Capitol Hill. Having a place even a little bit further south is going to open it up."

There should be profit-sharing for any of the activities that happen in this space, Bettie Luke says.

6:30: Rozarii: "I guess the ideal would be an affordable live space nearby and the people who live there could show or work here."

6:36: We are reconvening the big group. I've joined a different table in the main area for that, and they're continuing their discussion. I'm reminded that this third floor area is the first target for cultural space, but arts and culture may be involved in the development of the second floor in a later phase. On that floor, the Office of Arts and Culture is working with the Office of Economic Development.

I'll try to take notes as the various groups report their ideas.

Table 1: Historically Seattle has been home to vibrant and diverse arts communities... What are some ways that you imagine arts space in King Street Station that could help facilitate Seattle's next renaissance? What balance of types of art and types of space.

An old friend intervened (pesky friends! I mean...) and so I missed a little. But here's what I caught:
"We discussed the need to access affordable rehearsal space for communities of color. ... Limited access to artmaking facilities in this city for folks who don't have large disposable income and time, so we'd like to see artmaking happen here as well."

Table 2: "We talked about the intersectionality about artists and affordability in Seattle, and that it's part of the cultural space that doesn't exist. ... Want to see this space develop like PS 122."

Table 3: How do you imagine new arts space like King Street Station benefiting its historic surroundings?

"How do we get art overflowing the building" in addition to the space itself being welcoming to everybody? "Not feeling like Jackson Street separates the two districts and you do not cross."

6:52: Table 4: How does King Street station benefit its surroundings?

"We definitely need a radio/performance space for live performance to be broadcast, so we had Hollow Earth in our group and he was talking about doing shows here... so you don't have to be present to enjoy the art center." "Art workshops for different age groups, skill sets, and disciplines. Incorporating kids and people with disabilities." "Rental space with sliding scale." "Leave no trace behind," regarding reuse and recycling in the work itself that gets made here. "Hike it in, hike it out." "Specific calls to action" for art based in history and real-world concerns. "Include some space separate from curated space—open, free-for-all—so that the spaces are balanced." (I'm thinking: Public access TV, but live!)

6:59: A note from Scott: All of these will be online as well. (Meaning you don't have to rely entirely on my ramblings.)

I also just got a list of all the questions. There are only four, so if some seem repetitive, well, yes. That's intentional. More than one group tackled each one.

Table 5: Art residencies in the tower. (Remember what happened when C. Davida Ingram got up there with drones and women? Scroll to #19.) The possibility of live/work spaces. Residencies in collaboration with other community orgs.

7:05: Table 6: "Not just the same old guard, not just the same old educated class. Education would be key. Mixed-use would be key. Not just visual arts but music, theater, multimedia and digital arts. There was a rich conversation about it being a place for intergenerational experiences where a grandmother and 5-year-old could come. The phrase was 'they would come for the food but stay for the art,' and that was the type of experience to engage a broader group of individuals than would normally go to art." On the second floor: Food incorporation. Night market.

7:09: Table 7: On the crisis of unaffordability (as you know from earlier).

Recapped: "The biggest aspect is that market forces are here to stay and it's pushing out artists and service workers. We felt that tech workers are a growing part of our community and they may be fairly naive about art... Part of the charge of this space would be to create a better understanding of how to support the arts through this space in that community. ... To engage the ethnic communities to support their internal dialogues and also share a broader dialogue with the rest of the community." What if at least part of this space became a market-rate revenue producing space such that the revenue could support another space somewhere else for live-work or homeless space in another location? Don't make it for already-established artists.

7:12: Table 8: "We talked about a physically divided city east to west and north to south. ... We talked about a perception of inclusion and exclusion when it comes to arts engagement. ...Internet access. ... Shitty schools. Shitty arts education. All tracking too closely with race and class... Silos. ... Privilege of time and privilege of weath, two that are needed to get people to a central arts location, so the idea turns on how can we export culture and ideas out of this space?"

There is a fellow popping off about how this place should not be a puppet for SDOT. I gotta roll.

I'll be writing more to come, and there will be more chances to add input. I'll let you know.