Despite Igor's tongue-in-cheek (I think) claims, Belltown could be a great neighborhood. Monday the Bell Street Park was approved by the city council, which means that some of the Parks Levy funds ($2.5 million, I think) will be spent to widen one sidewalk to 26 feet along five blocks, putting in natural stormwater drainage systems (one of the best selling points for me), and getting local input for the design and features of each half-block of this linear park space. It also means reducing parking and having only one drive lane on five blocks of Bell Street. Per standard operating procedure, the media prompted businesses to make complaints about how loss of parking would drive away their customers. This really, really irritates me. I live in Belltown with thousands of other people who walk to these businesses and make up their daily supportive customer base, without which there wouldn't be so many businesses as amenities in Belltown. Yet their preferred customer, according to their statements to the media, is the one who drives from some other neighborhood and parks in Belltown because it's such a cool place to go. Don't I count? I go to your restaurants all week, but not on Friday and Saturday nights because I can't get in, too many people have driven in for a night on the town, in my town. Vote for the First Avenue streetcar so people can come here without having to drive and park. Then we could all sit out on your popular sidewalk patios without breathing exhaust fumes, and might actually be able to hold a conversation without shouting.
Bedlam is a great new coffee house in Belltown that has really raised my hopes for the neighborhood, and I try to stop by every day. I think they're trying to be the living room or community center for the neighborhood, and I really like it. There is a free meeting room in the back that anyone can reserve. They have sidewalk chalk on hand that people make great use of. They have also rescued the Belltown Needle, a local icon that appeared last Halloween on a vacant lot (where the Speakeasy used to be; see Hideous Belltown for that history) that the owner is ready to grade for a parking lot (temporary, everyone hopes). Now that the street park has passed, they hope to put the local needle on a pedestal on Second and Bell. I like this place and I hope they do well and can stick around.
One of the early users of the sidewalk chalk wrote "CRACK - COFFEE - CRACK" with arrows pointing in the appropriate directions. This is one of the things that worries people about the Bell Street Park; that it will just be more of a haven for drug dealers. I worry about this myself. The level of drug presence goes up and down in Belltown. There were dealers all over the sidewalks all the time; then the Honduran drug gang chased them away; then the Hondurans got busted. Now with non-stop street construction all over Belltown, and new businesses like Bedlam coming in, the dealers seem to have a low profile. I've been going to Bedlam every morning, and usually walking by after work too, and not seeing any drug dealers all week. Then Friday morning there are all these young men on the sidewalk throwing gang signs at each other, and I finally realized what was going on - people don't just drive to Belltown on weekends for a night on the town at a restaurant or club; they drive here for drugs, and the dealers show up for them. Why should we provide parking for people coming to our neighborhood to buy drugs, attracting the dealers and leaving us with all of the attendant ills of the drug trade? Maybe it's not hurting you, buyers, but there's a lot of unpleasantness that goes with the business that you don't live here to see.
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