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This is the heart of the neighborhood. The current incarnation has existed since 1974, nearly 35 years of continuity anchoring a sense of place within rapid currents of change. True to the name, coming here is like coming home. Comfort and comfort food, familiarity, a firm foundation in a world of shifting sands. A standby, a continuum, where the faithful gather, but always, somehow, new and fresh. Old continually becomes new again, here, by some special magic.

The landscape of memory - a place you think you know, a familiar face - then the light changes, a new picture appears, a certain song starts to play - and everything changes shape, is new again, full of wonder.

A song from the past tugs at the heartstrings of memory: Another time, place, now embodied and brought to be in this moment, here and now, in this special place. The mind travels, takes a journey, while sitting at this table. The afternoon light beams through the windows, casting spells over the eclectic and changing decor, turning the haphazard potted plants into some antediluvian jungle.



Study the old photographs on the walls, one of this building, 70 or 80 years ago, old streetlamps, no trees. One sign reads "Cecelia Cafe", another already has changed to "the New Cecelia Cafe". Jump the decades to another photo with the Mama's neon shining red on snow, on Christmas decorations and many more brightly painted planter boxes than exist now. Here is a birdseye view of Seattle around the time of the 1962 Expo, the Space Needle painted orange and gold, oil tankers at the dock of the then-extant Unocal facility, along with the buildings that were there before the building I live in existed, before Belltown boomed.



Here is a painting of this room, this view, in another time, with a view in the window of a sign on a bookstore across the street, where Bedlam is now. Later, there is a new painting, in the same style, of a more recent interior view. A song starts to play - it takes a moment to place it - Beds are Burning, by Midnight Oil. In this place it is crisp and clear and moving, with a meaning more immediate and evident than at first hearing twenty years ago. The Stones. The Beatles Rubber Soul album. Elvis and Jimi are playing, and are memorialized on the walls, Elvis with his own room. Sometimes the music is live, mariachis who take requests for songs (and are often asked, especially by me, for Guantanamera); or a special performance for a birthday party. An element of the unknown is always on the edge of wandering in, always a chance of surprise, of unexpected delight.



The tablecloths are brightly colored and fruity. Beneath there are, or were, sheets of glass over massive collections of things that you find when cleaning out pockets - business cards, movie ticket stubs, notes and phone numbers, entertaining notebook or napkin sketches, some of which graduate to the wall, briefly. In the summer people wait in line for a table, the day is long, the drinks are cold, the overheard conversations are many. Now, in winter, coming in from the outer dark: The colors are bright, the plates are hot, and melted cheese sticks to the ribs. Soon, perhaps, hot buttered rum will be on the menu board again. The music still plays, the people still talk, the decor changes. The cycles of seasons, and of decades, turn here, a still point in the turning world.





Cross-posted to Inside Belltown

Part of the Heart of Belltown series

It's a fairly non-descript building, built in 1923, later altered and modernized. The alley side, as the alley so often does, gives clues to a productive past. The older signs read "Niels Hansen Mfg Co" which was there in the 1930's, along with North Bend Stage Line, Brown Sheet Metal Works, and the Cash Register Exchange. Superimposed over the older sign is "Sportcaster Makers of the Best in Rainwear", from a 1950's tenant. The storefront tenants these days are: Shorty's; Buddha Belltown, and Belltown Feed and Seed. A papered-over storefront has a new sign for Creative Bottle and a web address that is not yet active. It's a new mystery. A doorway leads upstairs to a theater practice and performance space, with advertisements for Freehold Theatre, Open Circle Theater, and Macha Monkey Productions.



I shop for my cat at Feed and Seed. One of the proprietors told me, some time ago, that there was a guy in back who repairs musical instruments. I mulled over it for almost a year, the whole mysterious idea of a back-of-house business. In the meantime, Whiskers opens in a room behind the Feed and Seed. My cat boards there for two weeks, has trouble remembering who I am, and seems quite content to stay. Then Wags moves into that back-of-house alternate universe, too. People start driving through the alley to drop off and collect their dogs.

One day my curiosity overrides caution. I ask the Feed and Seed owner if the musical repair guy is still in the back, and if he has a card. She tells me that he's in, to go on back. I enter the world of "back-of-house", a longish hallway with a surprising number of doors. One door is ajar; I knock and peek in. I explain my mission to the man inside; yes, he does repair clarinets, and he hands me a card. Granlund Woodwind Repair, Scott Granlund, proprietor. I thank him and leave.

After more weeks of deliberation, I return with two clarinets in hand - one to be overhauled, one for spare parts, old, cheap instruments. I once had a professional concert clarinet; now I only play to please myself. The old English bore instrument has a dark, throaty sound that suits me; old and cheap will do. Old and cheap can produce beauty and value, like this old building. If I were to design a building like this, or write guidelines to promote its many uses, I would call it an "incubator" building. But here it is, having evolved without any help from me. I leave the clarinet and go back down the hall.

The Wags dogs have moved into the former cat room; cats are now in another room. A basset hound is laying on a couch. I stop to visit. I miss the dogs from the Dog Lounge storefront since they left. The Wags keeper comes out; she was just at Tula's next door, where I had lunch, and she ordered a garden burger. The waitress delivered it over here for her. The Tula's building and this one are owned by the same family. These plain old buildings provide value that isn't easily quantified, a different sort of value from the money to be made in redevelopment of old properties like this.



Some people I work with saw this photo and asked me where it was. They were surprised when I said it was 2nd Avenue. They had expected some exotic destination, a special place that people travel far to enjoy (or they may have been fooled by the palm tree). This is that kind of place. I've traveled far to get here, visited many great places in many cities. This place is special and unique, and is part of the neighborhood I live in. It has seen worse times. It could be better than it is. What makes it unique could also be irretrievably lost. I just enjoy it now, while we're both here, me and this old neighborhood.

Cross-posted to Inside Belltown
 

Thanks to Jesse at Bedlam for telling me where to find these photos. They are also on the wall at Bedlam.

2nd and Bell looking south, 1920. University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections Divison.

By 1920, 2nd Avenue had a lot of landmarks that are still familiar today. The wood frame two-story buildings on the corner now house A'jhang Market and Bedlam Coffee House and were built in 1907 and 1900, respectively. In the righthand distance are the Rivoli and El Rey (1910) and the 1909 Commodore (then Nelson) hotel, which was demolished in 2007. In the near left is the building that now houses Tula's, only one year old in this photo. Beyond that are the Castle Apartments (1918), the Palladian (1910), the Moore (1907) and the Josephinum (New Washington Hotel, 1908). The streetscape was different in that there were numerous big fancy streetlamps, but no trees. Oh, and there were streetcar tracks.

On Wednesday mornings I usually find Corinne Porch at 2nd and Blanchard, waiting for the new edition of Real Change from the office in the Rivoli. I used to see her at the Market every day, but both of our daily paths have changed since then. Corinne and I grew up in the same part of the world. Among other things, we talk about cornbread and what goes best with it - buttermilk? Turnip greens (her favorite) or mustards (mine)? Corinne had a brief appearance in a Kurt Cobain documentary, for which she was paid the grand sum of twenty-five dollars.

Tula's recently began serving lunch. The lunch I had there was incredibly tasty, satisfying, and inexpensive. There's not much of a lunch crowd, yet, but people were calling in their dinner reservations. The building has been altered and is not considered historically significant. Inside the age and ambience are in plentiful evidence.

Cross-posted to Inside Belltown

This is one of the only "before" photos I have of a very lovely old building downtown, the Ames or MJA building on the corner of Second and Stewart. The "before" means before it was nominated for landmark designation. The vote for nomination failed. If a nomination fails, the building can't be renominated for five years. The owner, who had redevelopment plans for the property (demolition and new construction of a much taller building), had all of the beautiful terra cotta tile removed from the building. It was hammered off, tossed in a dumpster and taken to the dump. The building was re-surfaced with fake stucco EIFS material. Now it is safe from future attempts at landmark designation.

CB Richard Ellis leases this property. The building was defaced last October, in order to circumvent any new landmark nomination, but of course nothing can be built there in the current market. On the CBRE web page, this building is shown with terra cotta intact. Over the picture it says "Reduced Rate!". Of course it was worth more before it was ruined, and tenants left when leases were up because the future of the building was uncertain. I am still in shock every time I see this building. If I walk past it, I tap on the fake stucco panels in the hope that the terra cotta might still be behind them, even though I know better. It's just so hard to believe.

I remember walking through Dublin when Ireland was roaring towards the height of its boom years. Whole streets of old buildings were nothing but facades with timbers holding them up, so new construction could go in behind. Same thing that year in Glasgow. That was the rule, and it made a level playing field for all players. Development wasn't slowed in the least. Cristalla did this, keeping the terra cotta facade of the Crystal Pool and natatorium. If we designated the buildings worth keeping with one broad brush and leveled the playing field, everyone else would do the same. It preserves history, and beauty, and the wonderful sense of streetscape and streetwall that gets lost in the midst of the grand new behemoths. There's no excuse for this sort of waste.

Second and Bell feels like the heart of Belltown. It wasn't always in Belltown. It was on Denny Hill, then the Denny Regrade. The hill was washed away so Downtown could expand north. It didn't actually happen as planned. After the last regrade it was a neighborhood of car lots and repair shops, service industries convenient to downtown, inexpensive housing, neighborhood cafes, groceries and bars. Now, lumped together with lower Belltown, it's in a densely populated urban neighborhood of around 12,000 people, still growing. Growth brings change, new buildings replace old. Some things are missed, others forgotten. Some hang in there on a wish and a prayer.



2nd Avenue looking south, around 1890. Seattle Collection of the University of Washington Libraries

This photo of 2nd and Bell shows Denny Hill rising to the south. This street was regraded around 1903. In the mid-left, with gabled window bays and finials, is the Wayne Apartments building, today known as Belltown Funky Studios. Will tells me Paul Dorpat has written of it but I have not yet found the citation. The building somehow survived the regrade. It may have been jacked up during the process, as it was later raised over ground floor shops in the form that it has today, three storefronts which now house Noodle Ranch, Lava Lounge and Juju.

Saturday night at Mama's. There is a birthday party, someone has turned thirty-two. A woman enters wearing a trenchcoat. A man with a guitar follows her. She performs a short birthday burlesque, back in the corner, out of sight of anyone not in the party. She is wearing a harem outfit, not too risque. This is a family-friendly place. The 30-somethings seem to own the night, tonight, Saturday.
 


A young man is pacing the terrace of the Funky Studios, cradling an infant. He sees me looking and walks behind the canopy of the street tree, out of sight. The oldest building has one of the youngest residents. Some of the oldest residents live here, on this block, too. The Wayne building goes through long periods of single ownership. There was once a threat of upheaval over rental rates for the Lava Lounge; the Lava Lounge is still there. But this building is made of wood. It shows it's age. If it survives all potential dangers, it will someday need expensive repairs, expensive enough to call for higher rents in return. How will the life of this building change? How will it change the neighborhood? There's no point in worry. There are all kinds of people on the sidewalk, of all ages. The neighborhood is like that; the buildings are like that too. For now, all is well.

Cross-posted to Inside Belltown

This building is now for sale. I haven't been able to find out the asking price. Someone told me this building is a gold mine; I know I can't buy this building. I wish I had wealthy friends who would buy this building. Someone buy this building. Be my friend and do something fabulous with it. You can invite me to live in it, if you like. I would do that for you, my friend. But please don't hurt this building. Be good to it. If you hurt it I might have to channel it's many ghosts to haunt you terribly. But you wouldn't do that, right, friend?

Seriously, this is a fabulous, beautiful old gold mine of a building. It will be expensive to fix it properly, but well worth while, in my opinion. I'm sorry it won't be mine. I can't afford to have any part of it. It was just a dream.

 
These buildings were recently given a reprieve from the wrecking ball when the financial crisis killed this project. It's a shame to say it, but I was very relieved, because this absolute monster would have gone up just a few feet away from this lesser monster. After the Escala was designed the city changed the codes to require smaller tower floorplates, so nothing like this could be built again, thank goodness. It looks okay standing alone, but what if another were right next to it, or right behind it? Who thinks things like this are a good idea? Who thinks they will retain value? Most developers don't care; they build it, sell it, and go to the next project. There is no long-term investment on their part. Why people buy it is beyond me; I don't see it as a good investment or as a good quality of life.





The last I heard one of the development partners on the Heron and Pagoda went bankrupt and one or more of these old buildings were going to be auctioned in June. I haven't seen anything to confirm that; there's no sign of new ownership. It's even possible the plan is still on and waiting for the right market conditions in 2011 or 2012. What's really bad is that code still allows these monstrous twin towers on huge podiums, which are even worse than the Escala that couldn't be built now.



If these old buildings were for sale, the people at the Escala would be smart to buy them and resell them as is, while retaining the air rights. They keep space and views, rather than having an even taller monster 18 feet from their balconies, and we get to keep some nice old building stock and good streetwall fabric that can still be put to very good use. We also avoid a new monster. In the meantime most of the storefronts are still vacant, and will be for some time to come if the Heron and Pagoda is still viable. Hairy people with dogs sleep in the doorways, scrawl "beer" in garish yellow paint, draw disturbing vignettes, and make pretty paper manikins to guard their sleep and their possessions. The MID Downtown Ambassadors politely roust them out in the morning, so genteel people can walk to work without seeing sleeping people and dogs. Except they don't wake them until closer to 9:00 am - so it's more for the benefit of the Monorail tourists, I suppose. Please save these buildings and put some life in them again.

I want this building. I want to live here. I want to move my employer's office here into a big, open studio office, desks in between the great timber columns. I want artist studios. I want musicians. I want pedicab pedalers. I want a stable for the tourist carriage horses and a drinking trough for the police horses, including Cody, my granddaughter's favorite. I want a happening party place on the roof. I want a free community meeting space. I want it all, right here in this old building. Plumbing will be a nightmare. Artists, help me turn the pipes into art, in this, my pipe dream.

My neighborhood: I sit in front of the coffee house, Bedlam, and listen to the mariachis across the street at Mama's. Or sit in Mama's and request Guantanamera, the lovely rendition of which brings tears to my eyes, although it doesn't have the meaning I thought it did; or watch the Lullaby Moon costumed players go by, happy followers and balloon-tied children in tow. Sit and watch the people animating the sidewalks, and yes, sometimes the local eccentric behaving oddly, or the roaming gang member staking out a drug turf. That incredibly old wood frame building that houses the Funky Belltown Studios, like something out of a Popeye cartoon, leaning at all angles with crazy attitude but still defying gravity atop the Noodle Ranch, Lava Lounge and Juju, has a spacious terrace over the street with young hopefuls who look happy to be there, watching the street life.

Occasionally someone puts to use the sidewalk chalk at Bedlam, or artists put together a CreateLive session inside. Or a guy with a dream and a passion buys the historic Lorraine Hotel and gives artists a free hand in every room, before opening it first to the public and then as a hostel. The slow-paced demolition of the Recovery Cafe provides weeks of entertainment. A new business, bar and pool tables, opens and someone is promptly shot. There is so much flux in the neighborhood, a symptom of a gritty vitality, a synergistic vortex of creative impulse with which destruction goes hand in hand.

The neighborhood grows in popularity. New businesses come in, business rents rise, some are displaced. Spa Noir moves down the street. The Dog Lounge moves out; Wags moves one alley east. The life of the street and sidewalk is so very appealing. When the weather is fine, I sit by the front door of Mama's and watch all the people come in, one after the other, all wanting a seat outside. They sit and wait for someone else to leave. Via Tribunali, who I so admired for having an alley-only entrance, breaks down the street wall and installs a roll-down door. People get air and view of the street, but entry is still off the alley, along with the relocated Wags. The rear common space of Funky Belltown Studios is here. The Regrade dog park is at the end of this alley, where Mama's also seems to be expanding, and I have great hopes for it, the alley and the neighborhood. I also worry about it, the chances of the booming creativity increasing the possibility of destruction. What if Funky Belltown finally concedes to gravity? Could all of these small old buildings, cheap studios, and attractive, vital businesses be displaced by a shiny new building with chain stores at the base?

We can only act as if what we love will remain. I talk to the wonderful and personable host at Mama's and ask about the past. Will the Angel of Belltown be replaced on the roof? What happened to the animated heart that was on the wall outside? Did you know the Virgin Mary got knocked over and is gone again? I chat with the guys at Bedlam - where did you get your old photos of the 2nd Avenue streetcar? How is the petition to preserve the Belltown Needle going? Ben has gotten its creator to reproduce the saucer for the top, which has not returned yet and is missed.

  

Jesse and others write about Belltown businesses and events and things we should be aware of or even act on as citizens. Igor of Hideous Belltown keeps a visual record and history of the neighborhood, with cynical commentary that I can't help but find oh so amusing. And there are so many choices to make. The Garden Tour (and yes our high-rise condos and apartment buildings have some amazing gardens, practically the Hanging Gardens of Belltown)? Or CreateLive at Bedlam? Music and baptism at Myrtle Edwards? The Great Urban Race? Any number of foodie events? All going on within hours of each other. I know better than to try to do it all, but it's fun to catch the bits and pieces of it, to participate a little, just to watch people and the different things they do. They don't all live here, but they help create the life of the neighborhood that makes it such a great place to be.

                

The renovations have begun at the Market and Chou at Bayou on 1st has been very excited about it. She hasn't been able to have a deep fryer because the roof of the Sanitary Building has been unsafe for getting up and cleaning the kitchen exhaust vents. Now the PDA will have the roof remodeled and she can get a fryer. She's going to redo her menu and has started designing a website for the restaurant. She's photographing all the menu items, so today she used my lunch as the model for the No. 3 Combo - grilled salmon, vinaigrette on mixed greens, and red beans with rice.


Chou and Vi photographing my lunch

I haven't seen Dog Mafia in the Market for some time and found out why, from this fellow who's name I didn't catch. I thought it might be David McKesson but he seems different, shorter, and his old dog wasn't there. It sounded like him, though. He is the last one playing the Market. I included a picture of him from a couple of years ago with the old dog, and playing with Dog Mafia around the same time. Maybe someone can tell me. The lead guy who pulled the group together finally married his sweetheart and moved to Indiana. I feel lucky to have gotten a couple of CDs before they disbanded, they were really good.

      




One day I left my wallet on a table outside Three Girls Bakery, after shopping at the Creamery. Before I even got back to the office, David at the Bakery had gotten my business card and called there to let me know. When I went back to get it, everyone around, at the fruit stand and everywhere, asked me about it. It's nice to be known.