Fed up with Broadway, a ranting SLOG reader shares his experience...
...and in the process, causes me to launch into a rant of my own.
A recent "letter to the editor" published in The Stranger's SLOG speaks volumes about the way people on Capitol Hill have been feeling lately, and seems to encompass many of the viewpoints that I - along with the majority of those I've spoken with on the issue - hold.
I won't reprint the whole thing here due to space constraints (it was quite long, and starts with the ever-present "Seattle-is-too-expensive-now" complaining we've been hearing ad nauseum lately), but here are some highlights:
From my experience, that spot is one of Broadway's drug capitals, and while automatic public restrooms are a nice addition in cities that are mature enough to handle them [see: Amsterdam, Holland], the residents of Capitol Hill have made it clear that we haven't yet reached that level of maturity. Even if regular citizens treat it properly...do they really want to use it, exposing themselves to the inevitable filth that has accumulated within the doors of that bathroom over the years? Admittedly I've never taken the time to look inside...but the smell emitting from its doorway and the constant swarm of street people nearby seems evidence enough that the city might want to consider removing the structure all together.
What's worse is that the majority of these people, sitting outside QFC asking for money, are young and able bodied themselves. They could get a job. They don't have to be asking for money. But instead, they remain part of the "street punk" counter culture, piercing themselves and refusing to shower in a sort of "screw the system (but expect its support)" approach to life. I'd bet money that one of them was responsible for the "Fuck Work" graffiti that, accompanied by an anarchy symbol, can be found on crosswalks around Capitol Hill.
No. Broadway is not a ghetto. It is simply becoming infested by a spreading plague. We come from a city that prides itself on acceptance and liberalism, which is all good and fine until a situation such as this one arises. Why do you think these people are attracted to Seattle, and to Capitol Hill specifically? I can see a few reasons:
A recent "letter to the editor" published in The Stranger's SLOG speaks volumes about the way people on Capitol Hill have been feeling lately, and seems to encompass many of the viewpoints that I - along with the majority of those I've spoken with on the issue - hold.
I won't reprint the whole thing here due to space constraints (it was quite long, and starts with the ever-present "Seattle-is-too-expensive-now" complaining we've been hearing ad nauseum lately), but here are some highlights:
Empty stores abound. Stickers and paint cover signs, walls and windows.Very true. While some of the signs of urban decay are inevitable - stickers and paint on signs and walls, newspapers and trash blowing in the wind...this is a city, after all - the description of "in your face" vagrants is still spot on.
Newspapers and other trash blow around in the breeze. But the most disturbing and annoying thing that is so "in your face" are the vagrants, addicts and beggars that line both sides of Broadway from Roy to Union St at any time of the day and night.
I saw one guy sticking a needle in his arm in another doorway near the corner of Denny. A girl with about $500 worth of metal in her face from piercings, holding a Starbucks cup, asked me for a cigarette. Over by the public restroom were a couple standing there, eyes closed, weaving slowly back and forth, obviously having just gotten high in the restroom. The sidewalks reek of urine. You can smell feces as you pass some places. It is absolutely disgusting.While I've never directly seen anybody shooting up in doorways (possibly because I try to avert my eyes from the street people I encounter on Broadway to avoid being asked for anything), $20 says the public restroom he speaks of is just beyond Bonney Watson Funeral Home and Seattle Central Community College. You know the one: the automated silver device that is always in use and/or surrounded by likely drug addicts waiting for their turn.
From my experience, that spot is one of Broadway's drug capitals, and while automatic public restrooms are a nice addition in cities that are mature enough to handle them [see: Amsterdam, Holland], the residents of Capitol Hill have made it clear that we haven't yet reached that level of maturity. Even if regular citizens treat it properly...do they really want to use it, exposing themselves to the inevitable filth that has accumulated within the doors of that bathroom over the years? Admittedly I've never taken the time to look inside...but the smell emitting from its doorway and the constant swarm of street people nearby seems evidence enough that the city might want to consider removing the structure all together.
Why do BOTH QFC supermarkets allow these people to sit by their front doors all day harassing people for money? How can Dicks Deluxe allow the groups of beggars to take up camp 15 feet from where people are ordering food and taking out their wallets?Both very good questions. The QFC's seem to have no problem allowing these people to congregate outside - people who are often young, physically intimidating and in possession of at least one aggressive looking dog. A friend of mine used to work at the QFC on "lower" Broadway - Broadway & Pike - and said the store constantly had to deal with beggars and homeless folks coming inside, causing problems at the Starbucks stand, stealing things...she even told me one particularly chilling tale of a homeless man in a rush to use the bathroom who somehow managed to make it into the meat freezer, where he finally let loose his bowels. Whether or not the story was true - I personally don't doubt it - has no consequence: after hearing it, I never bought meat at that QFC again.
What's worse is that the majority of these people, sitting outside QFC asking for money, are young and able bodied themselves. They could get a job. They don't have to be asking for money. But instead, they remain part of the "street punk" counter culture, piercing themselves and refusing to shower in a sort of "screw the system (but expect its support)" approach to life. I'd bet money that one of them was responsible for the "Fuck Work" graffiti that, accompanied by an anarchy symbol, can be found on crosswalks around Capitol Hill.
I just don't get it. Broadway has turned into a 1st Class GHETTO. Why is nothing being done about it?"First class ghetto" is a bit of an exaggeration here. Were Broadway worthy of such a title, you can bet it wouldn't be such a happening spot for hipsters. Business would not flourish. Money would not be spent, nor would even be present.
No. Broadway is not a ghetto. It is simply becoming infested by a spreading plague. We come from a city that prides itself on acceptance and liberalism, which is all good and fine until a situation such as this one arises. Why do you think these people are attracted to Seattle, and to Capitol Hill specifically? I can see a few reasons:
- Capitol Hill is not downtown, and thus is not afforded the luxury of an increased police presence that was recently announced for Third & Pine;
- Much of the street folks mentioned in the SLOG reader's rant are non-violent criminals...not surprisingly, they are not as much of a priority as the gun wielding gangsters in other parts of the city;
- People in Seattle are either too polite or too passive aggressive to tell beggars to leave them alone;
- The city provides so many social programs that these people can get by without having to do any work themselves, relying on the system to provide them with the bare-minimum lifestyle they have subscribed to; and finally
- We have local officials on record in the Seattle P.I. arguing in support of giving money to panhandlers, despite the first-hand results many Hill-dwellers have witnessed.
