An Ode to my Hood

ESSAY: The Pioneer Square neighborhood in Seattle can be challenging & contradictory. I find it enlivening.

(The once stately Frye & Morrison hotels & the West’s tallest building, Smith Tower, in 1921.)

I have always been drawn to city life. It’s vibrant, exciting, alive. And sometimes dark, dangerous and deceptive.

(Tashiro Kaplan Artist Lofts, Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington)

I live in low-income artist housing, the Tashiro Kaplan Artist Lofts (TK), in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The building occupies a triangular block with an art association, vintage clothing store and a variety of art galleries at street level. On the main corner, there has been a series of coffee shops, with another one opening soon. We residents thrive in our live/work spaces and call the building and the community home.

But, the neighborhood can be challenging & contradictory. This is the home turf of some very wealthy and some very un-wealthy (and un-healthy). Not so much in-between.

Take a tour of some of the beautiful lofts in some of the historic buildings and you will see the bounty of many well-to-do residents. In other buildings, equally historic, you will witness the struggles of not-doing-so-wells. It is indeed a tapestry of two distinct American classes.

(Pioneer Building in Pioneer Park in Pioneer Square.)

Our artist building is surrounded by places for people in need - struggling, surviving.

Across one of our bordering streets is housing run by the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), a non-profit organization in Seattle, Washington that provides services to people experiencing homelessness. I see it out my window, along with a view of both the Union Station and King Street railroad terminals, the two sports arenas and the Great Northern Tunnel.

(Out my window: DESC building, railroad tunnel, King Street Station, stadiums.)

Across another street are the Frye Apartments, also for low-income tenants. It is designated a historic preservation site.

Kitty-corner to our building is the Union Gospel Mission, serving people on the streets.

Across yet another street are the Salmonberry Lofts, run by the Chief Seattle Club, offering 76 units of housing to Native Americans and Alaska Natives who are currently without a permanent home.

And, early this year, the former Morrison Hotel, (just down the avenue and now largely abandoned) will become Seattle’s first DESC post-overdose recovery center.

All these facilities for those struggling with life are now within a block from my home. It has to say something about America that these buildings and this neighborhood were once the pride and joy of the citizens. Now, in some manner, they are becoming a coalescing ground for the care and housing of the less fortunate of us.

But, to look at it more positively, and empathetically, the city and Seattle social service agencies are trying to solve the problems of homelessness, poverty, addiction, crime and mental illness. Those problems have shown themselves to be greatly intractable.

(WRITER’S NOTE: I collaborated with four other artists from the TK (Doug Vann, Keven Furiya, Andy Zadrozny & Neil Lukas) to tell the stories of ten of the Frye residents who had struggles with homelessness and addiction. It is called “Truth Sessions.” It can be seen on Vimeo.)

The park shown in the historic postcard above, City Hall Park, kitty-corner to my building, fell into complete disrepair and became a homeless tent encampment during the pandemic. It is right next to the Municipal Court building and down the street from City Hall. The city has rejuvenated it and hopes it will be used by more of the local community. But, this summer, it was mostly empty. It still has the stigma of neglect and danger, I should think. I hope next summer will be better.

(City Hall Park, Pioneer Square.)

So, yes, at times, my neighborhood has been difficult to navigate, with prostitution, drug use, drug sales, burglaries, assaults and mental illness incidents on the street. The pandemic made it worse. But, now, it is rebuilding its vibrancy. I feel it is on a come-back.

(When I first moved to Seattle, I lived in another downtown neighborhood, Belltown. But I came to Pioneer Square for the lively blues club scene. You could buy a ten-dollar ticket that would get you into all the clubs. So you could see everyone who was performing in that one night.)

All of this is to say that I believe that Pioneer Square has always been a caring, if conflicted, community. And it cares still.

It is the oldest neighborhood in Seattle, the original "Skid Row." It was destroyed by The Great Seattle Fire in 1889. So the city built a new neighborhood atop the rubble. Purple glass cubes embedded in the sidewalks show the now empty spaces of the old city below. Tourists trek through the buried, haunted underground ruins daily. This is a neighborhood that doesn’t give up.

I watched the CNN coverage of New Year celebrations around the world. They were all so big and elaborate. Seemed each was trying to outdo all the others. It made me think that in 2025 we need to think smaller, support locals, embrace community, work person-to-person.

(New Seattle restored w aterfront, The Seattle Times)

So, I am heartened and enlivened by the Pioneer Square community's unrelenting artistic bent, its commitment to both preservation and restoration, its close proximity to a beautiful new waterfront, its tenacious business owners, it's preserved architecture, its coordinated neighborhood action and its ongoing commitment to all its residents - rich and poor, housed and unhoused, stable and struggling.

That's my Pioneer Square - rich and poor, housed and unhoused, stable and struggling. Even enlivening and dangerous.

History of Pioneer Square