Every once in a while we all need to vent.
Regular readers of this column can attest to my frequent championing of our neighborhood, even if it means slighting other neighborhoods in the process. (What some might label opinionated and critical, I label discernment and taste.)
Nonetheless, a number of Capitol Hill phenomena have frustrated me recently, even though I have to admit they've probably existed for some time now. Perhaps it's the smell in the air that, in turn, lets you know the warm summer sunsets will soon yield to overcast dusks. (Contrary to T.S. Eliot's famous claim, August may be the cruelest month-not for what it contains but for what it portends.)
Ultimately however, the catalyst behind the timing of these frustrations is of little consequence. They exist. I have a column. Therefore, I will share them, if for no other reason than others might share those frustrations with me and perhaps together we can effect change.
GARAGE-SALE DUMPING
Just because no one bought it at your garage sale or you don't feel like moving it after your moving sale doesn't give you carte blanche to leave it on the sidewalk.
More often than not, one man's trash is just that, and your inability to sell your hand-me-down, purple-flowered couch or your 5-year-old jeans bears witness to that very fact. Should Goodwill or Value Village similarly turn-up their noses at your goods, case closed. They belong wherever you put your cigarette butts and cat litter, which shouldn't be the sidewalk.
And don't think you're being magnanimous by placing a "free" sign on your unsold stuff and then leaving it on the sidewalk, as if that sign has magical powers to transform your Sony Walkman into an iPod, or your musty, smoke-smelling recliner into a throne.
Just throw it away.
COBBLESTONE STREETS
The line separating that which is quaint and nostalgic from that which is out-dated and worn-out is an admittedly fine one, but I'm fairly confident I can discern it being crossed throughout Capitol Hill in the continued existence of cobblestone streets. You know, the streets where your car or bike suddenly rides as if it were on the first ascent of a Puyallup Fair rollercoaster.
It would be nostalgic if these original city streets remained in specifically historical areas, as they do near Pike Place Market. But they don't. Instead, they're located randomly throughout the Hill, between Union and Pike and between 22nd and 23rd, to cite two examples.
It might make sense to save them if one could explain why the cobblestone sections are often mere single blocks sandwiched between what they ought to be in the first place: modern pavement. Instead, it makes one wonder if during repaving time, somebody just forgot to order enough asphalt. Repeatedly. Now, due to age and lack of maintenance, many blocks ride like the automotive version of a mogul field.
Together, their general state of disrepair and their haphazard locationing turn what could be a reminder of Seattle's past into something with about as much nostalgic-charm value as a cannister of DDT.
Let's pave them over.
A NEIGHBORHOOD COVENANT?
If you own land or buildings on Capitol Hill and, in turn, lease that space out to businesses, you enjoy both a profit from that lease and a responsibility to the lessee to maintain that space. However, should you find yourself without a lessee, your responsibilities don't correspondingly disappear.
Just because a business moved out, leaving you tenant-less, or just because you plan to eventually raze your lot doesn't free you from being a good neighbor, let alone give you a free pass to allow your land or the buildings on it to turn into an eyesore.
This isn't Detroit.
Maintaining one's property is a neighborly duty no matter if you're in the black or in the red. Ugly fencing, graffiti, flour-paste advertisements and random wall painting-all not okay. The empty Safeway building on Broadway, the old Rainbow Market and the block where Roy meets Broadway, for example, all suggest an understanding of responsibility that kicks-in only when someone is making money.
Similarly, if you own a home, I'm sure graffiti can be more than a mere annoyance but also an expense to paint over. Too bad. Aloha Street between 11th and 12th and East Turner Way between 23rd and 24th, for example, each showcase the skills of amateur taggers who turned what was once resistance art into an example of elementary-school penmanship.
As a result I wonder if a neighborhood covenant is in order? While the level of detail and regulation of some covenant agreements borders on the absurd, and while covenants often provide convenient opportunities for people with too much time on their hands to bicker amongst themselves, perhaps a simple one is needed for the Hill.
If you own it, maintain it-all of it, not just the inside or your side but the outside as well, for that is our side.
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