Dec 17, 2007

Share a thought for our neighbors to the south

When Club Chocolate City closed many of the problems associated with it surfaced around 23rd & Union, especially outside the long-suffering Thompson's Point of View.

Things seemed to have quietened down for the winter, but there was another shooting there on Sunday evening, as noted by KIRO TV (which apparently thinks that 23rd & Union is part of Capitol Hill), by the P-I and by the Stranger's SLOG (don't miss the readers' comments on the SLOG post).

The neighbors are wonderfully sanguine, however. One even responded with a haiku:

Rain falls on warm shells
Cops search near teller machine
for clues while man points
The neighbors meet regularly for dinner at Thompson's, followed by strolls around the neighborhood. If you'd like to join them, join the Central Neighborhood Association Google Group to be alerted to the next opportunity.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, How we really are sorry to hear about the shooting on Sunday night. We have to say to people in our comminittitys and help and have people with guns stop useing them and achochol and guns do more damage to just people's body and minds but also there family and friends.

Anonymous said...

I live close by, and I wouldn't agree that things have quieted down for the winter.

I am really, really looking forward to the planned construction on 23rd and Union (on the South-West corner). I hope it's presence will help the situation on that intersection. You wouldn't happen to know when construction is starting, would you?

Anonymous said...

Greetings and Happy December,

I am the developer of the proposed building at 23rd and East Union. We are in the midst of our design and permitting process.

The first part of our work is to get the contract rezone finished with the City, and to get our Master Use Permit. It is going very slowly, but we still hope to be under construction at the end of summer 2008.

We are really looking forward to being part of the neighborhood, and hope you'll support our proposal!

Questions and comments can be sent to askunion@jcmueller.com .

Thank you.

--Jim

Andrew Taylor said...

Honesty compels me to point out that we had the same hopes about the Safeway building kitty-corner from Club Chocolate City / Deano's on Madison.

Didn't help. The week the Safeway opened, the dealers all moved one block away (to Denny, behind Deano's) but the next week they were right back on Madison, where they used to be. In fact the store may even have helped them: shoplifting was a very frequent issue, and we had reports of people knocking on doors offering Safeway meat for sale!

The issues on Madison went away OVERNIGHT when Club Chocolate City closed. But NO, I am NOT advocating a campaign to close Thompson's Point of View. I do NOT believe that they are part of the problem, the way that Club Chocolate City apparently was.

Anonymous said...

There are some important differences between the safeway and the development on 23rd and Union. First and foremost is the fact that the 23rd and Union development actually includes ground level retail on both union and 23rd. This hopefully will bring people out onto the corner and encourage foot traffic. Contrast this with the safeway. Its presence on 23rd is cold and dead. The safeway encourages car traffic, not foot traffic. It is really the antithesis of good urban design.