Seattle in the 90's

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by GatsbyGatz;

Yeah, what happened to University Way? It's quite rundown by Seattle standards which is surprising given the benefits of being next to UW.

Originally Posted by mkarch

University Village.

University Village was always there, though. And U Way is much more convenient as a shopping area, transit-wise, and walking-from the University-wise. Businesses left the U District because of growing drug and transient/homeless activity. But why did those two things become an overwhelming trend? I see it as part of the same trend in university districts nation-wide; it began in the wake of the 60's, when a drug culture began to take hold. The same thing happened on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, and something similar happened in the university area in Albuquerque, NM. I don't think those are isolated examples. There must be more.

[MarkFromSea]

Originally Posted by NCDavid

Depends on how you define better. If you value Microsoft jobs, pro sports, heavy traffic, loss of a smaller city feel, and high housing costs, it might be better now.
Personally, I think Seattle was certainly a much better place to live in the 50s, 60s and even the 70s. But the 90s? Probably not; the influx of population to the greater Seattle area had already pretty much destroyed much of it's livability by then.

Spot on!

[mkarch]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

University Village was always there, though. And U Way is much more convenient as a shopping area, transit-wise, and walking-from the University-wise. Businesses left the U District because of growing drug and transient/homeless activity. But why did those two things become an overwhelming trend? I see it as part of the same trend in university districts nation-wide; it began in the wake of the 60's, when a drug culture began to take hold. The same thing happened on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, and something similar happened in the university area in Albuquerque, NM. I don't think those are isolated examples. There must be more.

U Village wasn't always there in its current form. It's about 10 times the size it was 25 years ago, and the Ave had a big drug and vagrant problem 25 years ago as well. After the second massive expansion of University Village about 10 years ago, there was really no reason for a business targeting more affluent consumers to try locate on the Ave - and they didn't have to because there was a shiny clean new shopping center with hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail space a half mile away. Their customers DRIVE to the stores and park in one of the new high rise garages, they don't walk from their run-down student apartments or take a crowded bus full of smelly homeless people. That's a different demographic than they're aiming for.

Back when U Village was just a QFC and an Ernst, the Ave and 45th had a larger collection of businesses that didn't cater exclusively to students. The big 'clearing out' of the Ave started during the 2000 recession, and as business came back they didn't come to the Ave. With the more affluent retail gone and replaced by used record stores, head shops and bars serving $1 beers, the mix of people on the street went down scale as well. Had U Village not been able to expand to its current monstrous proportions the Ave would have been a better shopping destination, but it could never support the type, variety and sheer number of stores U Village does. As it is now the Ave is more of an 'old downtown, abandoned when the new mall went in'. So now most of what you see there are the kind of people who don't shop at U Village.

[j_k_k]

Mkarch is right. I was at UW from 1981-86, and the Ave was a dump, with bums and kids selling drugs and plenty of graffiti. Parking was a headache for visitors at the best of times, and it was high crime. It had the Neptune, which had that sort of funkiness about it, and some good places to eat, but overall it was very seedy. Some of it I miss, like The Last Exit, and Beauty & the Books, and John Dolecki's sports bar (he was a Coug, but that was a pardonable flaw in a good pubkeeper), and Coley's Husky Shoe Service. I remember when McDonald's came to the Ave (it was in midblock just north of 45th, west side), and there was a controversy over whether this meant that the Ave would be losing its 'character.' I guess that 'character' (kids saying "bud? cid?" or whatever is said nowadays to advertise drug sales) was never in much danger.

In those days, I only went near U Village to get sandwiches at Hoagy's. I assume that's been gone a decade or two. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of what was desirable about the Ave had migrated into Wallingford.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by mkarch

U Village wasn't always there in its current form. It's about 10 times the size it was 25 years ago, and the Ave had a big drug and vagrant problem 25 years ago as well. After the second massive expansion of University Village about 10 years ago, there was really no reason for a business targeting more affluent consumers to try locate on the Ave - and they didn't have to because there was a shiny clean new shopping center with hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail space a half mile away. Their customers DRIVE to the stores and park in one of the new high rise garages, they don't walk from their run-down student apartments or take a crowded bus full of smelly homeless people. That's a different demographic than they're aiming for.

Back when U Village was just a QFC and an Ernst, the Ave and 45th had a larger collection of businesses that didn't cater exclusively to students. The big 'clearing out' of the Ave started during the 2000 recession, and as business came back they didn't come to the Ave. With the more affluent retail gone and replaced by used record stores, head shops and bars serving $1 beers, the mix of people on the street went down scale as well. Had U Village not been able to expand to its current monstrous proportions the Ave would have been a better shopping destination, but it could never support the type, variety and sheer number of stores U Village does. As it is now the Ave is more of an 'old downtown, abandoned when the new mall went in'. So now most of what you see there are the kind of people who don't shop at U Village.

I think it's a chicken-and-egg question: did the expansion of U Village cause the Ave's decline, or was it already declining (partly as a result of the 60's drug culture, perhaps), So that some businesses relocated to U Village when the opportunity arose? I remember the corner jewelry store on the Ave was the last holdout of the higher-end stores, and they lasted into the late 90's on U Way, then finally gave up because of higher crime and a decline of shoppers on the Ave, and moved to U Village. In the late 80's/early 90's a couple of designer clothing stores for men and women tried their luck there, and eventually gave up. There were contradictory tendencies, for awhile. Then by around 2000, the UW was taking over more and more space on the Ave.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by j_k_k

Mkarch is right. I was at UW from 1981-86, and the Ave was a dump, with bums and kids selling drugs and plenty of graffiti. Parking was a headache for visitors at the best of times, and it was high crime. It had the Neptune, which had that sort of funkiness about it, and some good places to eat, but overall it was very seedy. Some of it I miss, like The Last Exit, and Beauty & the Books, and John Dolecki's sports bar (he was a Coug, but that was a pardonable flaw in a good pubkeeper), and Coley's Husky Shoe Service. I remember when McDonald's came to the Ave (it was in midblock just north of 45th, west side), and there was a controversy over whether this meant that the Ave would be losing its 'character.' I guess that 'character' (kids saying "bud? cid?" or whatever is said nowadays to advertise drug sales) was never in much danger.

In those days, I only went near U Village to get sandwiches at Hoagy's. I assume that's been gone a decade or two. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of what was desirable about the Ave had migrated into Wallingford.

The Last Exit originally was on lower Brooklyn. Maybe the rent on the new Ave location was too high? Coley's hung on as long as he could. He said so many shoes came to be made to be thrown away, not repaired, he ran out of work. I don't remember the MacD's, but I do remember a Russian fast-food place in that block. Gourmet pirozhki to go, and borshch, lol!

[mkarch]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

I think it's a chicken-and-egg question: did the expansion of U Village cause the Ave's decline, or was it already declining (partly as a result of the 60's drug culture, perhaps), So that some businesses relocated to U Village when the opportunity arose? I remember the corner jewelry store on the Ave was the last holdout of the higher-end stores, and they lasted into the late 90's on U Way, then finally gave up because of higher crime and a decline of shoppers on the Ave, and moved to U Village. In the late 80's/early 90's a couple of designer clothing stores for men and women tried their luck there, and eventually gave up. There were contradictory tendencies, for awhile. Then by around 2000, the UW was taking over more and more space on the Ave.

Broadway went through a similar decline (drugs, crime, vacancies) around 1999/2000 but it bounced back and then some. The main difference is more affluent shoppers in Capitol Hill live within walking distance. The U District itself has some of the highest poverty rates in the city making it not at all prime for high end shopping. U District median income is around $20K/yr, 2 miles east it's 10 times that. So what we have now is a low end shopping district and a high end district, whereas before it was a mixed income shopping area vs a neighborhood grocery and hardware store.

Saying it happened 'when opportunity arose' is a misleading. The expansion of U Village brought in dozens of businesses that never could have thrived on the Ave, if just for space and parking considerations. (Not to mention all of the new condos and townhomes that went in) Once that critical mass of higher end businesses developed down the hill, what advantage was there to stay in an area with no parking and the always-present 'street elemets'?

As to why it happened when it did, it's likely because families started moving back in to Seattle. The surrounding NE neighborhoods were some of the first to gain a family friendly reputation again after the mess of the 1980's. That trend coincided with the U Village redevelopment.

[wutitiz]

I think that by the 1990's Seattle had transformed into what it is today. I wasn't here, but from what I am told Seattle was a much different place in the 1960's and 70's. Traffic was not the all-important problem that it is today. There was still a middle class with private sector jobs in Seattle. Seattle still had (gasp!) Republican mayors and sent Republican legislators to Olympia.

All of those were gone by the 1990's.

[NCDavid]

Originally Posted by wutitiz

I think that by the 1990's Seattle had transformed into what it is today. I wasn't here, but from what I am told Seattle was a much different place in the 1960's and 70's. Traffic was not the all-important problem that it is today. There was still a middle class with private sector jobs in Seattle. Seattle still had (gasp!) Republican mayors and sent Republican legislators to Olympia.

All of those were gone by the 1990's.

Imagine a Seattle with no I-5 or 405. Only one Lake Washington bridge across Mercer Island. Smith Tower the tallest building west of Chicago and north of San Francisco. Bel-Square a one-story little strip mall with a dozen shops. Maybe 10 percent of today's traffic. A home near UW overlooking Lake Washington for less than $30,000. Friendly people. No tech jobs but lots of good-paying manufacturing jobs at Boeing and PACCAR.
That's what Seattle was like in the late 1950s to 1960s. Unrecognizable thirty years later and onward after huge influxes of population and massive corporate/political efforts to remake Seattle like other major cities.