New Pioneer Square Blog – 2 years, 500 posts
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New Pioneer Square Blog – 2 years, 500 posts

An early post about traffic signs installed upside down

It seems like just yesterday that we moved into the square — I remember having the same misconceptions that most people (still) have. I planned on wearing tennis shoes every day — you know, just in case I had to run away from an attack. I made sure to never be alone when out in the neighborhood, even during the day. I purchased mace to keep on my keychain, and I got to know the 9-1-1 operators from how often I used to call in drug deals in front of our apartment.

The amazing loft and low rent that drew us to the neighborhood in the first place, are not what keeps us here now. It’s the small neighborhood feel, right in the middle of a big city. It’s the feeling you get when you walk into the local businesses and know the owners, or run into other residents out walking their dogs. It’s the events that pop up in Occidental Square Park, like the Seattle Square Market, the Chess Tournament, Dancing til’ Dusk, artSPARKS, and more. It’s the amazing architecture from the historic buildings — my very favorite building is the Grand Central Building with an entire wall of ivy facing the park. As huge sports fans, it’s the good feeling I get when we leave a game, and walk three blocks to our apartment, passing all of the cars stuck in traffic.

But most of all, it’s the relationships with residents, business owners, and other individuals down in Pioneer Square who are trying to make a difference. This neighborhood has its fair share of struggles, but it also has incredible people that work tirelessly to make it better, one day, one week, one month at a time.

I recently had a reporter comment that my blog had changed from being kind of random, and about events, to being more about politics and issues. Although that’s definitely true, I’ve enjoyed taking a look at some of the posts from when I first started:

For example, the highly intelligently-named post: “Drugs + P2 = no good

The husband and I were walking around Pioneer Square last night when we passed a man standing in a store entryway on the corner of 3rd and James. With just a casual glance, we saw that he had a thin line of “white powder” and was getting ready to use it.

We walked around the corner and called 911 while we kept walking, although I was a little freaked out to be telling the 911 operator out loud about the guy using drugs just around the corner with a bunch of other P2 familiars still milling around. I thought for sure someone was going to yell “snitch” and beat us up or something. I also watch lots of movies.

Or the post, inspired from all of the good lines I hear from the guys that hang out at the Lazarus Day Center every day, titled “What single guys could learn from the homeless:”

I was taking a picture of the bricks at Fulston Square for my post the other day, and as I turned around to head back to the apartment, one of the Lazarus guys walked up to me and said “are you taking pictures?” I told him that I was, to which he responded “Will you take my picture? Will you? Take my picture so that you’ll always remember me…. [wait for it].… ‘Cause I’m always going to remember you.”

 I started this blog without caring that much about who read it, or what they thought about what I wrote — but instead, used it more as a medium to catalog what I experienced here, from the many homeless individuals I passed every day, to the new businesses that popped up, hoping to thrive in this historic neighborhood. Being new to the blogging world, however, and writing a post or two that resulted in a myriad of negative comments, I changed what I wrote about, and the carelessness with which I wrote about it.

Early post titled "Why I hate Carl"

Maybe now that I’ve reached 2 years of blogging (and 500 posts!), I can claim to be a blogging veteran and can remind myself to share some of the personal, whimsical stories (like about the seagull named Carl, who refuses to leave our deck), along with the more serious, political ones.

I can just see a whole new series of posts, titled ” ______ + P2 = ________”

The possibilities are endless.

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