Seattle’s department of transportation put in some swift demolition work over the July 4th holiday weekend, reopening SR 99 early Sunday morning and then Mercer Street by the afternoon, beating their 5 a.m. Monday morning target handily. On July 3rd, there was an eastern side to the SR 99 overpass that spans Mercer Street; now there isn’t. (If you’re on Facebook, make a point of Liking the SDOT page, which alerts you to all sorts of traffic impacts around the city.)
Traffic had been rerouted well in advance of the actual demolition, so drivers won’t notice any difference in the chaotic traffic pattern due this piece of the work on the Mercer Corridor Project. Now SDOT will build a new half-an-overpass, allowing a wider Mercer Street, and once that’s done — setting the girders in place will likely prompt a weekend closure of Mercer and at least the northbound lanes of SR 99 — demolish the western side (again, a weekend closure). That should come sometime before October.
But that’s it for major disruptions — there will still be detours and lanes shifted occasionally, but you won’t lose access entirely.
At times like this, it’s perhaps a good idea to refresh your memory on what the point of it all is. SDOT provides a full description of the Mercer Project here. In terms of motorized traffic flow, the goal was to remove a righthand dogleg for drivers exiting I-5 toward Seattle Center. In its finished state, Mercer will have three eastbound and three westbound lanes. But the wider Mercer Street will also allow for wider sidewalks on both sides, as well as a separated, two-way bike path on the north side of Mercer.
This afternoon, the King County Council is hearing public testimony on more stable funding for Metro (Union Station, 4 p.m.). We covered Metro’s rationale for funding here. That makes it timely to hear from Metro bus operator Nathan Vass, in Part 2 of his tale of driving Metro’s bus route 358. Part 1 is here. At this point in his day, the commute is wrapping up, and another group of public transit customers replaces people hurrying to work.
Vass is a writer, filmmaker, and photographer as well as a bus operator. Besides blogging (The View from Nathan’s Bus), he’s got a photography show coming up, opening June 13 at Blindfold Gallery (1718 East Olive Way). That his shot of the 358, below. See more of his photography here.
Special to The SunBreak by Nathan Vass
Ten minutes later I fire up the coach again to begin heading back north. It’s close to 10 a.m. Peak hour is long over, and it’s now my favorite time of day to drive buses—everyone’s already at work, and lunch hasn’t started yet. Stores are opening, and the commuters are gone; it’s mostly a miscellaneous cast of characters crawling out from the woodwork—the poor, the users, sleepers, dealers, the recovering, the elderly, truants, the tired, and the hungry.
This is why I work this job.
I turn the corner onto Jackson slowly, savoring every second. I’m mildly nervous, having never done the 358 at this time of day, but exhilarated at the chance to perform at my best. When people tell horror stories, it’s always about their last trip of the night, or their last day on the route. You can’t check out early. People can sniff that a mile away. You’ve gotta stay on, right there with everyone, until you pull back into base and turn the motor off.
I pull up to the Home Depot boys at Madison, the day labor folk, and I’m there for them. Eye contact and a smile. A sullen black man regards me with unfocused animosity as he trickles in change, but I win him over when I hand him his transfer, saying, “Lemme get you a little somethin’.”
The man behind him hears this and smiles, saying, “’Ey, gimme a little more, dogg!” Meaning a longer transfer. My transfers are huge, in part because of the long route—you calculate them from the end timepoint.
“Aw, my friend, that’s four hours!”
He laughs and gets along.
The lady at the front has been watching me. “You jus’ got a great attitude,” she says with motherly affirmation. “Even the way you handled that little thing right there, that could easily ha’ gone south if you made it that way.” I tell her she’s too kind, but she won’t have it—“I’m not bein’ kind, I’m jus’ callin’ it out like I see it. Bein’ truthful is all, that’s how I go through this world. I’m just observing. Like my Uncle John says—” We discuss the virtues of patience and perspective. Her Uncle John is a longtime operator at Metro. She then says, looking at me, “You’re what, lemme guess, half Korean, half white?”
This is such a complete about face from Will.i.am and Slur, earlier, that I practically stop the bus as I respond: “How did you know that?” I’m English no longer, dark hair be damned.
“Pretty cool penguin hat,” I say to a senior with such a device perched on his head. “Take your time today,” I remind him as he hobbles around. “We got no rush.” Behind him, getting on the bus, is an Eastern European girl with blazing blue eyes. She’s on her way to class at UW, and like Tuberculosis Man above, we find ourselves getting in depth after talking about bus routes and commute schedules. She’s majoring in Business (“Ah, serious!”) and headed to Communications this morning. You get into their world, their moment, for a few minutes.
I stayed with her in the conversation, asking about class, as we talked about retaining customers in a business environment when they believe they’ve been slighted on your account.
For example, a hypothetical old lady purchases bonds that turn out badly, and believes you, the broker, instructed them to buy said bonds. “The question,” she told me, with her blazing blue eyes, “is how would you resolve a conflict with her without losing her business.” Perhaps there are tapes of the conversation, to relay to the lady that you never told her to buy those bonds, but still you need to find a delicate balance—proving her wrong will merely drive her away.
“You have to be showing that the lady was incorrectly remembering the conversation, and then make that seem unimportant. You stress the positive elements of retaining her with a second paragraph that buoys her up again….”
She’s going to spend much of her day thinking about dilemmas like that, and that fascinates me. It’s a world so far from my own.
Soon she is gone, replaced by a woman who is older. She’s just moved into a new apartment east of Green Lake that she likes, and we talk about different ways of getting rid of mold, and what percentage of bleach and water to use. At 85th is a wheelchair who signals me like those men on the docks of aircraft carriers, marking where the planes should stop; he motions toward an imaginary line in the pavement. I almost make his stop bar, but am off by a few inches. He ribs me good-naturedly.
The fog is now completely worn off, and sunlight streams into the morning with a benevolent force that warms everyone’s mood. The wide spaces of Aurora recede into a baby blue sky, and here and there an airplane’s contrails carve out a path of travel, a roomful of lives up there, traveling a world away.
“We must be getting old,” the wheelchair says to the lady up front. “Oh, don’t say that!” I say. I know they’re talking about me. We all laugh, and they continue their conversation, with me intermittently joining in. The two of them know each other. The mood is that of a relaxing Saturday morning, in a living room with no worries: pure, quiet joy on a half-full bus. A benevolent sleeper nods into himself behind me, emitting a pungent odor that keeps us awake. Nine hours later I would see him again at the stop where he’s about to get off, still wandering around in a pleasant daze.
Into the microphone: “All right, let’s make a stop at 165th here. This is our first stop for THS. Guys have a good one, be safe today.”
“I’ve never heard a driver call out THS before,” the wheelchair says.
“Hey, it’s where we’re goin’,” I say. There’s good people everywhere, methadone or no methadone.
At 185th it’s the man with big glasses and turquoise shorts again. I ask him if that 301 worked out. It did. He needs the lift, and starts to say “Sorry.”
“Oh, don’t apologize! That’s why it’s here, man. I like using the lift!”
There’s no reason this guy should be apologizing for wanting the lift. It only takes a minute. I hope other drivers haven’t been giving him a hard time, but all I can do is offer him a comfortable space, here, now. We do what we can in the series of moments called life.
My last inbound trip of the day, at 5 p.m., is like what all the other trips of the day have been like—busy, loud, involving, and invigorating. It’s my last day at North Base, and I feel blessed to have been assigned double shifts on the 358. Why would I want to do anything else? Every trip has been a dream, and I work through the day in a mild state of wonder—how is everything so perfect? Moment after moment, snowballing on top of each other, an endless collection of slices of life, helping people, answering questions, rockin’ the lift, making my goodbyes to departing regulars.
On a route like this there is so much being asked of you, all at once, and when you can perform at that level and not only stay above water, but excel, even if just barely—here is the exhilaration of a six-minute mile.
Jim, a passenger, and myself, talking ferries, commuting, and Korea, where a friend of his lives; Willy, a daily commuter who wishes me well with a generosity that floors me; Kevin, going out of his way to come to the bus and say goodbye. He didn’t even need to ride that day. They and so many others walk into the disappearing twilight, fading into the humming morass of the human collective. The very last trip is one of those Twilight Zone runs with no passengers, and I spend it reflecting goodness I’ve been able to be a part of. The humanity of a person who takes that moment to smile, or nod, or speak as he comes up the steps; these actions may not make us a better person, but they bring out the good we already possess. It’s been a long, huge day stuffed with all the above and more, a collection of “small” interactions that makes me marvel at how I’m so lucky as to experience all of this. It is one of the best days, ever, and this post does it only a paltry justice.
At the end of the day I look down at my bundle of transfers. I usually save one and scribble notes on it if it’s been a particularly great day. Today, I have no words. I walk back to the base and try to live in the memory of all of it, savoring the joyous cacophony of the day in my head. The parking lot is quiet. Up above is another plane, its contrails perfectly straight against the rich, deep blue.
Three years ago, we met up with then-21-year-old Metro bus operator Nathan Vass, who was already a minor Seattle celebrity for making it fun to ride his bus. You could tell from that profile —“Here We Go!” Riding with Metro Operator Nathan Vass— that he thought about driving a bus deeply, in ways most of us don’t, but we didn’t know then that he was a writer, filmmaker, and photographer as well.
Besides blogging (The View from Nathan’s Bus), he’s got a photography show coming up, opening June 13 at Blindfold Gallery (1718 East Olive Way). See more of his photography here.
Below, we’re reprinting his envoi to the 358 bus route, which has an outsized reputation as one of Metro’s rowdiest — if not outright violent — lines. We thought it might be instructive to see it through Nathan’s eyes and ears.
(Photo: Nathan Vass)
Special to The SunBreak by Nathan Vass
I always pull up early when starting an inbound trip at Aurora Village. There’s something nice about sitting there with the doors open, in prep mode, while people get on and situate themselves. I can recall a time on the 5 bus at Shoreline Community College when it was magical—or at least I thought it was magical—as I hung around at the front while students intermittently wandered on and relaxed after taxing their brains in biochemistry class. It conjured up the sensation of a long trip, not unlike boarding a plane and getting settled in with your book or coffee.
Since then I do it whenever it’s appropriate, typically on a route that starts at a transit center. Spring is on its way, not quite here yet, and the days are lighter. I’m scribbling on a scrap of paper on my knee, making thoughts concrete. It’s around 8 a.m., gray with light fog, and here’s a young black man, dressed like he just applied for Exeter, running breathlessly up to my bus. Behind fashionably thick-frame black glasses, he asks how long before I leave.
“Seven minutes,” I respond. He asks if it’s okay if he leaves his backpack onboard while he smokes a cigarette. Certainly.
Then, unprompted, he talks about how running in the wind “hurts my eyes, dogg, gets all in my eyes,” with an expression of severe pain. I say, “Yeah, me too. It’s like being on a bicycle, where after a while, your ears become sensitive from all that wind blasting in.”
He looks at me with incredible surprise—”YEAH!”—as though we’d uncovered one of life’s great secrets.
“What are you writing?” he asks me.
Now, in truth, what I’m writing is a blog post. I don’t say that, though. “Oh, I’m just workin’ out some stuff in my head, you know, figuring out my thoughts.”
He explodes with a “Yes, I do that too!” We riff on the benefits of clearing the mind.
“I write about my feelin’s,” he says loudly and boldly, without embarrassment. Something about his sincerity makes me forget to laugh.
The fascination amongst youth culture with being “cool”—that is, with being aloof, askance, steeped in irony, experience and cynicism—bores me immensely. Coolness is defined by jazz historian Ted Gioia as “putting up a guard.” Honest, open communication takes a backseat to a posturing and a preoccupation with trends and surfaces. It’s the opposite of letting down your guard, which is a prerequisite to any sort of meaningful relationship.
This kid is not being cool. He’s being genuine. He wears his words on his sleeve, not in the least worried if he sounds silly as he says, “If I’m feelin’ angry, I write about it. If I’m feelin’ sad, I sit down and write about it. I get the pencil out and jus’ get it all down on the paper.”
“’Cause then your thoughts are concrete.”
“Exactly, man. Inside your head it’s all swirling around, and it’s hard to think. But you get the pen out, and it makes everything better. ‘Cause sometimes you can be confused, but when you write about it, you look at it real, and it all makes sense, you’ve taken like this big jumble and unraveled into one long thing, and you can look at it and understand it. You wanna know what you’re feeling, can’t have all that runnin’ around inside your head. You go crazy sometimes. I don’t like that. Tha’s why I write. Doesn’t matter what I’m feelin,’ what’s goin’ on, I write about it. I write about everything. I could be writing about that guy crossin’ the street. I got so many journals stacked up—”
He’s standing awkwardly at the front, not sitting in the chat seat, which is available. I’m held so rapt by his monologue that I don’t suggest that he sit in the chat seat, for fear of losing his conversation. We’re driving by now, passing 185th. A man with big glasses and turquoise shorts asks about downtown, and I suggest the 301.
I ask my standing friend, “What kinda stuff you been writing about? What do you wanna do?”
“I wanna go to Edmonds. But that’s jus’ part of the plan. I’m gonna be a film producer. I’m gonna make my own movies. I know a businessman in Chicago, he gave me his card. I know two businessmen. They’re gonna teach me about notes. That’s like stocks, keepin’ track of the money. I wanna be a film producer with my own company, where I act in the movie, I direct the movie, I produce the movie, I do music for the movie, it’s gonna be a one-man show but I gotta be trained. First I gotta learn about stocks and mutual funds, then I have enough to open my own restaurant, use that money to do that, then after the restaurant, I have enough money to make a small film, then after that movie blow up, I bankroll another film on top of that film using the profits—”
“Reinvesting.”
“Hell yeah,” he agrees. “Step by step. Can’t get right into film production now, I gotta, it’s gotta be a process.”
I want to rein this in a little. “Tell me about the restaurant. What kind you gonna open?”
He’s still standing right behind me, behind the yellow line, filled with enthusiasm.
“Fried chicken,” he blurts out, after consideration. Then he relents and reconsiders. “No, man. Ribs. I’m gonna open a ribs barbecue! You know, a real barbecue joint. Everybody gonna come.” Then a blight on his smiling face as he realizes: “They a lot of vegetarians nowadays though.” The guy looks almost depressed. I try to encourage him. “Tons of people like ribs. Always gonna be people eating ribs,” I say in a consoling voice. “Everybody likes barbecue.”
But he’s not discouraged anyway: “Maybe I can get them to give up vegetarian though. Like, they’ll come in—exactly, everybody like barbecue. They gon’ come in, it gonna be so good, my barbecue gonna be so good, they’ll try it and maybe start eating ribs again. Maybe give up veg. I’m gonna go sit down. What’s your name? It’s a pleasure talking.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if this was his ordinary way of talking—flitting from topic to topic with unbridled honesty and bursting naïveté; was his an attitude that will hold, or will he look different in twenty years? I like when what little cynicism I have is proven wrong.
At 155th, we have an older Caucasian man with a cane moving with dexterity across the street. Jaywalking on Aurora is a life-or-death proposition that I’ve seen end badly. “Don’t hurt yourself out here, man. Be careful. That kinda stuff scares me.”
“Thanks,” he says, noticing and registering my appearance. “Howyoudoingtoday?”
Sometimes you can feel someone making a conscious decision to engage.
“I’m great, how ’bout yourself?”
“Huimdoowinpittyguh (I’m doing pretty good),” he says, in a tone of complete surprise, as though he hadn’t realized this until I’d asked him. “Ahainnevaseenyoubeefa,” he slurs out. He’s intelligible, but only just barely. I’m able to discern that he’s speaking English, and from someone else’s perspective, we must look quite the pair—one man making a series of garbled transmissions, and the other responding excitedly in normal English. We chat about my take on the route, and his childhood in Cherry Heights (Cherry Hill). It’s like speaking a secret language. You can hardly understand him, but—you can. I resist the urge to speak in his voice.
“Mahcaseworker’sfemale.”
“Is that so?”
“Yuh.”
“She lookin’ out for ya?”
“Oh, yeah. Shetellmeputthemsocksonmyfeet.”
“Sounds like she knows what’s up!”
The fog is beginnning to burn off, and sunlight wafts onto his face. There is light everywhere. I want to faint at how beautiful it is. Warm, incandescent tones make new shapes on people’s faces, and shadows grow where there were none before. At 135th I look down the open expanse, between the tawdry landscape of K-Mart and Krispy Kreme, and the beauty of the light floors me.
“Look at that light,” I can’t help but say. The fog gives depth to the space, a stillness filled with possibility. Albertson’s never looked so good. I’m never sure if non-artists are into this kind of thing, but this oldster is.
“Yeauissbeeayophu.”
“Aenissgehhenwauhmatoo,” he adds through bleary eyes. “Nawssoko enimo.”
“You said it. I’ll take every degree I can get!”
“That’s a good-lookin’ crockpot,” I say to lady carrying a good-looking crockpot at 130th.
Somewhere further down the road, perhaps at 100th, Will.i.am, the rapper, or at least his doppelganger, gets on. “Uh oh, whaaattt? Not the lil’ kid again,” he laughs.
“They can’t get rid a me!”
“Hot diggity dog. You guys best be checkin’ for this boy’s ID,” he announces to the rest of the bus.
The trick is not to assert yourself over non-issues. Flow with the people, not against them, a driver once told me when I was new. Thus:
“Oh, you know I got my learners permit!”
“Learner’s permit,” he laughs.
“Yeah, you know they’re desperate to hire people. Recruiting straight outta junior high school.”
“Straight outta junior high school!” Repeating it for effect.
“I should be at home doin’ chores! Gettin’ my homework done!”
He’s cracking up at the seams, laughing. We amiably continue. I see faces in the mirror, quiet but smiling. Somehow it comes out that I’m from L.A. Sometimes people can tell by the way I find myself speaking sometimes. It happens without my realizing it. Shades of an earlier life, creeping out.
“You from L.A?” he asks.
“I am!”
“What part?”
“South Gate,” I reply.
“That’s the ’hood, man.”
“It is.”
“Yeah, that’s the hood. South Gate. SG.”
We laugh. Nobody calls it SG. It’s a parody of sorts of “CP,” the designation for the neighboring area, Compton.
“Yeah, there’s a driver friend a mine, Jerome, he also from down there.”
“You know Jerome!” I say, becoming animated. I love Jerome. He has the character and patience to pick the 358 five days a week, and still be happy. I relieve him three days a week, and he’s one of the best.
“Yeah! Jerome’s awesome.”
“Man, South Gate. That’s where Cypress Hill from, aren’t they?
“I believe so.”
“They closed down that Maplewood Police Department!”
“So where you from?
“L.A. too! ’Course I am, how you think I know about the Maplewood Police?”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“I was there, and I was up in San Gabriel for a while. The other SG.”
“‘The other SG’! Oh, that’s great. I ain’ never it called that before!” We’re both rolling around in the aisles—metaphorically, of course.
“What hospital you born in?” he asks.
“I forget the name, it was in downtown L.A. It was a Korean name, Korean hospital, probably why I forget the name. My mom’s Korean.”
“Really?” Surprised. “You Korean?”
Slurring guy says, “YoulookEnglish!”
“What?” I say, turning around. “I look English?” I haven’t heard that one. I’ve heard Hawaiian, Mexican, Middle Eastern, but—English?!
“Yeahthedarkhairyeah,” he explains. This explanation is news to me. How had I not known that the English are identifiable by their hair color?
“You don’t look Korean,” Will.i.am says.
“Shoot! I gotta work on that!”
“In downtown L.A., man. ‘Cause I useta live off a Vermont Ave.”
“Yeah, I used to take the old 204 up and down Vermont—”
And that’s in Koreatown, ’a course, and I was wonderin’ if maybe it was over there.”
“Yeah, I used to hang around over there. I’d go over to the art museum at Wilshire and Fairfax….” You find solidarity talking about mundane things with someone from a common origin. There’s no other reason to get excited about talking bus service on Vermont Avenue, but we sure are.
“Yeah, by the tar pits.”
“Yeah, the tar pits. And the mammoth statues. ‘Miracle Mile.'”
“Yeah, Miracle Mile.”
“Though I ain’t never seen no miracles happen there!”
“Hey, don’t give up the faith! One day one a them woolly mammoths is gonna come alive—”
“And that sabertooth tiger!”
“Yeah, so I speak Korean but I’m not fluent.”
“Koombaya heenghow,” he says in an Asian voice.
“Oh, I see you speak it fluent, too!”
Faces laughing.
“Man, everyone wants to go to work today,” I say, noticing the bus filling up.
“Yeah, its Friday, can’t nobody call in sick. You gotta go to work.”
“Thats right. You gotta have some nerve to do that. These are the good people, they didn’t play hooky at all, even though it’s nice out!”
“Alright man, I wanna see a driver’s license nex’ week,” he says as he leaves. We’re at 45th now.
“I’m a do my best!”
At this point a Caucasian man in nondescript west-coast office wear comes up from the back to join me in the chat seat. He says nothing.
“How’s your morning goin’?”
“Quite well.”
“Off to a good start.”
“Talk about a beautiful day.”
“Yeah, usually I bike in, but I had a flat tire.”
“Minor detail!”
I ask how far of a ride his commute normally is.
“I come in from around 145th.”
“You bike in from 145th?? Where are you going?”
“I work in South Lake Union.”
“Wow. Wow. That’s a ride. Especially going home. Those hills!”
We talk about hills, and then I ask, “What kind of work do you do, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Research.”
“Excellent. Staying productive. In what field?”
“Tuberculosis.”
“A worthy cause. Do you like it?”
“Yeah,” he answers half-heartedly. “Sometimes you run into issues with funding. We’re government funded—”
“Ooohh.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you ever run into issues where the source of funding is determinate on the types of results you’re being asked to produce?”
“That’s exactly it, it’s coming from a source that wants something specific, and we have to tailor to their needs.”
“They might have an agenda.”
“Precisely.”
“And the nature and trajectory of the research gets influenced by that?”
This is a major issue in multiple fields of scientific research, and we discuss it further. What’s invigorating about this is the complete and instantaneous switch in gears from animatedly engaging with Will.i.am on subjects like undead woolly mammoths and riffing on being underage, to animatedly engaging with this learned gentleman about dilemmas in academia. I’m equally fascinated by the undercurrents of both, and it’s a thrill to move so quickly from one to the other.
I have much respect for educated people who meet others on an equal plane, and feel no need to foist their learnedness on them; implicit in this approach is the acknowledgement that no matter how smart one is, one can always discover more, from anyone, as long as one is receptive. As Da Vinci said, “Every man is my teacher, in that I may learn from him.”
I aspire for this mental framework. It’s why I get so much out of not just Researching Tuberculosis Man, but also Slur and Will.i.am, and even I Write About My Feelin’s Guy. It doesn’t matter if he’s naive or younger. He’s had life experiences I have not had. I can get something out of the interaction.
I wish Researching Tuberculosis Man a pleasant day at work, and then Real Change Willy comes over for a high-five at Denny Way. It feels good to straddle both worlds. I can feel the commuters thinking, Who the heck is this guy driving this bus?
A homeless woman with a walker and warm pink hat gets off from her trip to THS. I ask her if she finished her Harlan Coben book—that’s what she had last time.
“Yeah, finally. Took me forever,” she sighs. “I didn’t like it at all.” She has a new novel under her arm now, one of those sci-fi apocalyptic types. I didn’t used to know homeless people read Harlan Coben. Now I do.
At Wall a group of excited high-school age girls get on, headed for the Amtrak. They have their luggage ready for a long trip. It’s clear buses are not their usual mode of transport; the dynamic changes a little when bus newbies are onboard. You and your bus, for them, are representing all of Metro. I enjoy ushering them into a friendly 358 atmosphere.
The crockpot lady from 130th, who is Caucasian, gets out at Columbia, and says thanks in Korean: “Khamsahamnida!”
I get excited—”Chumuneyo!”
“Neh!”
“Ahnyunghekahseyo!”
“Ahnyunghekehseyo!”
Mid-morning light streams into the bus, making everything new. I ask the girls where they’re going. They’re headed for Los Angeles, and it’s going to take 35 hours! I don’t know why I’m so excited, but I am. They’re from Canada. We talk about the ticket prices, and whether they’ve been before. The noises are animated, our voices popping with a verve that comes from who knows where. At the end of the line I sigh with pleasure. It’s been a good trip.
NASA is very excited about catching glimpses of two X-class solar flares: “Active Region 1429 has been shooting off flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) since it rotated into Earth’s view on March 2, 2012. Two X-class flare have been released overnight, an X1.3 and an X5.4.” The X5.4 is the second largest flare since 2007, following an X6.9 on August 9, 2011.
The Washington Post answers the question of “Why should I, the reader, care? What does the sun have to do with my life?”:
After hurtling through space for a day and a half, a massive cloud of charged particles is due to arrive early Thursday and could disrupt utility grids, airline flights, satellite networks and GPS services, especially in northern areas.
Alaska is set for “extreme auroras,” but depending on how the clouds come and go above Seattle, we might be able to see the glow as well. The show is supposed to begin around 10:30 p.m. PST tonight, and Thursday evening should offer another chance, too. Meteorologist Cliff Mass is pessimistic: “skies around here are no longer clear…we are getting considerable high clouds coming around the offshore ridge.” We actually just got an auroral show–if you missed it, KOMO 4 TV has got your back.
Now for the horrifying part: Will this really impact Netflix during prime late-night streaming hours? The storm could affect satellites, we know that. And really, what doesn’t impact Netflix? They are really the worst, aren’t they? My advice is simply to be ready with emergency DVD back-up. Be prudent.
Aurora Avenue is the most maligned road in Seattle. For a simple street, it takes an enormous amount of public criticism, belittling, and outright outrage from nearly all comers. Adjectives like “seedy” and “grimy” are thrown around with abandon. Even Bremerton Mayor Cary Bozeman suggested Seattle should plant trees to “block off the visual garbage” of Aurora (apparently, he forgot he was the mayor of Bremerton–mayor heal thyself).
I suspect that Aurora, or HWY 99, is criticized by people that rarely go there. And that’s a shame, because for many of us, for many reasons, Aurora is an important part of life in this city, an essential corridor that, frankly, looks and feels the way it does because that’s the way it ought to look and feel.
If you really want to understand Aurora, you need to get out and drive on it, casually. Since Aurora is a major commuting thoroughfare, it’s easy to drive past the various buildings and businesses and just flat out ignore them. So consider going there not on an errand or a commute, but as an interested spectator. Only then will you see this street as the important part of the city it is.
Start north at 145th, the city’s northern limits, and head south. Right away, you can see why Aurora takes the verbal blows over and over. There is very little visual beauty in the architecture. Mostly you see small businesses that are in buildings that have been built in different eras, for different reasons. There is little architectural charm from 145th to 137th, but there should be familiarity. Most of America’s highways look just like this with light industry and strip malls.
Most of the industries and businesses on Aurora are niche endeavors that probably have low margins. These kinds of businesses can’t afford the major rent prices in other parts of Seattle. Businesses like the Sports Card Exchange, Aurora Plumbing and Electric Supply, and a muffler shop. Aurora is where they can afford to be and if you want, or need, their services, wouldn’t you rather go there than drive to Lynnwood or Woodinville or Bothell?
Just south past 137th, you are in the ‘big box’ section of HWY 99. Big box retail needs a lot of space, and in Seattle space is limited. So from 137th to 105th you have Lowes, Home Depot, Sam’s Club, Kmart, and Grocery Outlet. You also have stores like the St. Vincent DePaul Thrift Store and PriceCo, a store that sells furniture, appliances and items made by at-risk youths as part of their treatment and rehab. Sales at the store support Welcome Home, a long-term recovery residence where troubled men and women get help to renter society. Next-door, there is the Dollar Store.
Put all these stores together and you quickly see that Aurora is a great place to save a buck.
Dotted along the way are multiple auto parts stores, auto body shops and auto repair businesses. Auto maintenance is part of the daily life cycle of a city. It’s critical that our vehicles be repaired. However, as our city grows, as housing needs expand, these businesses are being pushed out of our Seattle. Many similar businesses used to dot South Lake Union, but as that neighborhood gentrifies, rents increase and small businesses move out. Aurora, and parts of Lake City Way, are the last stand for such businesses in North Seattle. And do you really want to drive, or have your car towed, to Shoreline when it needs repair?
Aurora is also a great place to get a donut. Aurora Donut and Krispy Kreme are here between 135th and 125th.
Or, you could decide to spend eternity on Aurora. Just south of 120th, Evergreen Washelli straddles HWY 99 and provides a lovely green patch in the urban cityscape. A slow drive through here is always advised, in particular to view the lovely veteran’s cemetery at the far south border of the property on the western side of 99. Here, a lovely sculpture of a World War I soldier, entitled The Doughboy, stands sentinel over rows of simple white tombstones that honor our veterans. Created by sculptor Alonzo Victor Lewis in 1921, it was originally in front of the old Veteran’s Hall on the Seattle Center campus but was moved in 1998 when McCaw Hall was built. This statue alone is worth a stop at the cemetery.
Coming out of the southern end of Evergreen Washelli, you are faced with the section of Aurora that probably draws the most slings and arrows of disdain. Here you can see more auto shops and more light industry. But there are also institutions like Cyndy’s House of Pancakes, which has been rumored to be closing but is still serving the hot cakes. And Quiring Monuments is a few blocks on. We don’t often think about the need for purchasing a headstone, but, believe me, when you have lost a loved one, it’s a service that you must have and the people there are gifted and kind and damn it, it’s a service we simply must have.
On the southeast corner of 105th sits a now-vacant building that touches on the financial importance and impact of this mother road. Built in the late 1970s, this simple square building is a barometer of our times. In the 1970s they sold waterbeds here, in the 1980s they sold futons, in the 1990s and 2000s it was a check-cashing establishment. What it becomes next will say a lot about who we are in 2011.
A little farther South, you can still eat a burger and fries on a tray hooked to your car window at the Burgermaster. It’s the last of a dying breed (there used to be a second Burgermaster farther south just past Woodland Park that is, alas, long gone).
Across the street is a business that you only know about when you need it, and then you thank heaven it’s there. W.L. May Company is an appliance parts store. All those fancy, stainless appliances we all have or want, break down now and then. And this store, this one store, is where every appliance store in town sends you for parts. If this store front didn’t exist here, you’d have to drive to Southcenter or Lynnwood if your dishwasher needed a particular hose, tray or drain.
And this more than anything is what I love about Aurora. It’s places like this that have those low profit margins, but add so much to the value of living in Seattle. There are hundreds of businesses like this on Aurora. You have been to one of them, one of them has been valuable to you. There’s nothing seedy about needing a futon or an appliance part or a shirt from a thrift store.
Driving on, you pass the most beautiful part of the Aurora experience: Green Lake and Woodland Park. Like Evergreen Washelli, this is a lovely green and open space in the heart of our city. Look fast to the east at the north end of Woodland Park and you’ll see bocce ball courts built by the WPA in the 1930s. A few years ago, Veer Lofts, a swank new condo building in SLU, touted its bocce ball court as a exciting, new rush for the hipsters. Sorry Veer Lofts marketing and PR teams, they’ve been tossing bocce balls at Woodland Park for 80 years. They were hip when SLU looked, well, like most of Aurora.
Now on the journey you run into the most common business on Aurora, and the one that is most troublesome.
From the 1920s to the 1960s, as Seattle’s car culture grew, HWY 99 was the main road in and out of the city. As such, it became a service center for travelers. Aurora is packed with motels, more, in fact, than any other part of Seattle.
There are three generations of motels on Aurora. The earliest date from the 1930s, when people first started venturing out on long road trips on mother roads like Route 66. The Klose-In Motel, with its distinctive green and yellow sign, is an excellent example of the first generation of motels.
The next generation of motels you see, and by far the most prevalent, are motels from the 1960s. Seattle’s World’s Fair brought crowds and prosperity to Seattle. Tourism increased. The ascendancy of Boeing and Nordstrom meant salesmen and new employees coming to town. All these groups needed easy,affordable and temporary housing.
As Seattle continued to grow, modern motels like Travel Lodge and Holiday Inn Express have moved in.
But the growth of this business brings us to the one, undeniably seedy part of life on Aurora: prostitution.
No article on Aurora can ignore this corridor’s relationship to the sex trade. The availability of so many inexpensive motel rooms encouraged their use on an hourly basis. Motel owners turned their heads, pocketed the money and the cycle has gone on for years.
Those inexpensive motel rooms also are serving another purpose. About half the motels on Aurora are now serving as low-cost housing, where residents pay weekly. As the city council debates homeless camps, the more insidious problem is the lack of affordable housing for minimum wage or hourly workers. Again, Aurora is serving a vital need in this community, but in this case a sad one.
Both of these two issues are coming to an ugly head and fast. Aurora, particularly from 85th street down to the George Washington Memorial Bridge (a.k.a Aurora Bridge), is gentrifying. Already, new construction condos are crowding in all the way up to 145th at the north to the bridge, but it’s mostly happening closer to the bridge.
Motels like the old Aloha and Thunderbird are closed and boarded up and covered in graffiti. The Thunderbird, at least, still has its magnificent sign. Their demolition was no doubt delayed by the recession, but more condos will soon crowd this stretch of the highway to the point where you will be driving through canyons of glass.
And that may not be such a bad thing. Seattle is growing; people need places to live. Urban density (oh, how 2007 that phrase is) demands that low-lying small businesses must give way to high-rise mixed-use buildings. Businesses are forced out by the rapidly rising value of the land. A huge condo building is worth more money than, well, let’s say Green Lake Games at 7509 Aurora where they sell, believe it or not, board games and role-playing games.
So the question is, what matters more to the diversity of life in this city? On one side you have a board game retail store, appliance parts stores, a muffler shop and hundreds of other businesses. On the other hand, you have mixed-use high-rise development. And the change from one to the other is happening fast, recession or not. Lake City Way past 80th, Aurora, parts of 35th Avenue NE is about all that’s left for small, light industry businesses north of the cut.
To me, Aurora isn’t a seedy dive, it’s a vital part of life in this city. It’s Über Tavern, a lawmower store, bike shops, pawn-shops, a family business that makes headstones. These are things that we all need to have at one time or another, and we are better for having them here, in the city, rather than someplace far away.
For now, I’m all about that burger, fries, and a shake served on a tray slung over my driver seat window. I love life on Seattle’s Mother Road.
