THESE TIMES

Walking the mean city streets of Seattle

Kirk Ericson | Jun 01, 20230

This is what I saw and what I heard.

Two young men, who appeared to be in their mid-20s, were exceedingly drunk, judging from their muttering and their full use of the sidewalk's width to accommodate their lateral staggers.

I was maybe 30 steps away, walking toward them. It was 10:30 on a Thursday night, May 18, and I was a quarter-mile from my son's apartment at the north end of Green Lake. I was at the end of a 5-mile walk from South Lake Union. Sanctuary was at hand and no one was around but we three.

That morning, 12 hours earlier, I had walked from my son's Green Lake place to The Seattle Times building on Boren Avenue in downtown. The Times doesn't have free parking for part-timers like me, so I parked at my boy's place, for free, and walked to work. I like walking and I like not paying for parking.

My southerly course took me along Green Lake. The trail was bracketed by blossoms, mostly rhododendrons. It was sunny and I was happy. I said "good morning" to passersby, even people who wouldn't hear me over their earbuds. I got onto Aurora Avenue near Woodland Park Zoo and walked along, stopping midspan on the Aurora Bridge.

To the right were the Olympics, to the left the Cascades. Several stories below was the channel that leads west from Lake Union to the sea. You could see most of Seattle from that vantage, and it was stunning - white and brown mountains, blue skies, green hills, the sundecks of houseboats below, a seaplane landing on the lake. I continued, walking along Westlake, where I saw a homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk, my only sighting on that walk.

I was a minute late to work. I finished at 9:15 p.m. and walked north, this time along Eastlake. I crossed Portage Bay on the University Bridge, walked up Roosevelt Way to Ravenna Boulevard and then onto East Green Lake Drive.

Here's an interesting fact taken from 2021 figures provided by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs and the U.S. Census: You are more likely to be slain in Shelton than in Seattle.

In 2021, Shelton had a population of 10,763 people. One person was the victim of a homicide that year, which makes Shelton's homicide rate 9.4 per 100,000 people.

In 2021, Seattle's population was 733,919. It had 42 homicides that year, making Seattle's homicide rate 5.7 per 100,000 people.

Who woulda thunk?

The next morning, I walked more ... the University of Washington campus, Ravenna Park, the Arboretum. Because Seattle has nearly 400 parks, solitude can be found in this city.

I crossed to another side of town. I parked at South Massachusetts Street and Rainier Avenue South, near two burned-out businesses, usually a reliable indicator of urban decay. I started walking.

I counted five cranes working on four multistory, mixed-use apartment buildings in a two-block area. I walked by an apartment building with people hanging out on the sidewalk. I approached, touched the bill of my cap and said, "Morning." A guy in a wheel said, "What's up, bro?" and gave me a thumbs-up.

I talked to a fellow who had just gotten off his job installing sprinkler systems in those new apartment buildings. He was leaning against a wall along the sidewalk, smoking a cigarette. We chatted about his job and the monthly rent in those places, and I asked whether I could bum a smoke. He handed me his pack and I saw just one cigarette.

"I can't take your last cigarette," I said, handing the pack back. "It's OK," he replied, pushing the pack back. "I know where to get more."

I walked on, seeing a sign pointing to Jimi Hendrix Park, so I turned up the hill and checked that out. I spent time in the reading room of the Northwest African American Museum, near the sculpture honoring Hendrix.

I drove to Capitol Hill, parking my car a block from Cal Anderson Park, the epicenter of the 2020s riots ignited by the murder of George Floyd. The mood this day was un-riotous. Scores of people were lying and sitting on the turf in the sunshine, talking, listening to music, eating, laughing. The trash talk on the basketball court had no edge to it.

It was a picture of urban civility that rarely makes the TV news. Imagine hearing this from your screen: "Breaking news alert bulletin! People getting along!"

As I neared those two reeling drunk boys that Thursday night near Green Lake, I straightened my spine, touched the brim of my cap and said, with a slight British accent, "Good evening, gents."

The two straighten their own postures and steadied their forward motion, managing several straight-line steps toward me. Once we passed on that warm Seattle night, they resumed their staggering ways.

What a lovely city.