by Chuck Foster - Issue 62

I stumbled into The Stumbling Monk a few years ago to find a flyer on the bar for a “Free Haunted House” at a place strangely titled, The Hidden Mangrove. It was All Hallow’s Eve, my first on the Hill. Of course I was looking for a party, as those that live on the Hill often do. We’re a younger bunch, sharing space, renting, going to college, waiting tables, dreaming of fortune. Fate demanded that I ask the bartender on duty if he was familiar with the place. With a quiet chuckle he put me and my gal on the not-so hidden path to the Mangrove.

That’s the beauty of neighborhood, the close-nit community that supports each other. The owner, Rob, who was and still is an active bartender at The Monk, could have banned the Mangrove flyer from his establishment. He didn’t. He offered his customers the freedom to choose another place for drinks and good times other than his own. Instead of staying at the Monk and contributing to Rob’s wealth and future retirement we left for this “Hidden Mangrove” in the darkness of Capitol Hill.

We found ourselves in front of a mammoth Mangrove, where all sorts of oddities dangled from its limbs. In the same fashion, people hung from the porch, smoking cigarettes and drinking beverages from red plastic cups. At any moment I expected some crazy fucker to come outside and bash a guitar against the wall or drive a motorcycle up the stairs through the door. It was an Animal’s house, or so it appeared from a street’s glance. As we walked in I wondered what Alice would do if she had stumbled upon this alternate world in the Rabbit Hole... would she flee or move in?

Immediately it felt like home. I knew I was welcome to sleep on the floor, if need be, to avoid Johnny’s long arm tossing my drunk ass in a cold cell. Not a person in the house stared when we entered, nor did they when I poured a 70-30 drink of whiskey from a table of booze. When I dropped that drink moments later, one of the residents kicked the shattered remains under the table and poured this drunk bastard another. That was The Hidden Mangrove, on at least one occasion. I could go on with tales of bliss, abandoned weird friends, and community, but it would be pointless as the mangrove is being cut down. Some, like myself, blame the yuppie invasion for its death.

As tragic as the Mangrove story is, development is inevitable. Just as much, a person’s right, or dare I say freedom, to purchase and sell real estate for profit is expected under our twisted sense of capitalism. But something far more cynical lurks in the shadows of America, disguised by our city officials as progress. Many, like myself, identify the root of this new evil called “progress” as stemming from suburban America, where the yuppies flocked to avoid the filth and danger of city life decades ago. The infrastructure of federal freeways back in the 50s created plenty of cheap land and opportunities for investors to profit as long as they could bring people from the cities to the sticks. That they did, with mass-produced housing and Wal-Marts and strip malls full of city luxury without city danger. What happened to the cities? Their population shrunk and schools closed. The poor and middle class were left to fend for themselves.

That was the trend as little as twenty years ago. I use “trend” as it’s the best term to describe the actions of yuppies. They’re trendy fuckers. As defined by Wikipedia, they are “upwardly mobile professionals” who date back as far as the late 60s, leading critics to label them as “young climbers” who “confuse change with growth”. In another reference to yuppies Wikipedia mentions Theresa Kersten of The Wall Street Journal, who felt a “yuppie backlash” from readers who were offended by her thoughts that yuppies were “a class of people who put off having families so they can make payments on the BMWs.” That and “To be a Yuppie is to be a loathsome undesirable creature”.

Middle class and poor America have never cared much for this group of people, mostly created by the 80s’ credit market, not real wealth. They’re fake, scenesters, posers, trendy. They’re the “sheep” that many notable writers have spoken of. Their identity and purchasing power is directly related to what corporate America stuffs down their throat. They’re the Gap, MTV, the idiots who fall for “Reality TV”. Obviously I don’t care much for this group of people. Once again, this rant isn’t about the death of The Mangrove or my sourness for yuppies, but their direct link to the gentrification of this city and every other city across this nation.

Let’s start with the concept that this “invasion” is directly related to the suburbans and their newfound desire to return to the city. They left cities for cheaper living, safety, quietness and cleaner living. Let’s start with cheaper living and even the new trendy “Green” movement. The recent housing bubble mixed with excessive condo development in the city has certainly contributed to this invasion. Their suburban investments paid off; a $200,000 home from 1980 is now worth about triple that. Money was made, but these fuckers aren’t rich, regardless of first impressions. Many are still ass-deep in credit debt. So the high price of the commute is certainly another figure in their decision to return to the city. That and an unavoidable guilt brought about by corporate media’s biggest distraction, global warming. They want to become “Green” and drive less. Not that global warming isn’t a serious issue but while we fight to save the world from greenhouse gasses we might witness something far worse in the bloodshed, our freedom slipping away to fascism. How great will this world really be if it lives and humanity dies?

Development, meaning investments or “progress” as politicians like to call it, needs tenants. This is where our elected officials apply grease to the wheels of big business. It’s nothing new nor unthought by most Americans. Here in Seattle the grease has been so heavily applied to Vulcan Inc. alone that it’s a fucking wonder we’re not all crawling on our hands and knees to keep from busting our asses on the oil-slick pavement. $25,000,000 of taxpayer funds going to S.L.U.T., Paul Allen’s South Lake Union Trolley, is an outrage. Are we tax payers foolish enough to believe that this was an investment in the city and its future, that it had anything at all to do with tourism? We failed to see or care one that it was nothing more than a marketing tool for Allen’s project. We should have stormed his office and torched the fucker. None of us did. Instead we smiled, made some stupid fucking T-shirts and took pictures. That’s frightening. Mostly because it’s a yuppie’s mentality.

As block after block falls, what these fuckers fail to notice is the loss of “mom and pop” businesses. The destruction of the 500 block of Capital Hill was the death for many local shops like Music Werks and Kincora Pub. We pass posters of “Land Use” actions with little or no thought, only to complain when our independent coffee house or second-hand store is replaced by corporate outlets like Kinkos and Subway and Starbucks. Independents are forced out of the prime locations and sent on their shitty, poor way due to “progress”, meaning higher taxes and increased rent for the same piece of property.

The condos have been built, and will be sold and filled by many of these yuppie transplants. How does this effect the face of the city and bring about a gentrification? Perhaps the most recent example of it in this city is the new tougher “Nightlife Ordinance” that the mayor and city council want passed. Yuppies buy these overpriced condos never thinking of the businesses located around their new neighborhood. With Seattle being a city with a strong nightlife, many times they are located next to clubs that have live music and/or late night DJs. Now these fuckers are whining about the noise, the music, the type of people who attend and then stand outside and smoke, where the same yuppie bastards put them in the first place with the nonsmoking ordinance. All they want, as one new condo dweller told the city council is “Peace and quiet in an urban setting...” That, and for local businesses to pay for daily trash pick up on top of what the city provides. A recent PI article from July 2007 by Kerry Murakami covers three yuppie transplants from the suburbs, one who left his yard behind because he was “tired” of keeping up his lawn. The proposed fees to maintain this program would cost small businesses in the Belltown area about $3,000 to $4,000 a year. This amount may be pocket change to these yuppies, but for many small business owners it causes cuts in staff if not closure.

It’s a selfish mind-frame these fuckers bring with them. They march in and start making demands, attempting to make city life resemble that of suburbia. This new ordinance, if passed later this year, will shut down bars and night clubs left and right through fines and intimidation, not to mention tying up our police force with calls of violations. Our mainstream media once again fails us when it comes to this issue. Think about an article by Seattle Times reporter Sanjay Bhatt on this issue from August 2007, where the issue of this new ordinance is about public safety. Only on the last sentence does the Bhatt mention a quote from Chuck Hunt, executive vice president of the New York State Restaurant Association, who said nightclubs weren’t considered a problem before the city allowed so many condos to go up downtown, “Suddenly, all the residents who paid big bucks for their condos are upset when people come out of the clubs at 4 a.m., and the clubs were there first.” The real issue isn’t that these people are dangerous for city people, but noisy and a bit obnoxious, and this freaks yuppies out.

Seattle is hardly setting the trend in ordinances against noise and drinkers, but only following suit with other cities across America. In Chicago, a city known for its community taverns and blue color watering holes, long time residents are facing the same invasion. Their mayor, Richard Daley, is cowing to the yuppies and making the historic taverns a mere memory of days long gone. In his first year as mayor he revoked the licenses of 49 taverns compared to 11 by his predecessor. Since then, he’s revoked nearly 1,000 licenses for taverns and other liquor related business.

Mayor Nickels and his team are swinging the same way. The purchaser of an older tavern in the Seattle area, who must remain anonymous, is now battling the city for a liquor license, but has been told the process would move swiftly if he commits to a bar and grill makeover. What has happened to freedom and the pursuit of happiness? It seems to have been flushed down the drain for the rats to feast on.

The strongest example of this gentrification, however, might just be found in the January issue of Real Change. On page two Executive Director Timothy Harris gives a blistering account of Mayor Nickels’ new plan for homeless encampments in his piece justly titled, “The Rich Are Coming. Hide the Poor”. He points out that there are four cranes towering through the skyline over Pioneer Square, which in the end will produce 505 condos with an average value of $2,000,000 each. Most disturbing is the proposal to extend The Parks Exclusion Ordinance, which was designed to keep parks family friendly, to all public property. Harris words this tragedy best, “By turning the fight against homelessness into an attack upon the homeless themselves, Nickels has undermined the integrity of the longest-running, most sophisticated homeless count effort in the nation.”

Are you angry yet? If not, think about the mayor’s other plan to rid the streets of free parking. The city’s argument is that it’s a step to wean city-dwellers from their cars. Honestly though, it will force the poor and middle class from their cars or force them to leave the city and purchase one of the abandoned homes from the suburbs, where they’ll have plenty of parking. The city expects a fight, as Seattle City Council member Peter Steinbrueck put it after supporting the idea. I don’t know why. We haven’t put up a fight over anything else yet. When we do, the media seems to overlook it or tweak their coverage of the fight. What do we expect from the corporate world, fair and balanced coverage?

Perhaps this will be the brick that falls and breaks the middle class’ back. Maybe then we’ll unite to storm the mayor’s office, toss his sorry ass out and finally take this city back. If not, these yuppie bastards will continue their march into the city, eventually defeating the poor and middle class through sheer numbers; democracy at its worst. Think about that the next time you pass a Land Use poster!