A couple of blocks from thriving Columbia City, change is coming again to a corner in search of a purpose. There’s conflict between old-timers and newcomers over who has the greater claim to the neighborhood, what the real neighborhood is, what belongs and what doesn’t.
A chain-link fence went up around the Jumbo restaurant, an indication that another transformation is coming to my neighborhood.
Social media lit up with speculation about what might replace the business, and on postings to Nextdoor, that discussion morphed into arguments about what is lost or gained when neighborhoods change.
People in Seattle used to talk about the weather all the time; now there are just as many conversations about growth and change. My colleague, Jon Talton, just wrote an excellent piece about rapid change for Pacific NW magazine.
We all experience the change on crowded roadways, in a downtown that is unfamiliar, and in our individual neighborhoods where it feels more personal.
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The building at the corner of Rainier Avenue South and South Genesee Street, Rainier Mall, held several businesses, but the core was Jumbo Seafood Restaurant and Lounge, which has been closed for a while, weeks, though I only noticed it last month. It was a fixture, but not a favorite spot. We got dim sum to go from time to time and marveled over the late-night raves and the big wedding parties spilling from or flowing into the cavernous mall.
Someone on Nextdoor asked if anyone knew what would replace Jumbo. I wrote a column about the mall in 1999, just after it opened. Safeway had relocated to a new building a few blocks north, and the old building had been vacant for four years.
No one missed the pitiful old Safeway, but change wasn’t happening as fast then as it is now. And in that neighborhood, just north of Columbia City, improvement was hard fought and long overdue. Columbia City and the Genesee area were scary to some, homey to others, but most people wanted more and better businesses, safer streets.
Now Columbia City is transformed into a new place, and Genesee is still changing.
I wrote then that I was hoping for a general-merchandise store, at Genesee and Rainier, and that would still be good.
On Nextdoor, several people said they heard a Whole Foods was coming, which seems unlikely. Some thought high-rise apartments. What they wanted varied. The idea of a Whole Foods prompted some to say gentrification had gone too far, that the neighborhood doesn’t need another amenity for rich people.
A couple of people said housing for low-income or homeless people would be best. And others said that would be the last thing they wanted near their homes in a neighborhood that’s still rising.
And as always there was conflict between old-timers and newcomers over who has the greater claim to the neighborhood, what the real neighborhood is, what belongs and what doesn’t.
There are interesting neighborhood dynamics at play. When PCC relocated from Seward Park to Columbia City into a new, upscale building, it felt different, like I need to dress nicely to go in. Blocks away, the relocated Safeway is crowded with customers who don’t want to, or can’t, pay PCC prices. Some in the Nextdoor exchange said PCC has gone elite; others defended it for being a co-op dedicated to high quality and good labor practices.
Change is often challenging because we get used to things the way they are. Who likes disruption? And though sometimes change is good and sometimes bad, people are bound to see it in different ways, which makes it hard to judge.
Perspective is everything. It doesn’t take long for some things to seem as if they’ve always been where they are, while some other things are locked in the brain as the new whatever, no matter how long they’ve been around. I’m just getting to the point where I don’t automatically say, “Maybe they’ll have it at The Bon.”
During the holidays, my son, who likes to take photos, went to the basement and brought up a tripod I bought just after I moved here. It was on sale at JC Penney downtown. I’d forgotten there ever was a JC Penney downtown until I saw the tripod.
When my son was born almost 25 years ago, the Jumbo site was Safeway and, before that, other businesses, including a notorious dive bar across the street from a KFC and another bar.
I got my hair cut for many years at Stephen’s Barber Shop next to the parking lot for all those vanished businesses. Miss Stephen’s shop has been nicely redone as Brianna’s Barber Shop where the sign also says “Barberia Hispana.” It’s across the street from La Esquelita bilingual school.
Across Rainier Avenue from Jumbo, change is happening, too. The awning for the Top Spot restaurant has been removed from the building and sits like a junked car behind a high fence.
A little of that old restaurant lives in a newer, hipper business. The creators of Top Pot doughnuts took the neon sign from that long-gone restaurant. The doughnut business got its name when the “s” fell off the sign. Chain links aren’t the only links around here.
Whatever happens with the lot, I only know it won’t be the last change.