Washblog

I loved Georgetown's community solidarity. The residents held their own against industrial encroachment with fierce spirit -- and years of slogging through the step-by-step process of regular meetings and planning and projects.  I went to a lot of the meetings and represented the neighborhood for a while at the City Neighborhood Council. A highpoint was when my family and friends helped to assemble the playground equipment in Georgetown playfield.  Getting the funds to put the equipment in was a victory that others on the council won at great odds.  This was right before Georgetown went through tremendous changes -- many of them good -- but also contributing to a spectacular increase in property values that would have priced me out of that neighborhood at the time -- and probably now.

As for noise and dirt, the place was pretty toxic.  When Marutas opened up with its produce section, it was the only place to get fresh fruit and vegetables.  "I can buy carrots now?" -- an elderly woman asked me, happiness lighting up her eyes.  She had that look of alcohol poisoning and poverty that she shared with some other Georgetownians and I'm pretty sure she lived on foodbank fare and what you could buy at the small convenience mart. Those sources were a big part of my diet at the time too.  Georgetown planes ran loud and frequent.  I guess they still do.  They'd race their engines on the ground sometimes for a half hour or more in the middle of the night to burn off excess fuel.  The planes continually exceeded allowed noise limits and neighbors were always calling in complaints.  I dreamed regularly of plane crashes.  But I loved the mix of residential and industrial, the machinery of it -- trains, planes, cars, storefronts with motorcycles and giant gears, old brick buildings with artist studios and recycling yards side by side. We looked out of our apartment window and saw Airforce One bringing Bill Clinton into Seattle.  I waved at a helicopter pilot once and he waved back.   Along with all that were the spectacular gardens (Georgetown still has one of the best garden walks in the city), the small town feel, and the sense of living inside the present and the past simultaneously. See Blogging Georgetown for more Georgetown info.

Georgetown Radio catches it. Beautiful.