The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: If aliens from outer space landed in Belltown right now, they would probably see the huge banner on the high-rise that says "ARTHOUSE" and expect the building to be a house of art. Silly aliens. Arthouse is one of downtown Seattle's new luxury apartment towers. Arthouse calls itself "Your canvas for a creative lifestyle," "A Palette of Everything Plus," and "A Masterpiece of Form and Function" where "murals by local artists mirror the soul of the neighborhood."
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This article hits close to home for me. As a Seattle native, I’ve lived on Capitol Hill, in the University District, and most recently in Madison Valley. I’ve seen the kooky Rainbow grocery and the old video-rental store close and get replaced with a Wallgreens. I drive weekly to the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle Center, past the new Amazonian high-rises and clogged Mercer Street Corridor. The battle for cultural space is painfully visible, with glittering glass apartments sitting next to boarded up pizza haunts and bookstores. My family moved into our house on the east side of Capitol Hill three years ago, when the neighborhood was full of small families, urban farmers, and bad parking. Since then, five condos have sprouted next door (with changing codes allowing them to push up against our fence) and three more going up in the next lot over. The small families move away and delineated parking spaces sprout next to perfect grass. Seattle is not alone in this- New York’s gentrification problem is outlined by Ben Davis in his similar tale of artist exodus. I can only hope that the new efforts highlighting the plight of Capitol Hill will stop the progression of developers aiming to tempt the tech community with another “Arthouse”.
This is an excellent companion to the artnet News article posted after this one New from the Real World. This one particularly focuses on the artists' perspective of gentrification, while the artnet article appears to come from more of an outsiders perspective.
I was rather surprised when I first read about how these artist hives cultivated a desirable community that was then capitalized upon, resulting in the area's artistic foundation becoming untenable due to market prices. It was something that I knew was happening, just not in such a cyclical, stark manner. I expected a more gradual process, instead of a direct cause-and-effect timeline. But what surprised me more was the success certain artists and partners had when they cooperated and used the system to their advantage, instead of fighting it altogether.
Interestingly, the future of art communities may lie within the community, and integration into groups that are fighting the same changes for different reasons instead of insular life. Indeed, partnering with community members more closely represents the reality for many artists, who actually work day (and often night) jobs because their art simply doesn't pay enough.
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