Boom: neighborhood

Mr. and Mrs. Sweetie-Boom are looking for a house in Columbia City. The current favorite is a biscuit toss away from the Royal Esquire Social Club. Apparently it was the place to be on election night, if you wanted to be at the Other Happiest Place on Earth. I love the name; this (from the Seattle Times) is a nice (and sentimental) story about what it's been like over the years.

I thought everyone who lived in Seattle knew where Columbia City is, but this is not turning out to be the case. It's not White Center, South Park, or Georgetown (respectively: Home to the World's Greatest Doughnuts; Superfund Site; and Industrial Zone Smack in the Middle of Boeing's Airport Path). It is, though, like these three, on the south end of Seattle. I am attempting to have the neighborhood renamed Lady Business, after having one too many men wave their hand vaguely and say, "oh, it's down there someplace." For strange historical tidbits about the hood, read this; among other things, you can marvel at the changes wrought by industry in the time before environmental reviews. I know! Let's lower the depth of the lake by nine inches!

It also explains how it came to have a street named Ferdinand. What it doesn't mention: FHA actually "redlined" it in the 50s. This means that many potential homebuyers couldn't get loans, nobody could get home equity loans, banks wouldn't/couldn't invest, and basically the area became a federally-mandated slum. I'd never heard of redlining before. It explained a lot--like, why all the houses we've seen either have a lot of quite new, swank remodeled bits or haven't been touched since the 50s. One of the oddest, most hopeful architectural details I've ever seen: A street where most of the houses have recently-made holes in the siding around the windows, indicating the removal of the heavy steel window security bars.

Comments

Are there houses available in Columbia City now? Shelley and I wanted to live there, but 5 or 6 years ago when we were looking, there was virtually nothing in the area. Sign of the times, I guess.

Posted by: Brady | 2009.03.26 at 09:57 AM