Belltown, Seattle. I Heart You.
Love or Hate? Love.
I've decided that I love Belltown, Seattle more than hate it… There is a lot to dislike about Belltown. It's noisy as all hell at night, especially after last-call at the bars, a large portion of it is packed-full of drunken meat-heads trying to display to bleached-blond bimbos that their testosterone levels are at an all-time-high (EG: sidewalk fights,) and there are enough crazy, smelly people here to fill Qwest Stadium. Regardless of all of that I am absolutely happy here.
Cheers
I believe the reasoning for this is much like the Cheers intro song for me; it's a place where everyone knows my name… This, of course, takes time to accomplish but it has indeed been accomplished…
Today I walked into Under the Needle, my local tattoo parlor and was instantly recognized as “The guy with the weird creature tattoo.” Granted, that is not my name but I'll take it. After I made my appointment for the touch-up on the Jeff Soto tattoo I walked over to Uptown Espresso and ran into Glen, the owner of The Gilt Edge Society and chatted with him about art as we stood in line, being served coffee by Zoe, who I see nearly daily now.
Overall it is just an awesome feeling. I run into these people that I know just from living here all the time and all over town. I've bumped into Glen at The Capitol Hill Block Party, I've run into the people who work in my apartment building office at various restaurants around the area and I run into friends/co-workers (I'm friends with pretty much all of my co-workers) who are in this part of town for various reasons all the time. This is an occurrence I enjoy a lot and I attribute it to living where I do. This isn't the only reason I am happy here though…
Art
Belltown has a thriving art scene. On Friday I went on the 2nd Friday Art-Walk with a friend and was very, very pleased. There are 25 galleries open during the Art-Walk and the genres go anywhere from entire room paintings, as we saw at the City Hostel Grand Opening, to jewelry, to prints, to sculpture. All in all we did not get to go to very many galleries as the City Hostel took up a lot of the time we had but I did get to stop by The Gilt Edge Society (who is part of the Art-Walk) and pick up a print of Brien White's entitled Paramount Bird II. We also ate (surprisingly good food) at The Two Bells which, as part of the Art-Walk, had a mask-display happening.
Music
On Friday we also went to a show here in Belltown at The Crocodile Cafe, which just recently re-opened. Unfortunately this is really the only good concert venue (that I know of) in Belltown but it is a rather good one. We saw Head Like a Kite who are always a ton of fun to see live.
Summary
All in all I really enjoy where I live, despite the silly yuppie scene. There are a lot of wonderful people here who enjoy art and music as much as I do. It is kind of a hidden scene, but once you look for it it is a rather thriving one. I enjoy living somewhere where I feel like it is "My Area" in that I know the people in the places I frequent and we are happy to see each other when we do. All in all I'm quite happy to be where I am.
