PBR Trash Report: Drugs and Vaccums!

Things have been busy and we haven't been blogging lately. People's Belltown Republic have been meeting every Sunday, however, and continuing the cleanup. Some new folks that we meet at the Community Council have joined us, and we're pretty excited about that.

I know you're dying to read our trash report. Here are the highlights over the last few months:

• Lots of Molson Ice cans
• A crapload of flyers from Venom.
• A bunch of lighters.
• Bags and bags of cigarette butts.
• A packet with two white crack rocks in it.
• Some moldy marijuana.
• A dirty needle.
• A shark hand vaccum that still works! bonus!
• A TV stand (in good condition) that was abandoned in front of Mama's!

This Week on 2nd Betwen Blanchard and Bell

The weekly meeting of People's Belltown Republic this week was pretty mellow and marked by a cameo appearance by Margaret Thatcher.

I started on my own this week, and cleaned the corner of 2nd and Blanchard and in front of the Crocodile before the crew showed up. I found three pizza boxes, which are sold on the street for $5 on the weekends. I also found the typical tall-boy beer cans, but the block was noticeably absent of Jooze cans. I guess the street got sick of Jooze--it must have too many vitamins or something.

I cleaned up the corner of 2nd and Blanchard on my own, and cleaned around two men who were standing on the corner looking to score or deal some crack. I cleaned around them, and one of them ACTUALLY recycled the tall-boy can of the beer he was drinking from a paper bag. When he recycled it felt like a bit of progress or a small victory because often the crack people throw the cans in the bushes. It felt good.

The stormwater gutters on the street had started accumulating trash and cigarette butts again, so we cleaned them out. We only pulled one garbage bag worth of trash from the gutter, and it was a huge improvement over our last gutter clean-out.

Our "trash find of the week" was an empty food container on which was written a message to a homeless person. The author offered the homeless person Indian cuisine and signed the message as Margaret Thatcher. Bloody brilliant, Maggie!

In the gardening department we are batting a big zero. All of our plants died in the record heat, and the soil in the beds is like dust. We now realize that we should have worked on amending and improving the soil of the planting beds we adopted prior to planting. We're planning on doing some sheet mulching this fall to try to regenerate the soil a bit. We plan this on our adopted corner planters, as well as in front of Zoe. Hopefully this winter, the soil will be improved and we will be able to plant root vegetables to break up the soil in the spring.

We're also going to start working on some art. Hopefully soon. Keep your fingers crossed....

Historical Crack Market and the Decline of Jooze

It's been a while since I have posted an update to our People's Belltown Republic (PBR) group effort of making our little slice of Belltown paradise (On 2nd between Bell and Blanchard).

If you haven't heard yet, Seattle has been a hotbox. We had a week of record heat in the nineties and reached a record high at Seatac of 102. Our little block has been sweltering and the soil in the flower beds on the corners are dust. Every plant we put in our beds is pretty much dead. Despite the heat, we've managed to get out there every Sunday and work.

Our big realization is that the smoking ban has been bad for salmon. Smokers throw cigarette buts into the gutters and planters on our street. They end up washed into the Puget Sound, so we kind of think we have a population of nicotine addicted fish. We spent one afternoon cleaning butts out of the gutters. We hauled four full garbage bags of butts and it made a huge difference to the way the block looked. We were all pretty amazed by the work we did.

Anyway, we noticed waaaaaaay more cigarette butts in the planter on the corner of 2nd and Blanchard since the Crocodile reopened. We talked with the manager, and they graciously added the cleanup of the street and flowerbed to their nightly checklist. Thanks Croc! You guys rule.

As far as our trash tally goes, things have been pretty quiet lately in the flowerbeds. I found a pair of dirty pants last week (ewww), a needle (eee!). There's definitely an uptick in beer cans being stashed in the bushes. Searching for and dealing crack can work up a thirst. On an interesting note, the consumption of Jooze is down and Busch Light is up. Dealers must be going for a more refreshing, summer time flavor.

The crackheads are also big into noticing who is a cop or part of Belltown's Citizens on Patrol. Recently, we were picking up trash in front of the record store near a group of people who appeared to be doing a crack transaction. One of them yelled out the alarm to the others: "C>O>P! Citizens on Patrolll!" I said: "No. We're picking up garbage."

On another note, I watched another crack deal outside my building on Saturday morning at 9AM in broad daylight. I watched a gentlemen in his sixties take money from a guy in his twenties and give him a rock. Then, I watched the younger guy light up and walk away. It was pretty brazen but not surprising.

I have a theory that our block is like a historic crack hunting ground. I base this on the book: Emerald City. The Environmental History of Seattle. In the book, the author shares that Belltown has always been one of the city's "centers of sin." If Belltown has always been a center of sin, then perhaps our corner is a historic center of the drug black market passed down from one generation of users to the next. Perhaps my corner is the epicenter.

Who knows. I do know, however, that we're in the center of Crackville USA and it's not getting better.

The Yellow Belt Movement and Seed Bombing

People's Belltown Republic is coming along nicely. A big part of our success is that together we've built great community. Some of us are good at sweeping, others at picking up trash, some have an eye for finding weird stuff and others are good at planting. It's been a lot of fun to discover each other's gifts. It's key to give each other room to discover our gifts, too. We all work hard, though, to make sure that no one feels guilty if they don't make a Sunday. There's nothing better to screw up a group than guilt. Forget that.

On the planting note, a few Sundays ago, we planted a bunch of seeds on the edge of the vacant lot on 2nd and Bell. I have seen other plants there. Someone had already planted a bunch of butterfly bushes. We added a few nasturtiums and Cosmos. I also heard that there was another seed bandit who threw wildflower seeds into the lot this week. We are becoming a neighborhood of guerilla gardeners.

The daffodils are coming up in full force on the corners of 2nd and Blanchard. They looked so lonely before, but we received some plant donations, and now we have added plants to the beds. We have pink, blue, and white plants of different varieties. The neighborhood is noticing and it's causing quite a stir. People are volunteering the help more, now that they see we're not just picking up trash. We have been receiveing offers from all over to help, so we must be on the right track.

In trash news, it seems that there is a lot less trash being dropped in the areas that we have pruned up and planted. I think people are finally getting that we care. I like to think that, anyway.

I keep thinking of Wangari Maathi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Green Belt Movement, who started by planting trees. They are the Green Belt Movement.

We started by planting Daffodils. We are the Yellow Belt Movement.

Cool.

xoxo
~b

Urban Daffodils?

So, 2nd Avenue residents don't know it yet, but there are 200 daffodils planted along 2nd Avenue between Blanchard and Battery. Some are already starting to come up in the bed in front of the Crocodile Cafe. I can't wait to see people's faces when they bloom.

Tales of The 3:00 Cleanup

We're in our second month, and People's Belltown Republic is still going strong. We have two new regulars who have been working with us every Sunday. They're two other women who are really committed, smart, and just crazy enough to get along with our group.

In trash news, we found a Gideon's Bible, two more credit cards, a wallet, and a cell phone. Oh, and a crack pipe fashioned out of a beer can. We still continue to find empty cans Icehouse Beer. We seriously should be sponsored by them.

The folks on the street seem to be getting used to seeing us cleaning up. This week, two men who hang with the crack crew on the corner saw us coming and said: "oh it's the 3:00 cleanup." Another woman from the same group told us we sure were doing a nice job cleaning up. That's cool with me--maybe they're getting the point and throwing their trash away? Or maybe they take pride in the trash? I am going to talk with them next time and try to find out what they think. Dialogues are good.

The block seems to be staying cleaner throughout the week, too. We used to haul four bags of trash each weekend, but now we're down to about two. The bed in front of the Crocodile Cafe, from which we've hauled about eight full bags of trash, is looking great. Trimming the bushes so that you can see under them seems to have helped immensely. It makes them a bad place to stash stuff (like the pair of smelly pants we found under the Rosemary bush one day).

The group is getting antsy to plant some plants and do more gardening--especially since our trash haul is decreasing. We've put in some daffodils (about a hundred), which should come in the next few weeks. We still need to put in some pretty perennials, but so far it's been too cold to plant. We're considering some art projects to tide us over...

A Rake by Any Other Name is Not the Same: Week 2

The second week arrived, and we had settled into a pattern. We found yet more layers of trash under layers of trash in the flowerbed next to the Crocodile Cafe. No real big trash treasures this week, but we started to notice the patterns in the trash: beer high boy cans and the packaging from single cigarettes. The bushes seemed to belch out endless amounts of trash that we thought we'd already picked up. We were starting to understand that the cleanup was going to take time.

The biggest thing of note this week was our interactions with people: The people that hang out on the corner, the people who live in the neighborhood, and the people who are passing by.

The corners of 2nd and Blanchard and Second and Bell, as you know from previous entries, are almost always populated with people who are high out of their gourd on crack and those associated with them. This week, as we were cleaning the corner, those corner people noticed us. While we were cleaning, they asked what we were doing. Some of them stood pretty closed to us while we cleaned and watched. Everyone is welcome to help, so we explained we are volunteers and we're here every Sunday at 3. If they wanted to help, they were welcome. They expressed interest and said "you're here every Sunday? Cool. We'll be here next Sunday!" Cool, we said, but we didn't expect help from the same folks who leave empty cans of Joose in the bushes. You never know, though.

Neighborhood dwellers started to notice us as well. By neighborhood dwellers, I mean the homeless and those who live in the buildings nearby. The crack folks seem to commute or something, because they weren't out during the snowstorm. Neighborhood dwellers walked by and some of them engaged us in conversation. Some were curious, others expressed thanks, and a few just stared. Some people asked if we were with the City (yeah right--like the city cares)(we didn't say that out loud). We also got stares from windows, but that was cool with us. One of the local businesses bought us a round of beers. Sweet!

The most interesting interaction came from a man who was walking down the street and stopped to talk with us. He was pretty intimidating and seemed as if he had been around the block. He stood close to us and asked us what we were doing and why? I was a bit intimidated, because he was asking so many questions and was pretty rough looking, but talked with him and shared our story. When I said we were volunteers, his demeanor changed and he seemed to relax. He said, oh, he used to be a landscaper. He picked up a rake and started to help us rake the bed. Then he gave us a lesson in raking, and showed us how we can finish off the bed so it looks perfect. The interaction was encouraging because it was an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to welcoming everyone.

Next week would be even more interesting....