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....

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

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...

So How Did It Get Started?

All of the great movements in history--and especially the unsung, small ones--start with an idea.

Like I said in an earlier post, the idea came to me while I was
staring out my window watching the neighborhood over a cigarette and a glass of wine. People of all walks of life walked past the window. And somehow the idea of starting a neighborhood group to tend the block popped into my head. I felt in my gut that it was the right thing, so I thought about how to design it.

The scope had to be limited enough that we knew we had achieved something but big enough that it seemed worth the time. We had to be proud of ourselves at the end of our workday. So, I decided to set the scope to this: one hour, one block. We would work for one hour every Sunday at 3PM. We would clean and tend the block of Second Avenue between Blanchard and Bell. When we were done, we would have a beer.

Another key component of the idea was that no one is in charge. We are a collective and we work together as volunteers. We let each other share our gifts. Also, anyone who wants to help would be welcome. If you couldn't show up one week, that was okay, too. We would give ourselves permission to be human and work as much as we were able or willing.

I will admit, I was a bit nervous to share the idea. I had no clue as to whether the idea would resonate with anyone else but myself. I took courage and started sharing it. To my surprise, people liked the idea and started talking to other people. I originally wanted to name the group People's Republic of Belltown, but someone else said it should be People's Belltown Republic (or PBR in honor of Pabst Blue Ribbon). Since we would have a beer afterwards, it seemed like a good name to me.

Eventually, I seemed to have a core of folks who were interested. Each person had unique backgrounds and gifts: computer guys, a carpenter, a handyman/espresso/neighborhoodperson, an environmental scientist, a college student, and a consultant were interested. That was enough for me. I set a date and got everyone's contact info.

We would start next Sunday. I made a commitment to myself to be there rain or shine, cleaning and tending the block. Although I was resolute, I was still nervous. Would anyone show up? Would it actually work? Was I crazy?

Guerrilla Gardening: It's Peaceful

So you're probably asking: What the hell is guerrilla gardening? Lemme explain.

In every urban area there are patches of dirt that are left up to the city or landowners to maintain. Some cities do a great job of keeping these areas neat and tidy--they've planted colorful plants, tend them regularly, and keep them free of trash. Conscientious landowners maintain their property. There are always exceptions, however, to this rule.

These exceptions are those plots of land that have been abandoned, used as trash heaps, and are painfully neglected. For some reason, the city doesn't have enough resources to maintain the plot of land or the landowner has long since moved away. The residents of the neighborhood, meanwhile, are left to deal with a messed up plot of land.

The real tragedy is not that the land is somehow not being used for production of food or isn't pretty. Non-verbal communication is the problem. Abandoned plots of land morph into trash heaps. These trash heaps tell everyone around that no one is paying attention. No one cares. Do whatever you want, and while you're at it, steal my purse and throw it in the trash heap.

The same principle applied to the subway in New York. In Malcom Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point, he shares how New York City reduced crime in the subway simply by ensuring that every car left the Subway yard free of graffiti. I am a fan of artistic graffiti, but by removing territorial graffiti, crime was substantially reduced on the subway.

We figured that maybe by tending the flowerbeds on one of the worst blocks in Belltown, that we could do the same thing. We could demonstrate that we love our block. We could show we care. We could provided an opportunity to build our community by getting out of our houses and doing something positive.

What is People's Belltown Republic?

Belltown is my neighborhood. It's one of a handful of residential neighborhoods in Downtown Seattle, and is kind of like where all of metropolitan Seattle goes to party. Good suburbanites come to Belltown on the weekends for a nice dinner at one of our many restaurants, have a few drinks at our local bars, and watch live music. Bad Suburbanites come, drink too much, puke on our doorsteps, have drunken fights on the street, and drunk drive home. I enjoy the restaurant and bar culture on the weekdays in Belltown, so I forgive the Suburbanites for their weekend transgressions.



On the weekdays, however, there is a seedy side of Belltown that most of these Suburbanites don't see. Belltown has been an open-air crack market for the last twenty years. Recently crack drug arrests have gone up, drug dealers have seemed to be more brazen, and some residents have reached a boiling point. Some residents have been talking to the city for years about the crack problem, and have gotten nowhere. Some residents feel disenfranchised from the existing governmental system and don't even bother. Some residents watch the "crackheads" fight with each other and view it as entertainment. Some residents live so high in their ivory tower on First Avenue that they couldn't care less. Most residents are simply at a loss about what to do. Most of us have thrown up our hands in resignation.


The city of Seattle really doesn't seem to care about Belltown. The police do, they're working hard to do what they can with the resources they have. Governmental officials, who promised us a Community Center, have done nothing to help. They talk and talk and politic, and like every other topic in Seattle, seem to do nothing. At least we don't see any improvement. Mayor Nickels sits in West Seattle in his nice warm suburban house while we get stabbed, threatened, and intimidated by people who are in a horrible situation themselves--they're hooked on one of the most addictive substances known to man. Nickels doesn't seem to care about the crack addicts, and he sure doesn't seem to care about us.

I was at a loss about what to do myself. I talked to neighborhood leaders from every background (punks, businesspeople, drunks, barflies, restauranteurs, politicians, and activists) to obtain as many perspectives as possible. Still nothing came to me. It seemed as if everyone had done something already that hadn't worked. People were depressed.

I sat with the problem for months looking for a way to heal the situation. Then, one day over a glass of wine, it came to me.

We can't fight violence with violence. It simply doesn't work. Residents getting upset with the crack addicts will only make things worse. We can't use our hands to fight, but we can plant. We can express our love of our neighborhood by maintaining the neighborhood. We can be guerrilla gardeners.

People's Belltown Republic was born.