Farewell Starbucks in Westlake Park and more

It’s a love story.

In 2007, I lost my column at the Phoenix newspaper. My transgression called the real estate crash (where it was primary industry).

With no jobs available there, my wife, Susan, and I put together a list of desirable towns. Beyond a newspaper job, they needed to offer a vibrant downtown, abundant cultural assets, architectural delights, walkable neighborhoods, a diverse economy, good local transit, and Amtrak service. .

Seattle topped the list, especially as job openings elsewhere evaporated during the newspaper slump at the start of the Great Recession.

We arrived here 15 years ago next month with me writing, with laughable irony, about real estate before settling into this column. When I called Washington Mutual’s collapse, the Seattle Times rewarded me rather than punished me. A good sign.

As those cool (!) late summer evenings turned into autumn, we often found ourselves in Westlake Park, sitting on the benches. Buses ran on Fourth Avenue as the transit tunnel was redeveloped for light rail. We might expect one to get home to Belltown after a movie or shopping.

It was an inviting public space with the fountain running. We never felt in danger. No one was camping on the sidewalks or begging in the park.

Just sitting there, with the lights of the star-like skyscrapers overhead and the shops all around, was a wonderful Phoenix tonic. Its downtown was nearly dead and the closest major retail to our downtown historic district was an 8 mile drive away. In Seattle, we never felt like we had to spend every penny to keep nearby restaurants and stores alive.

All of this makes me sad to know that Starbucks closed its Westlake Park location on Wednesday and moved the light fixtures.

Whether it’s because of a crime — perfectly believable and the company’s stated reason for closing six stores in the area — or as punishment for attempted unionization, it packs a punch. (And the store employees themselves have complained of assaults, robberies and drug use.)

I remember all those nights we enjoyed sitting in Westlake Park, with the Starbucks there open until 11 p.m. I bought my no-fat, no-whip venti mocha and got change for the bus in those pre-ORCA card days. Customers came and went smoothly.

Yes, I know other Starbucks stores are downtown. And Seattle coffee snobs despise Starbucks and prefer small outlets. Perhaps one of them will settle on the Westlake site. But until then, the empty space will remain as a silent testimony to all that we have lost. (To be fair, I recently enjoyed a hot dog at the park, guarded by a security guard, but the old night security isn’t there.)

Those early days contained big-city excitement, of course. Nightclub shootings were common – I watched one myself from the apartment before hitting the deck. One establishment was aptly called Venom. But it was a very safe city, especially considering its density.

Seattle was the epitome of urban scholar Jane Jacobs’s essentials for outsiders to feel safe in a city: “Eyes to the street,” whether it was pedestrians, Ralph’s Deli, the Bed Bath & Beyond or Westlake Park Starbucks.

I loved this city.

So many times I’ve retweeted something about Seattle with the comment “I love this city!” Twitter was in its infancy and the iPhone had just been released.

The Seattle-based company pioneered the idea of ​​”third place.” I noticed it when I went to my first Starbucks, in Denver, then it followed me to Cincinnati, Charlotte, and was well established when I arrived in Phoenix around the turn of the century.

The “third place” was one in addition to home and office. I spent a lot of time there having a drink but also taking notes for one of my chronicles or my detective novels. The channel has made appearances in several of these, including “Deadline Man,” my only thriller and my only novel set in Seattle.

In 2018, the third-place finish was thrown into question when two black men from Philadelphia were waiting for a friend and a barista called the police after a man tried to use the restroom. They were arrested. This led to a backlash that prompted the company to close more than 8,000 stores in the United States to provide anti-bias training. He instituted an open restroom policy for all.

This year, Howard Schultz – back for another term as CEO and despised locally for selling SuperSonics – said Starbucks is considering ending the open restroom policy.

“We need to strengthen our stores and keep our employees safe,” Schultz told The New York Times. “I don’t know if we can keep our bathrooms open.”

Equally depressing for third place was the company’s plan to install drive-thru in 90% of its new stores.

In the years since 2007, Seattle has undergone sweeping changes, including Amazon’s headquarters in South Lake Union and downtown. It added a staggering 100,000 people from 2008 to 2018.

Politics also changed, moving from pragmatic liberalism to a city council mostly made up of far-left activists. They cut funding for the police even as crime increased and shoplifting stunned remaining retailers. The rich assortment of stores on Third Avenue are now closed and barricaded.

The pandemic has hit, with particularly catastrophic effects on office work downtown. We have yet to find out what the new normal will be.

Once again, I feel the need to spend every penny to help the remaining retailers and restaurants.

Paradoxically, downtown Phoenix rebounded with an Arizona State University campus, convention center, biomedical campus, new apartment towers, and light rail. Yet it will never be Seattle, even though it is the fifth most populous city in the country.

Love stories often end in sadness and this one is no exception.

I loved the city that militants hate. This lament of older Seattleites.

I loved those nights sitting in Westlake Park, with the Starbucks open and welcoming.