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Greetings. Okay. Yeah, just prompt for me to use.

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Yeah. I don't see the prompt. Ari, this is Margaret. Here we go.

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I have a confession to make. When I moved here, I didn't know what rosemary looked like now.

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You mean the plant or the woman? I mean the plant. And I know that

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Now, it sounds silly because it's everywhere, but I had never actually seen it growing outside before.

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There's so many edible plants everywhere you walk around the neighborhood.

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And a lot of them are medicinal and they're they're great.

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That could that could be a walk right there in itself.

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Luna and I. There's fennel right down the street over there. There's fennel along Burke Gilman and Luna and I

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I just grabbed some on the way to school. So I mean that that's a walk right there.

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That's a little tour. That's a good idea. City forager or and, you know, plants and stuff.

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If you were hosting a walking tour of Wallingford, where would you take people and why?

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I wanted to do a housing tour to talk about all the different kinds of housing that currently exist in Wallingford.

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Um, but then we're going to wander around Tangletown and go down to Meridian Park and look at some of the,

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um, art that Walt has done at Meridian Park and in his home.

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So I will be helping to film the tours. I'm really not used to working on documentaries, so I'm pretty excited to be able to have this experience.

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And, uh, just to learn more about Wallingford history. And I'm here to help out on the audio side of things.

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I'm a long time musician, I'm an engineer and a producer, so I'm really good with audio.

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This is a community filmmaking project.

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It's trying to cultivate stronger relationships, relationships with each other, and relationships also with the land of the occupy,

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we're emphasizing creative collaboration as a way of reframing the challenging conversations we have.

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We would like to plan for the future of Wallingford. And this in hand is our future as well.

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(sigh) Wallingford. People love it here.

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We keep each other informed about important local issues.

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We play paintball. We garden.

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I love Wallingford. I love the house that I rent out my six roommates next to the interstate.

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The average house price here is now more than $1 million.

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What was once a quiet, blue collar neighborhood? Is now...

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Something different.

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I recruited community members to lead these neighborhood walks to see if we could figure out where we're headed and what we could become.

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Each walk with a different theme, all exploring the way we live in this place, on this land.

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Placelessness, according to Oxford, is a condition of environment lacking significant places and the associated attitude

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of a lack of attachment to a place caused by the homogenizing effects of modernity,

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i.e. commercialism, mass consumption, standardized planning regulations, obsession with speed and movement, and finally alienation.

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UW historian professor Roger Sayle asserted that this placelessness, is not the only possible outcome for modern urban communities.

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Time does not move in just one direction. What is harmful to most at one point can be transformed later on.

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One sees this in the many areas of Old Seattle, especially the commercial streets.

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If a neighborhood settles down at all well, one thing that can hold it together is good residential commerce. And one

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finds such streets of commerce on North 45th in Wallingford.

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Wallingford survived into the 1990s without extensive redevelopment, and with much of its 1920s infrastructure intact,

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the community has maintained a distinct identity and has much to offer alternative to life in Seattle's metropolitan, more auto-oriented communities.

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Professor Sayles views Wallingford as the anecdote for placelessness.

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With that, we're going to continue on with Wallingford and move west.

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Over here. They're a newcomer to the neighborhood.

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So behind you is about half of what used to be The Guild  45th, and originally this was built in 1921,

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in the Art Deco style, and it was named the Paramount Theater of Seattle, of all things.

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Uh, and then, uh, it, uh, it was unfortunately closed in 2017.

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They went through the Seattle Landmarks Commission and felt like it had gone through too many changes in its heyday.

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Uh, it was, uh, it would see 450 people and they would, in addition to movies and shows,

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they would have live performances, and they would also have political engagements and business gatherings here.

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And depending on how you look at it, coming down at the angles from the corners,

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the trees from the trees, from the neighborhood blend in and look like they're part of the mural.

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What's happening? Do we need to chain ourselves in front of this to save the building?

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It's so sad. I don't know what's happening to the property or how it's becoming.

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Yeah, yeah, it was a pretty bad sign when the bulldozers showed up, right?

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What is this? Do we need to chain ourselves to that too?

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I started the studio after my own personal loss.

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Um, both of my young children were killed in that Alaska Airlines plane that crashed.

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And we started making mosaics with my friends and family on their birthday.

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So realizing that all of us are suffering and now in the world, there's no, just realizing we're all shattered now. 

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There's just so much grief and loss and stress that we're dealing with coming together and taking little pieces and putting them together.

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Physically on your in your mosaic, putting them into concrete, making them something real and beautiful from broken fragments.

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And then just all of us who join together and come here.

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We are in community together, putting our pieces in.

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We're going to go into the street. Be careful, please. Oh, yes.

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Bike. Now come over. There are some, uh, a family that started taking care of this traffic circle.

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Because when McDonald School opened right up there, um, it was so overgrown that kids, you couldn't see kids crossing the street to go to school.

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So they started clearing it out so you'd get a better view.

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And then, um, apparently I didn't know that at the time, but one of the daughters suggested that they put a bench here,

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and so they put a bench here that was just, uh, unpainted concrete.

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And I was like, uh, well, that is yeah, that has to get mosaic'ed.

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But then since I did it without permission, as they put the bench here without permission, which I'm loving about this whole traffic circle,

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um, I saw them working out here, and I stopped and I said, are you the woman that put the bench there?

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And she's like, are you the woman that did the mosaic? I'm like, yeah. So we were all happy in the end.

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When I first started at the studio, Veronica was one of the wonderful staff people there.

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I showed her the photos of the mosaic steps in San Francisco, which inspired me.

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And and she and I said, this is what I want to do. And she said, you know, you might want to start on something smaller.

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Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I know I will. I can scarcely look at exactly all the things I did wrong and should have done differently.

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But, you know, it was just a fun project. Shortly,

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I think it's my second or third project. I just kind of fallen into mosaics this with a gift certificate.

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And it was just fun to keep doing and the doing, but doing it is more fun than having it.

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So I was looking for someplace to put something kind of big. I love the juxtaposition between the hard line work of the Good Shepherd P-patch fonts,

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and then all the organic, uh, stuff around it, and it kind of like,

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speaks for what this area is at this big, beautiful building back here, as well as this wonderful garden that's right next door to it.

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Well, it's the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities.

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Forget about your worries and your strife

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I mean the bare necessities, old Mother Nature's recipes that bring the bare necessities of life.

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Wherever I wander, wherever I roam. I couldn't be fonder of my big home.

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MIn the 70s, some people in the neighborhood wanted to turn it into a shopping center and condominiums and, um,

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with the Community Council and, uh, Historic Seattle, um, those of us who lived here, lobbied for it to be bought.

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Now, decades later, we are all benefiting from having this space here in Wallingford.

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So thank you for, uh, continuing the support for it and the use of it.

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This is what keeps us as a democracy, and I'm using terms that are being batted around now, that we live together,

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we take care of each other, and the land is so important to that.

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I was working with community members to put the film together.

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And I thought it was shaping up pretty well. But when I showed them a rough cut,

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they had some suggestions. It's very romanticized.

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You know, Wallingford is a wealthy, white, older neighborhood, and I think we ought to acknowledge the very whiteness of it somewhere.

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White? We're really white!

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Wallingford has been a predominantly white neighborhood since John Wallingford clear cut the forests here to build houses for white people.

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So how do you build community in a community that's built on racism?

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I think what would be most interesting is having someone in this movie who experiences Wallingford in a very different way.

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You don't want to tokenize anybody just to have them on screen.

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But if they're on the screen to serve a reason that points back to that theme like that, you have a really good reason to feature them.

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Our people as Duwamish people, Native people knew this to be true, that we are part of this planet,

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and we know by modern science today that whatever's in the ground ends up in the trees

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through this symbiotic relationship between the fungi in the ground and the roots of the trees.

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So all that stuff, that was grandma and grandpa and aunties and uncles, it all breaks down when it decays.

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And then when the spring rains come out here, through this relationship between the fungi and the roots and the trees,

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that stuff then migrates back up into the trees when all the sap runs back up to the trees.

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These trees make oxygen. And specifically today they are sequestering carbon and they are helping to keep us alive.

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So Grandma and Grandpa are doing all kinds of things to save the planet, but we also used them for our houses.

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So Grandma and Grandpa, in the form of trees, are in the posts that we have on our houses.

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So when you hear us talk about how our houses have souls, that's what we're talking about.

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Now bear in mind that if a 50 year old tree isn't very big in diameter, it's only a foot,

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foot and a half or so in diameter, which means that's absolute minimum to take down and put into a mill.

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So back in the day when these houses were built, they were taking down bigger trees.

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And the trees were typically 200 years old, maybe three.

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And those timbers are in here. And so in these houses would be the, uh, the ghosts of the Duwamish people.

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Can I asked you what happened? They ain't never been closed.

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I'm sure they're probably closed because, uh. The crime scene? I'm just wondering what happened.

125
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Oh. No no, no.

126
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Oh, we're just covering this up right here, that's all.

127
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But we have to keep this closed because we don't want nobody passing by and getting hurt, you know? So it's just because of construction.

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Yeah, no earlier, somebody, you know, this chick came in, she, uh. She started bursting all out.

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Saying, what are you guys doing? Um, all this crap.

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And, um, and, I mean, we, you know, we understand. We're, you know, we're going to respond and then because at this point, we're just doing our job.

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Right. But she, uh, she came out here and, and, you know, she just started bursting.

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She wanted a piece of of whatever, a letter, whatever.

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She's all, "I used to work here," blah, blah. She started going off. She was trying to whoop somebody, but man.

134
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But obviously, you know, somebody was like, oh, they're doing demolition.

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And then the other, you know, she was still not having it and she was trying to get down even with the person over there.

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Man. So. I mean, hey, I didn't know what what I meant to the city.

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And so everybody here started recording and everybody was in disbelief.

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I was just like, I like I said, I don't live around this area, but, uh, but I feel like, uh, right here, I feel like the bad guy, man.

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Everybody was just. I could just tell by the way they were looking at us that, you know, they weren't happy at all.

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You know, calling us names. You know, at some point I was like, damn, when that girl went off, I was like, what is she going to do here?

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Now, this doesn't look good.

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But, uh, she, she actually somebody who told her that we were doing demolition, she actually took the anger out on that guy she was trying to fight

143
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that guy. She went up to that guy's car, and, you know, people are losing it, people are losing it here.

144
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I don't get. But hey, I'd be in the same situation if I was y'all.

145
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I mean, I don't blame you. Any little piece of history is, you know, a piece of history. And now it's just going to turn into a different city

146
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now. It's going to be a five-story building now.

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So. It is what it is.

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They might have to demolition all of these buildings across. That one's first, that one's second, that one's third, and that one's fourth. 

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Ya know what I mean? How do you feel about that? Making better buildings.

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Yeah. But anyhow, let's go this way.

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People over there they're from Ukraine and have kids, they are refugees.

152
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They're taking that corner now. So I got to go over to this corner.

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Usually I get my cardboard and say anything helps,

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thank you. Yeah, and that's what I do.

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Come out here, fly a sign and make some money. Well, I got some friends out there, too.

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That, uh. Like I got this female friend, who had a baby or whatever, and I got to make some money for diapers or whatever.

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If I make it, I make it, eh. Watch out for that telephone pole.

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What is this for? What um, documentary?

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Yeah. It's, uh, it's about the neighborhood that we're in, Wallingford.

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Mhm. Sort of about people's relationships with land.

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And, uh, how that's changing over time and thinking about where we're headed in the future.

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See that jet? That's what we're going.

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Nobody knows, eh, if it's gonna land or crash.

164
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Yeah. I hope it lands. That corner's taken, this corner's taken, I think.

165
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But sometimes you have to ask these people, how long you going be here?

166
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We can cross right now, come on! I had a job.

167
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UI fought forest fires for three years.

168
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I almost killed myself on that one. And then I did landscaping,

169
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a lot of sidewalk construction,

170
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foundations for building houses.

171
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Oh, yeah. I did it a lot of stuff around here.

172
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It's amazing I'm still alive. I've been shot.

173
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I've been stabbed. I've been drinking a lot.

174
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Yeah. But anyhow, oh yeah.

175
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I made my life comfortable.

176
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You know, it's hard to do, but you got to go to certain places, you know?

177
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Mhm, I built foundation. The foundation of this house.

178
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Maybe that house. Yeah. See all that gray concrete down below?

179
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I did all that. Well they made the house I did,

180
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We did a concrete foundation. Yeah.

181
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And sometimes I might come back and ask him, hey you need some more landscaping job?

182
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Like, I put some bark down or, uh, cut down some.

183
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bushes, with a bush

184
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Cutter. The population of the world is growing.

185
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It's not as if people are moving from one place to another.

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The whole human population is growing. And you can see this when you look at population maps,

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trying to plot out where people moving from California up to Washington, East Coast to West Coast or vice versa.

188
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And it's really everybody is growing.

189
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And so the only thing that can happen here, from my own studies, my personal studies, is that all growth has to go up.

190
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And that, um, large single-family dwellings, they have to go away because there's no more room and there's so many people.

191
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And that's why places like Green Lake, places with the parks around them,

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places with these trees and the birds are so absolutely critical just because it reunites people with the environment,

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even when they're in these big tall apartment complexes, condominium complexes,

194
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they can get out and they can walk and they can hear the sounds of nature.

195
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How connected do you feel to the land here? Man,

196
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it's like put one foot to the next. Ya just keep on going.

197
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And ya knock on wood because you want something true to come out.

198
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Our path got altered somewhat as we're here. 

199
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Anyone want some cherries? Cherries! I got the red ones. I got the two red ones.

200
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These are the super red ones. Alright, we got a car coming. Got another car.

201
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For a minute I thought they were Rainier, but they're not. 

202
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Can you hear my apple crunching? 

203
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Ferns! They help the air and they help this camera!

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La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la.

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Right up the hill. Dog prints, dog prints, everybody.

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Let's keep walking.

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Dog prints.

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Do you remember?

209
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We talked? I forget. So you said you wanted to donate it to people who are dealing with homelessness.

210
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And I know about the DNC as an organization. So that's how..? What's the stand for? The Downtown Emergency Services Center.

211
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So in about 2015,

212
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my spouse and I knew we wanted to settle in Seattle and we looked for over a year, put in five offers, got outbid every single time.

213
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And we were about to give up. We were about to say like, well, whatever, we can't afford to live in Seattle.

214
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We're going to move to Saint Louis or something. And, um, we shared that with our friends.

215
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Uh, and they were like, what if we built a house in our backyard?

216
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We now live in a DADU, a backyard cottage house.

217
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And it's something that has been really a gift to our family,

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where we've been able to stay in Seattle and also have kind of this additional community.

219
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We now have a four and a half year old. We moved into our house on her first birthday,

220
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and this was a really great opportunity for us to kind of have that village of raising a child in Wallingford,

221
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and it's why we're really passionate about making this a livable community for everyone with with housing that families can afford.

222
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If you're not a millionaire. How's your day?

223
00:28:12,210 --> 00:28:15,710
You want to say hi? Do you like living in our house?

224
00:28:16,700 --> 00:28:21,200
Yeah. So this is our backyard cottage.

225
00:28:21,710 --> 00:28:25,130
Um, it was completed in 2019.

226
00:28:25,580 --> 00:28:29,120
This is my spouse, Tom, and my child, Fiona.

227
00:28:29,780 --> 00:28:34,550
And so our house is one bedroom, and then her bedroom is super teeny tiny.

228
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And the bathroom on the first floor. And then we have a spiral staircase.

229
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And upstairs we have living room over here and a kitchen with a window seat, which is one of my dreams.

230
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Um, and we have solar panels and we work to just make the house really energy efficient.

231
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It's fully electric. Um, yeah.

232
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Do you have anything you want to say about our house? I wish I had taken down the Christmas lights.

233
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Ours are still up! Now, it's just planning ahead for next year.

234
00:29:04,550 --> 00:29:10,040
It looks like a single family home, but it's like three units in a in the same lot.

235
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:14,420
It's a, I think a really nice way to increase the number of units, so.

236
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:23,050
That's what we need to see more of. Yeah. I'm just questioning this whole concept of affordable housing in this area.

237
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:27,830
Um, you know, I wish we had it, but I'm not even seeing, you know, the townhouses are being built.

238
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:34,290
I was looking at one today. I saw a flier from it. Down on, I think, 46th, a million two.

239
00:29:34,710 --> 00:29:42,240
You know, I'm asking how many young families or young people thinking about having a family are going to purchase a townhouse for a million two?

240
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:47,950
I mean, I just, I, you know, I'm just stumped as to how we can really make affordable housing.

241
00:29:47,970 --> 00:29:52,200
I'm a former teacher. I want to see families continue to be in Seattle.

242
00:29:52,500 --> 00:30:02,880
But what we're doing and even tearing down some of these single family dwellings and, you know, putting up the new houses, these houses are mansions.

243
00:30:03,180 --> 00:30:07,139
And I don't think that most young families are going to be able to afford them.

244
00:30:07,140 --> 00:30:12,209
So I just, you know, I hear a lot of things being tossed around about affordable housing, affordable housing.

245
00:30:12,210 --> 00:30:18,570
Um, when you really get down to the nuts and bolts, I'd like to hear some more practicalities about how it's done.

246
00:30:20,730 --> 00:30:23,130
Three years, two months. Nine days.

247
00:30:24,350 --> 00:30:32,030
That's how long it took from the time that my grandpa, Chief Seattle, standing on the shore of Alki saying welcome.

248
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Three years, two months, and nine days. Signed this piece of paper

249
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and get out of Dodge. Gentrification. It's all it took

250
00:30:43,130 --> 00:30:49,790
for the first 10,000 years of living here. Three years, two months and nine days.

251
00:30:50,570 --> 00:30:56,690
This has been our story since almost day one, when grandpa said welcome to the neighborhood.

252
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:01,040
So to the people of Wallingford, I would say it's coming.

253
00:31:01,820 --> 00:31:05,300
Figure out how you can best mitigate it. Because it's coming.

254
00:31:07,310 --> 00:31:10,370
I'm not sure what they're going to do. Maybe it's the city.

255
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:15,229
Maybe they can say, hey, we we do need affordable housing.

256
00:31:15,230 --> 00:31:18,590
And what does that look like? Is it communal housing? I don't know.

257
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:24,049
When we first came here, we were told, oh, you'll live in your house for a couple years.

258
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You'll move across the lake. The implication was as a young family, you wouldn't live in a place like this.

259
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:34,639
Well, we stayed in our place like this, and I don't want.

260
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:40,940
And more and more young families came in our schools, which had shrunk from over 100,000 to about 45,000.

261
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They're up to about 55,000 now.

262
00:31:43,220 --> 00:31:49,910
You know, we've seen growth in families, but I'm wondering if that is going to continue and how, what we're going to do.

263
00:31:50,270 --> 00:31:56,660
And again, I see more problems than answers. I wish I had the answers, but, um, I think a lot of people think they have the answers.

264
00:31:57,230 --> 00:32:05,060
Those answers aren't going to work as well as they think. When this thing comes in and all of these single dwelling places go away.

265
00:32:06,110 --> 00:32:08,330
Then what's Wallingford going to look like?

266
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:21,290
And secondarily, if the Wallingford people can't afford to be there, then will Wallingford, um, the feel of Wallingford change?

267
00:32:21,620 --> 00:32:28,160
And will it just turn into another bunch of row houses or tall houses and nothing more?

268
00:32:53,070 --> 00:33:00,300
That's life. That's what all the people say.

269
00:33:02,340 --> 00:33:06,720
You're riding high in April, and you're shut down in May.

270
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But I know I'm gonna change that tune.

271
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We have this very tangible part of the history in the fruit that we get to eat and share in the neighborhood.

272
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That's life. And as funny as it may seem.

273
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,000
Some people get their kicks stompin on a dream.

274
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But I don't let it bring me down.

275
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Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinning around. And, uh, I'd like to ask if anybody would like to share what they learned from their,

276
00:33:56,710 --> 00:34:00,880
uh, neighbor about how we might see Wallingford in the next 50 years.

277
00:34:01,510 --> 00:34:04,360
Well, we would like to see it stay the same,

278
00:34:04,750 --> 00:34:16,840
obviously. There is some trepidation about the affordability, or the lack thereof of housing and how that will change the area.

279
00:34:17,140 --> 00:34:22,040
We don't know, but hopefully, I mean, oh, God, this is going to sound cheesy.

280
00:34:22,060 --> 00:34:26,460
You can start on a personal level just by being friendly to your neighbor.

281
00:34:28,100 --> 00:34:39,200
Uh, yeah. Uh, May, I'm thinking that because you see a lot of electric cars lately, I'm thinking that there might be a lot more. And, like, Seattle

282
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has been trying to, like, make less pollution.

283
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Like, for example, at the trash area. The trash dump, like it smells in there.

284
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But when you just get outside, you smell pretty much nothing.

285
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That's like an example of their hard work they've been doing.

286
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And. Like even people I've been trying to work to.

287
00:35:03,550 --> 00:35:09,880
Like buying Teslas, for example. Alright.

288
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:17,620
ET's got something for us. Um, so Kristin and I, we did also talk about maintaining the character of the neighborhood while, you know,

289
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increasing the, uh, affordability of housing and the density of housing and wondering if that was possible to,

290
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you know, continue to have these lovely old buildings while allowing more people to move in and, and ideally,

291
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more people of more diverse income levels and greater racial diversity as well, it's a very white neighborhood.

292
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:41,169
Um, one of the other things we talked about was that even though it's a pretty walkable neighborhood,

293
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and we've talked about that before, increasing the walkability and bikeability,

294
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uh, 45th would be really great to connect us to both to connect us to the U District, but then also to just make the neighborhood more accessible

295
00:35:53,590 --> 00:35:58,300
um, in general, and just like making it an even more walkable space,

296
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making it even more firmly neighborhood and less something that people go through to get to some place else.

297
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:13,540
We also talked about the walkability factor and how there are so many hidden gems and maybe some

298
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sort of map or way of giving people kind of more of a sense of those possibilities would be good.

299
00:36:18,850 --> 00:36:26,830
And we talked about, um, more events, you know, like this, this is a great place for busking or, you know, live music events or,

300
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you know, trying to bring in more kind of activities to get to your point, Brooke and of let's get to know our neighbors.

301
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I mean, that's the our whole hope as a country, as a society, as a world, is just going to rely on us being in community with each other.

302
00:36:40,990 --> 00:36:45,130
And I agree with you. It's not cheesy at all. We need to start local right here.

303
00:36:46,990 --> 00:36:51,160
Uh, so, uh, my thought was like, I want the future going for it to be more like its past.

304
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:57,370
You know, we live over by, uh, north and of see the sort of 40th, 50th, Stone Wallingford area.

305
00:36:57,370 --> 00:37:00,669
And it's a hodgepodge, which is like what I grew up with a hodgepodge, like,

306
00:37:00,670 --> 00:37:06,280
here's a brick apartment building, here's a house, here's another apartment building. It's a duplex like, and that was just, like, perfectly normal.

307
00:37:06,340 --> 00:37:10,989
Um, and you know, where I grew up, you know, was like 1 to 1 correlation with, like,

308
00:37:10,990 --> 00:37:14,399
how much money people made, what house they lived in, you know, you had the most money,

309
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:19,690
you lived in a single family house, second most you live in a duplex, third most you live in a three flat and fourth most,

310
00:37:19,690 --> 00:37:21,400
you lived in like a 6 or 12 apartment building.

311
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And it was a really diverse neighborhood, and it was very walkable because there was enough people to, like, have local businesses.

312
00:37:26,980 --> 00:37:31,090
And like that section of Wallingford is like, that's like the template, you know,

313
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and you walk up Wallingford Avenue and it's like, here's a different building.

314
00:37:34,780 --> 00:37:38,620
There's a duplex that you can't tell apart from a house, and there's a house that looks just like a duplex.

315
00:37:38,620 --> 00:37:43,599
And it just like, it's like more of that, please. 

316
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:49,930
It's that middle housing we need more of. Not just single family, not just for 40 units. But for the lot size,

317
00:37:50,020 --> 00:37:54,669
I was surprised your lot was 4000. I'm like, oh my God, this is the Ponderosa.

318
00:37:54,670 --> 00:37:57,459
Like our neighbors are on 1500, we're on 2500.

319
00:37:57,460 --> 00:38:03,730
But like, the worst case is there's a new house freaking ginormous that's on a 7500 foot lot on our street.

320
00:38:03,730 --> 00:38:06,850
And it's one house and it's just like, oh, man, come on.

321
00:38:07,090 --> 00:38:24,550
You could have, like, a half dozen houses on that. Any other thoughts and what you'd like to see happen with the waterways?

322
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:31,710
I see this whole walk that we've just done as, um

323
00:38:33,010 --> 00:38:40,629
full of so much potential to bring, connect North Seattle to the water.

324
00:38:40,630 --> 00:38:45,160
And this is the heart. I think like I think of Lake Union, it's like the heart of our city.

325
00:38:45,490 --> 00:38:47,770
And right now it is so incredibly polluted.

326
00:38:48,190 --> 00:38:57,639
This could be a green road that treats all the water off of the hill that has solar along it for solar charging,

327
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:00,790
that has cafes, that has access for the boats.

328
00:39:00,790 --> 00:39:05,650
All of these waterways could be expanded. This is a beautiful one, but it's so tiny.

329
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:10,990
I've been on that side of I've never been over here. I've lived in this neighborhood for 20 years.

330
00:39:11,170 --> 00:39:19,120
And that's my fault for not exploring that. I would want some of these waterways to be more generous and welcoming and have picnic spots and sun.

331
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:25,720
And I just, I see, you know, habitat. One caveat on that, as you said, was for marine use.

332
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:30,850
And see, I go back to the Community Council from probably 50 years ago.

333
00:39:31,450 --> 00:39:36,459
And the dedication was to keep Lake Union as a working lake.

334
00:39:36,460 --> 00:39:42,520
And this is, this is pre-tech days and cafes and food trucks and all that kind of stuff.

335
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:49,510
And so there's there's that balance of you know people made their living off this lake.

336
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:54,159
And I mean now it's some boatyard and repair.

337
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:58,959
But before that it was um you know some shingle mills.

338
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:07,300
And so this has always been a working lake. And I would like that preserved along with the habitat restoration.

339
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:12,820
Exactly. That can be something that becomes like the heart of what Wallingford is, you know, I mean,

340
00:40:12,820 --> 00:40:20,350
it could be that that scene at the water, the working marina in the neighborhood, I love it.

341
00:40:28,530 --> 00:40:36,720
I guess for me, um, my gratitude is overwhelming because without that project with Majken, I wouldn't have the sense of community that I have.

342
00:40:37,230 --> 00:40:40,860
My neighborhood is my home now, and before it wasn't.

343
00:40:40,860 --> 00:40:44,760
I mean, it was a place I lived and I did my own thing. Um, but I was much more isolated.

344
00:40:45,090 --> 00:40:50,579
And so now I feel really connected with a lot of different people with different, you know,

345
00:40:50,580 --> 00:40:56,700
store owners and things like that in ways that, um, I'm sure will sustain me for the rest of my life.

346
00:40:56,730 --> 00:41:01,270
So, yeah, we're going to cover the cover the town and broken things.

347
00:41:01,650 --> 00:41:04,680
It's going to be beautiful. And the community is what makes it fun.

348
00:41:07,240 --> 00:41:14,360
Uh, if there was no art or design elements added to the way that we use land, everything would look exactly the same.

349
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:19,480
We'd be kind of living in like a cyberpunk, megaplex dystopian nightmare kind of thing, you know?

350
00:41:24,730 --> 00:41:30,620
It's something offered out for free so it is outside the confines of just a capitalist framework.

351
00:41:31,240 --> 00:41:35,860
It's for everyone to enjoy. And I think that there's always an urge to commodify art.

352
00:41:36,340 --> 00:41:39,670
And so it's great when people make art and show it on their own homes.

353
00:41:40,150 --> 00:41:44,050
It's, uh, it's very welcoming and also somewhat subversive at the same time.

354
00:41:44,740 --> 00:41:55,140
I had this idea that we were gonna see like certain particular single family homes.

355
00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:59,580
And I love that we're talking about density.

356
00:42:00,170 --> 00:42:09,710
You know, the affordable housing issue. And I guess I'm kind of with Edith in the sense of being like, can we really make a big dent?

357
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:20,390
You know, make a difference? You know, since so many people want a single family,

358
00:42:20,990 --> 00:42:24,570
many people want single family homes.

359
00:42:24,990 --> 00:42:29,470
So, you know. You know, it's,

360
00:42:30,870 --> 00:42:42,560
I'm learning a lot. Yeah, I think a lot of people are enamored with the notion that there's some yard space that you can control,

361
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:47,299
and your kids can go out and play there and be safe. You can see them.

362
00:42:47,300 --> 00:42:53,410
They can see you and there are trees. And that's clearly not the direction we're headed.

363
00:42:54,450 --> 00:43:07,530
So with that, I'll close this out and Ari will stay on for a few minutes if anybody wants to chat more specifically about the project.

364
00:43:09,030 --> 00:43:12,770
Have a good night. I'm going to sign off. Very nice to meet all of you.

365
00:43:12,890 --> 00:43:16,270
Alright. Well, thanks for the meeting, man. It was great. Yeah. Thanks for coming. Sure.

366
00:43:17,300 --> 00:43:22,370
Okay. I have a question. Yeah. My knowledge is so dated.

367
00:43:24,890 --> 00:43:29,540
Uh, how much value can I give?

368
00:43:30,110 --> 00:43:34,940
Because it's almost like what you're all talking about is not the Wallingford I know.

369
00:43:38,270 --> 00:43:46,520
Where do we spend so much of our time? Where we live? And we call that our neighborhood and its changing.

370
00:43:51,630 --> 00:43:54,900
And it's it's not just the history that's.

371
00:43:56,860 --> 00:44:00,070
On your shoulders. It's the current and the future.

372
00:44:19,150 --> 00:44:26,110
I have four grandsons who know the zip about 

373
00:44:26,290 --> 00:44:31,510
Wallingford. Putting something together that could capture that

374
00:44:32,020 --> 00:44:36,770
group of would be outstanding.

375
00:44:37,830 --> 00:44:44,240
I'm here for you. If you want to know what happened back in 1977 when the Good Shepherd Center was sold

376
00:44:44,310 --> 00:44:48,300
and blah blah blah. Where you really capture me

377
00:44:48,570 --> 00:44:55,110
is if you can give me something that will turn on these four grandchildren.

378
00:45:05,020 --> 00:45:09,640
So how do I get out of here? So I feel like I'm holding you back.

379
00:45:10,180 --> 00:45:14,110
I don't know. But in order to get out, you press that red button in the bottom right corner.

380
00:45:14,170 --> 00:45:17,850
I think it says in the bottom right corner. Red button?

381
00:45:17,860 --> 00:45:25,060
I don't see any red. I can also I can also I have an option to remove you so I can- I don't, n I don't want to be removed.

382
00:45:25,300 --> 00:45:29,850
I just want to end this experience. 

383
00:45:30,550 --> 00:45:35,320
Be careful what words you use. I'm here for the long haul.