OUR NEXT LIVE EVENT will be a reading Sunday, Feb. 27, 7:30 p.m. at Titlewave Books on lower Queen Anne. It’s part of a free, all-ages group lit-event including, among others, the fantastic Farm Pulp zine editor Gregory Hischack.
THE HOMOGENIZATION OF URBAN AMERICA is sure not something going on just in Seattle–even though Seattleites, who typically try to maintain their collective ignorance about any other U.S. cities besides N.Y./L.A./S.F., might choose not to realize it.
The Brooklyn, N.Y. band Babe the Blue Ox has a song called “T.G.I.F.U.” about the proliferation of the same chain restaurants in town after town across the continent:
“Every city I get lost in
Charlotte, Boston, even Austin
Has a four-lane boulevard
With the same damn grill and bar
Every meal will be familiar
Rest assured.”
In Seattle’s downtown core, the problem’s only partly the proliferation of the likes of Planet Hollywood and Gordon Biersch, as deplorable as that in itself might be.
There’s also the more pervasive and immediate threat posed by establishments that might be individually owned but with a common (all too common) theme of upscale blandness.
It’s getting so you can’t find any grub in this town anymore. Just “cuisine.” Hummus, penne pollo, “Market Price” trout almondine, etc. etc.; served up at joints with valet parking, “celebrity” executive chefs, and appetizer prices alone that would feed a normal bloke for a month. Joints that scream about how “unique” each of them’s supposed to be, yet are really just about all alike.
Every month, one more of the few remaining real-people places in Seattle gets destroyed for some overpriced “foodie” joint and/or luxury condos. Among the currently threatened: The Jem art studios, the Greyhound station, the Bethel Temple.
Now joining the ranks of the apparently doomed: the legendary, infamous Frontier Room.
It’s a classic dive bar, of the kind they not only don’t make anymore but couldn’t if they tried. It’s a place where, for decades, old-age pensioners and crusty punk rockers have shared the enjoyment of strong drinks, noise, smoke, dark red lighting, crummy yet cozy seats, and a well-lived-in atmosphere.
Up in the front restaurant room, they serve up real food for real folk: Burgers, fresh-cut fries, real ice cream shakes, soup, chowder, sandwiches, omelettes, and blue plate specials.
But the guy who ran the place with an iron hand for seemingly ever died a few years back. His daughter’s apparently tiring of the grind. (Neither she nor anyone else associated with the place will speak on the record.)
A real estate agent’s putting the business up for sale as an ongoing concern (10-year lease, liquor license, and all). His flyer lists a monthly rent of $3700 plus a mysterious added expense listed only as “NNN” (anybody out there know what that means?).
There ought to be enough present and former Frontier Room barflies who’ve made a buck or two in music and/or software. Let’s get some of these folks together to buy the Frontier and keep it just the way it is.
Maybe we could add some menu items to increase the daytime trade, and put a newsstand or espresso machine in the currently-unused portion of the Frontier’s storefront. But nothing the place currently sells should be dropped; and none of its current patronage should be made unwelcome.
We must save this piece of our civic soul. We must keep it from becoming another “cuisine” stand.
If we don’t do this, it would be just like raising the flag of surrender to the armies of gentrification.
TOMORROW: More of this line, concerning artist space.
IN OTHER NEWS: Chief artistic lesson of HBO’s recent Porky’s trilogy marathon: Female nudity is drama; male nudity is farce.
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