We Survived Lunch at Fort Westlake the Bronx
"We want to hold the ground we've taken and maintain the peace here and have real-time information about where the hot spots are..."Right away you get a sense of the high-level strategy involved in taking Seattle back, street by street, from people with very little money, clean clothes, or a complete high school education. Was it necessary to make the announcement in such a dramatic fashion? We think so.
After all, the Seattle P-I's got a story on the recent street violence, the Seattle Times has coverage of the war zone and the thug factor. And although three of the four incidents since June occurred after 10pm, it's easily worth the $500,000 the city will spend over the next four months to keep lunch hour safe in Westlake Park. We were there, and we've never felt more secure -- which was great because we couldn't find any bike racks in front of Westlake Mall and had to lock our bike to a trash can.
And this isn't some Mitt Romney-style war-making, either. In Seattle, when we put boots on the street, leadership leads the way. We spotted Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis strolling through Westlake, blending in masterfully with a white dress shirt and blue jeans. (Not, you know, hipster jeans, but not Wranglers either. Anyway, for god's sake, Ceis, stow that macho crap! Wear a vest!) On recon with a cell phone, Ceis secured the high ground on the mall's stairs, and then -- unbelievably, our stomach was in knots -- headed back down into the thick of it.
As we headed back up the hill ourselves, we passed the vagrant kids who hang out in Westlake Park and were gratified to hear that they knew this shop-and-law exercise was partly for their benefit. "Fucking gang uniforms?" they were asking, querulously. "What, black?" We just shook our head at the aggrieved innocence. No one with a choice hangs out in Westlake Park. The benches are strictly to make identifying the homeless easier.
