"There Goes the Neighborhood" by Seattlest Flickr photog goldlionpics The Big Blog gleefully reports there will FINALLY be a World Series in Seattle. The Gay Softball World Series will be hosted on several Seattle fields in August. Central District News brings their regular and always interesting reads, the CD Police Scanner, where it was a boring Monday--fights and narcotics activities--and a development update about where the next condo is going in the CD. We are......

Seattlest has lived in eight cities across the country, and we have to be honest. We've lived in Seattle longer than we have anywhere else because we love it here. It's clean, it's culturally vibrant, it's full of extraordinary natural beauty, it's safe. But, we've never been able to reckon with the fact that it's just so damned wealthy and white. Much as we like to think of ourselves as forward-thinking, inclusive citizens, we......

We understand you're upset, Belltown. What, with all these drug deals going on right outside your high-rise condos. You've video-taped and photographed the deals going down, you've created a YouTube channel and taken your complaints to local blogs and newspapers...and still it doesn't stop. Maybe that's because the drug dealers and users in Belltown were there long, long before the condos and well before the neighborhood was given its trendy name. What you all......

"S.L.U.T. on the Corner" by Seattlest Flickr Group user M.V. Jantzen The South Lake Union Trolley has struck again! Literally. Yesterday, the trolley struck its fourth car since its December debut. That averages an accident every month of the S.L.U.T.'s short existence, although this is the second accident we've reported in April. Yesterday's accident occurred when a car leaving the Center for Wooden Boats' parking lot hit the streetcar's right front bumper. No one was......

There was little real reason to expect anything different during Sunset Bowl's last night of operation. We read histrionic predictions somewhere that hipsters would swarm the place; this never materialized. There were perhaps a few more people--though that place was always packed whenever we went--and some may have stuck around later, but by and large the clientèle consisted of the same combination of loud, scruffy, tattooed, pierced, well-groomed, young, old, middle-aged, beefy, wiry, scrawny,......

The apt title of this photo "Not Much Longer," makes Seattlest sad. Courtesy of smohundro, another one of our great Seattlest Flickr Contributors The end is near for Sunset Bowl and its patrons. The local bowling alley, which has been open for over half a century, is set to close its doors April 13th. (Officially 1a.m. on Monday morning.) So take the time this weekend to say goodbye and get in a few last games......

A small crowd has gathered on East Pine to watch the demolishing of a once quintessential Seattle block. The condos have officially won, as the buildings which once contained Seattle divey-landmarks the Cha Cha, Bimbo's Bitchin' Burrito, and Kincora's are no more. Eagle-eyed Seattlest editor Kim has sent us a couple of mobile photos of the destruction. Sadly, she reported overhearing at the scene, "Am I missing something? This apparently means nothing to me." We'd......

Real estate search engine Rotten Neighbor promises to help you "find bad neighbors before you move." What evils have users uncovered behind the closed doors of the Emerald City? Near Carkeek Park: Grouchy Old Man w/ Loud Music The grouchy old man who lives here likes to play his radio very loudly in his backyard. Lately he has begun playing it in the middle of the night and the cops have been called several times.......

The past two days, contributors Jeremy "The Seattle Samurai" Barker and Katie "The Kalama Quickdraw" Tiehen debated the age-old question of whether Seattle or Portland is better. Both Jeremy and Katie raised some excellent points, but that's what rebuttals are for. Katie rebuts Jeremy: [ED: Jeremy, writing for Seattle, alleged that Portland's ascension to Green-ness and "hipster paradise"-dom was not without social and economic cost--most notably, higher housing prices in the urban core, which pushed......

Seattle. Portland. Which one's better? You may say: "How can you choose? Each has their good points. It's like asking which religion is better." Guess what, asshole, that Negative Nellie attitude is the reason nobody ever asks for your fucking opinion. Jerk. Yesterday, Jeremy Barker advocated the pro-Seattle position. Now, it's Portland's turn. Why Portland is better than Seattle, by Katie "The Kalama Quickdraw" Tiehen Before we get into this, let's just lay out what......

Seattle. Portland. Which one's better? You may say: "How can you choose? Each has their good points. It's like asking which religion is better." Guess what, asshole, that Negative Nellie attitude is the reason nobody ever asks for your fucking opinion. Jerk. To the debate! First up, it's a pro-Seattle opinion. Seattle is better than Portland, by Jeremy "The Seatown Samurai" Barker When I tell people that I think Portland's gone down the wrong road......

When Amazon.com announced Amazon Fresh last week, it piqued some bloggers' curiosity, but we didn't spend much time thinking about it. Grocery delivery? Interesting, but we weren't going to dive in. Then this weekend we read about the "thug"-infested Safeway -- in Rainier Beach! Crap, we thought to ourselves. That's our Safeway, literally just a few blocks from our house. Apparently we're risking random parking lot beatdowns every time we visit. (It's not the closest......

"What's left with character in this city is the Pike Place Market and a couple of stores, and that's it." More classic Seattle grit is closing up shop. Central Loan & Gun Exchange downtown? Exit, stage gentrification. Seattlest expects another round of the ever-fascinating debate on Seattle identity: Greater Seattle vs. Lesser Seattle, mossback vs. booster, REI vs. Macy's, McQ vs. Singles. Lusty Lady vs. Four Seasons (oh wait -- they struck a balance).......

Bill Virgin, writing in last Thursday's P-I Business section, shed light on memo sent out by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (courtesy here of Starbucks Gossip). Since then, news of the memo has traveled the internet a few times over. On the one hand, the wiseacre in us says, "you made decisions to expand from 1,000 to 13,000 stores and nobody thought about the dilution and commoditization of the experience???" Please. Even at 1,000 stores,......

Before we begin, we'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of James Kim. We are not, by any means, trying to discount that tragedy by juxtaposing posts about the Kims with more light-hearted posts. It's the nature of doing a compilation such as this one: we're trying to give a full slice of the goings-on in the Ist-a-Verse: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Londonist wants you to know where......

Hip-hop is ruled by ego. Whether it's the ego of an MC, that of a DJ, or a combination of the two, hip-hop is dominated by superlatives. Descriptions of being the biggest, baddest, and richest are the typical trappings of mainstream hip-hop, which is nothing new. The underground scene has its own failings, focused instead on being "realest," clamoring to fit as many syllables as possible into every bar. In both cases, the result......

KUOW is currently discussing issues of race, gentrification and community in the Central District. Go check it out. Some guy just called in to say that the CD is a more dangerous place to live, and when asked about whether it is more dangerous than Capitol Hill, said "Well, not as dangerous as one blue house up on Capitol Hill, but..." He went on to say that "anyplace southwest of 18th and MLK, you better......

We're glad we stuck around for the audience Q&A after the panel discussion on gentrification Thursday night, hosted by the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs. That way we got to hear from the intense woman who discoursed on a variety of topics, including the abomination of Wal-Mart, things being done in Boston, and the lack of education about some guy whose name we can't remember; and from the gentleman who wondered aloud......

This Thursday the UW will host a panel discussion about change in Seattle's Central District, pitting gentrification against "revitalization"--the latter, we hope, being something said panel will subject to more rigorous definition. We are pleased to see this topic discussed in a public forum, but these days we wonder who listens to panels any more, much less an academic-sponsored one (as opposed to those ever-popular corporate-sponsored panels--everyone listens to them). What happens after the panel?......

Seattlest dropped in at the Seattle Rep for the late August Wilson's final play in his ten-cycle series, Radio Golf. It's playing through February 18, and well worth making a trip to the Rep for, if only for the chance to see a Seattle theater audience that's not almost exclusively white. Tickets range from $22 - $36 ($10 if you're under 25 with ID). There are also rush prices 30 minutes before each performance.......

Seattle Weekly Editor-in-Chief Knute Berger white unflighted recently, moving from Kirkland back to Seattle. But, guess what? He didn't cotton to it. Why? Because, as his Pulitzer-worthy investigation in last week's Weekly reveals, Seattle ain't what it used to be. Among his shocking discoveries, sure to surprise Seattle Weekly readers: "gentrification is scrambling the old neighborhoods" "the old square-head Ballard is gone" "U Village is now a yuppie fun zone" "There's some new freeway running......