A PLACE CALLED YOUNGSTOWN—NORTHWEST NEIGHBORHOOD HUB DRAWS NATIONAL ATTENTION

Youngstown Cultural Arts Center -- photo by Denny Sternstein

Sometimes we need to be reminded of what great things people can accomplish when they work together toward a goal. I recently had the opportunity to interview David Bestock, director of the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center in Seattle's Delridge Neighborhood, for a feature article in the online journal Neighborhood Life. The story of how a grassroots effort manifested as this amazing community asset is an inspiration to neighborhoods across the Northwest and all of America, so I want to share it with you through my Good Life Northwest blog. 

Youngstown Cultural Arts Center—

Grassroots Vision Manifests as Thriving Neighborhood Hub

By Candace Brown

As traffic rushes along busy Delridge Way in West Seattle, many drivers have no idea that a dominant brick building they pass symbolizes the power of vision, perseverance, and community spirit. A couple of decades ago it was nothing but an old, empty, and boarded up eyesore, a detriment, serving no purpose. Now, the beautifully renovated structure is home to the 18,000 square foot Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, a place vibrant with life since the day it opened in 2006. With an emphasis on serving youth, it offers enriching experiences, warm human connections, education, outreach, social services, housing, and more. The Center’s own website describes it best, as a place “… that incubates and inspires new arts participants, art-makers and organizations from our multicultural, intergenerational communities in order to engage in civic dialogue and meaningful community transformation.”

The surrounding area has always been working class and diverse, with the first non-native residents—many from other states or countries—arriving in 1905. The promise of jobs at a steel mill drew workers to a new settlement called Youngstown, named after Youngstown, Ohio, because of the mill connection. Life was often tough. Workers’ children could not even attend school that first year. In 1906, the mill owners dedicated a room in a mill building to be used for education, and 70 children filled it on the first day it opened. Later, a wooden structure arose where the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center now stands. In 1917, the brick Youngstown School was built to replace the wooden structure, on the same site. In 1929, it gained an addition, and during the 1930s the name changed to the Frank B. Cooper Elementary School. However, that school closed in 1989 and would stand dormant for 16 years until some dedicated and farsighted people turned it into the wonderful asset it is today.

Youngstown Cultural Arts Center’s Director David Bestock shared with Neighborhood Life the inspiring story of how the Center came to be, how it serves, how it sustains itself, and why it is now the beating heart of a still diverse, still working class, but thriving community.

Candace Brown for Neighborhood Life: What forces came into play to save this building during those dark years of its existence and to create the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center?

Please click here to continue to Neighborhood Life to read the rest of the article and see the photos. 

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How the Safe Streets Campaign Impacts Lives in Tacoma

Citizens protest crime.    Photo courtesy of the Safe Streets Campaign

As much as I love the City of Destiny, I realize that my impression of life inTacoma might not be so positive if I had a different address. My neighborhood is nothing fancy, but it feels safe to me, and I hope it stays that way. But if problems with crime arose, I'm glad to know about the Safe Streets Campaign and the dedicated people who work with this organization.

I recently interviewed several of these good folks, including Deputy Director Steve Jewell, Officer Daniel Hensley, who has been a vital part of the "community policing" aspect of the effort, and Community Activation Specialist Kathy Martin. Before she officially became an employee of Safe Streets, Martin was a deeply involved activist in the fight to make her own neighborhood a safer, more pleasant place to live. She and all the others like her deserve the respect and gratitude of everyone in the city.

Martin didn't start out planning to become an activist. Here is how her story began, excerpted from my article recently published on Neighborhood Life, an online neighborhood improvement journal.

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from Neighborhood Life - Summer 2011 issue
SAFE STREETS CAMPAIGN EMPOWERS NEIGHBORHOODS

by Candace Brown

Kathy Martin knew five years ago, that her Larchmont neighborhood in Tacoma, Washington, had its problems, but she didn’t know how much they would impact her life. In the beginning, this mother of several children never expected to join a march, or carry a protest sign, or stand before a group of men who had been arrested for prostitution, look into their eyes, and speak to them “with a Mom’s heart,” she said. Yet she has done all those things, and more.

Likewise, Martin never expected to end up being hired by a non-profit organization called the Safe Streets Campaign, but that recently happened too. Now, Community Activation Specialist Martin thinks about how the family tragedies she hopes to prevent through her job could easily have been her own.

“I was taking my son to middle school,” Martin said, “and I started noticing that the middle school students who were walking to school were being approached by drug dealers and prostitutes.”

And that wasn’t all. Two men in a car approached her thirteen-year-old daughter and a friend. In another incident, her daughter was going to the neighborhood store just three houses down and around the corner, with her four-year-old sister along.

“There was a guy in a brown truck watching some kids, and he spoke to her, wanting her phone number,” Martin said. “When I heard about it, I asked her why she didn’t call me. I could have been there in a minute and gotten a license number. And she said she just didn’t think of it.” The potential for tragedy ate at Martin.

She began to ask other people what they were seeing. Prostitutes did their work right in people’s yards and left the filthy evidence behind. Drug dealers and pimps interfered with local stores and other businesses. One prostitute started yelling inside a restaurant filled with people, and then took off her shirt. Another assaulted a restaurant owner after being asked to leave the parking lot. Something had to be done. To read the full article, please click here: http://www.neighborhoodlife.net/features/index.php?id=100

Award-winning West Seattle Blog Featured on "Neighborhood Life" Online Journal



Alki Point

Here in Tacoma, news gets around pretty quickly, but not as quickly as in West Seattle. After interviewing Tracy Record, the woman who owns and operates the West Seattle Blog along with her husband Patrick Sand, I felt exhausted just thinking about the energy they expend to provide nearly instantaneous news reports on every little thing that affects residents, including the reason behind the sirens they hear, the latest on a burglary down the street, lost pets, traffic problems, and power outages. Need a good referral for a handyman, babysitter, or auto mechanic? You can find it there, along with a lot more.

As I worked on an article for the online neighborhood improvement journal "Neighborhood Life," I kept checking the blog, out of curiosity. Updates on a developing news story appeared every few minutes and included not only the latest details but also traffic routes to avoid and suggested alternatives. Even as I wrote about how the blog impacts life in our neighboring community across Puget Sound, I felt the tangible pulse of its energy and understood why so many people consider it vital to their everyday lives.

In the article, I quoted Record concerning the phenomenon she and her husband created:

 “The growth has been more heartening than surprising,” Record said. “Currently 30,000 homes/businesses check in at least once a week. We are getting more than 900,000 page views a month. WSB is the most-read news source in West Seattle.” Over 9,000 of those homes and businesses visit it at least once a day according to Quantcast, a service that provides publicly comparable statistics, including all those in her statements. WSB also stands out as the only local news source updated around the clock, sometimes as often as every few minutes.

Iconic theater in the Admiral District

You can read the entire story by clicking on this link for Neighborhood Life, the journal of a non-profit that began in Tacoma with the goal of improving neighborhoods across America. Now it enjoys a nationwide following. And while you look over this Spring 2011 issue, don't miss the photo feature on West Seattle. My trusty Canon and I happened to be there on a rare sunny day at the end of March. Enjoy!

near Fauntlerory