Site Report 1
Drawn map of Block 17 by Sungmeen Hong, 01/22/17
Old house located on 7th Ave NE taken by Sungmeen Hong, 01/18/17
Newly-built Lavita Apartment located on 8th Ave NE taken by Sungmeen Hong, 01/18/17
The U-District Community Garden takes up a large part of Block 17 taken by Sungmeen Hong, 01/18/17
Despite being on the very edge of the U-District, Block 17 had an interesting story to tell. As I approached the block 8th Ave and 42nd, I immediately noticed the newly built Lavita Apartments. The apartments took the majority of the space on 42nd. The block actually seemed very out of place when I first saw it because of the lack of development surrounding the apartments. As I headed down towards 8th Ave, I was shocked to see the myriad of new apartments that were built. Like Lavita Apartments, they were relatively new and filled with inhabitants. The first series of questions that went across my mind was, “What was here before these apartments? When were these apartments built? How many people live here today? What kind of people lived in this location in the past?”
As I kept walking down the street, I ran into one of the main attractions of the block, the U-District Community Garden. I felt completely underwhelmed. The garden seemed like it was unattended for a long time. As seen in the picture, the garden did have some clues of development in the past but it was very hard to identify what exactly were being grown in the area. The second series of question that immediately came to mind was, “Is the current season the reason why this garden has been unattended? If so, when do people start working on the garden? What is the reasoning if the garden has been unattended for a long period of time (years)? Where did the garden originate from?”
As I went up 7th Ave, I was again, shocked, with what I saw. Instead of the new lavish apartments, there were a series of (seemingly) old apartments and houses. The houses seemed like they were wearing down due to the constant rain over the years. I actually encountered the people living in one of the houses while walking up. They were not students and seemed to have live there for a long time. The final series of questions that I thought was, “Why is this side of the block not developed? Were the residents adamant about keeping their property? If not, will this side of the block be developed soon?”
When I look back on my amazing experience walking around the block, I had to wonder why there was such a lack of balance. I thought that balance of development were missing. I initially expected the block to be entirely old (rich with history) or very developed (new apartments and houses). Instead, I found myself a blend of the two which really took me by surprise.