21 ms·

Amazon moves employees out of downtown Seattle office due to crime

204 points by ghostoftiber 5y ago

rossdavidh 5y ago
I am especially interested to hear from HN readers who live (or until very recently lived) in Seattle, as to whether or not the impression this gives of the city matches with your experience?
- deleted 5y ago
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- pnathan 5y ago
  I've lived in Seattle since 2014, with a short break living in Tacoma. For most of that time, I've wandered downtown. I like the high-crowd energy. 3rd and Pike/Pine has been a bad location for this entire time. I am given to understand that it's been bad since, idk, the 80s? When Covid hit, the visible homelessness situation exploded. I can't speak to all the factors as to why, but it was unbelievable. Normally 3rd and Pike/Pine were mitigated by the normals wandering through. That all vanished. It was rough. In the last few months, it seems that there's been a shooting in Seattle daily. Many do not seem to be directly connected with traditional gang-gang violence over drugs/turf wars, or the long-standing tradition of arguing with armed drunks after the bar closes. I can't speak in nuance to homelessness relationships to violence, but I can clearly note that there seems to be a relation. > Last month The Wall Street Journal editorial board declared that “lawlessness now hampers Seattle’s economic recovery.” I would not rent or buy any office space in Downtown Seattle until the City addresses the violence; addressing that at a deep enough level, the homelessness situation - nonprofit services, camps, etc. that are all downtown will need to be relocated. That is almost certainly politically untenable here. What the WSJ might be missing is that there's very little reason for knowledge workers to show up to an office daily to stare at their computer. So cities like Seattle, which have spent 20 years investing into knowledge work companies, are going to take that hit to the face, hard. I'm personally talking with my wife about finding a city with more sun and cheaper houses...
- shepherdjerred 5y ago
  3rd and Pike is notorious for being sketchy. I avoid it when I can, but it's not like I'm fearing for my life while walking down the street. There is a clear problem with homelessness here, and that's very evident downtown. When you get to the more residential area it feels like a normal city. It feels more uncomfortable than it does unsafe.
- livueta 5y ago
  As a lifelong Seattle resident/employee (psq, eastlake, cap hill), minus a few year-ish expat stints, I'd say it is partially correct but not the whole picture. All this said, I like it here and have no plans to leave permanently. 1) bad stuff definitely exists 3rd/Pine, parts of SoDo, the couple blocks between Occidental Square and Kobe Terrace, Aurora between like 85th and 145th, and bits of Beacon/Columbian/Rainier, are all what I'd call legitimately unsettling/dangerous experiences for WASPs and I totally understand why places downtown are having issues. 2) bad stuff isn't new I got mugged multiple times on free-ride-zone buses as a kid/teen, lost lots of bikes, etc etc. The police have always been worse than useless and nobody I knew, even upper-middle-class neighborhood-dwellers, bothered reporting petty property crime. The impact of homelessness on downtown quality of life has pretty much always been a thing; consider https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/warning-seattles-free-ride-zone-coming-to-an-end/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/warning-seattles-f... (from 2012) - the free-zone buses were literal mobile drug dens after a certain hour or on certain routes, was pretty nuts. Before the viaduct was torn down, it was effectively a miles-long open-air shelter. I actually wonder how much of the current tensions are attributable to having physically gotten rid of one of the more inherently accommodating structures in the area, driving that population more out into the open a few blocks uphill. 3) bad stuff is getting worse No argument that things haven't accelerated throughout the pandemic, though. Having actually spent a lot of time wandering around outside in the international district in early 2020, I can say that the current trajectory absolutely didn't start around/after the summer unrest. Imo, that's a totally unjustified attempt at ideologically linking unrelated concepts. As mentioned, cops have been useless since forever. The pandemic and pandemic-related restrictions have engendered an enormous amount of economic instability that bureaucratic-focused measures like rent assistance and eviction moratoria often fail to meaningfully mitigate; those most in need of help are the ones who aren't getting it. I think the destabilizing economic impact of the pandemic on the populations most vulnerable to homelessness is systematically discounted by the smug suburbanites who really really really want to find a cause, any cause, that isn't rooted in housing/inequality issues. Much easier to blame defunding the police. 4) rate of increase appears proportional to amount of socioeconomic deprivation My take is that the amount of badness tracks pretty closely with aggregate economic fucked-ness. I did a lot of volunteering at the Compass Center circa the 2008 economic crisis and saw the progression firsthand: expensive housing begets housing instability, which is often the first step on a long downwards slide towards being a naked screaming shit-flinger. One gets driven into an encampment and now one's proximate to drug sales and has a lot of free time - doesn't take the most detailed analysis of all time to see how things continue to slide. People talk about multiple "classes" of homeless - the real honest Americans temporarily down on their luck, vs. the insane drug addicts accosting randoms on the street. While those distinctions do exist, it's often ignored that the boundaries between them are pretty fragile and it is very easy to progress downhill; the actual crazies come from somewhere, and that somewhere is unfortunately frequently the cauldron of fucked-ness that is living without stable housing. All this said, I live my daily life without worrying about it much or even encountering examples of visible homelessness. The region is increasingly segregated on the basis of economic class, so for your Amazon dev working from home in Magnolia or whatever the issue is largely academic.
- tyjen 5y ago
  Like most cities, criminality is highly dependent on where you are and what time it is. The rampant homelessness issue is clearly evident and the only city from my experience that rivals Seattle's homeless rate is Honolulu. Honolulu also imposed stricter criminal laws at the time I lived there. We did not encounter any direct criminality against us while we lived there, although my wife had a close call. She stayed late to finish up work and left her internal office door unlocked to grab food. Within that 15 minute window, someone hopped a fencing structure, gained entry to the building, and managed to steal anything he thought was important. It was one of the few offices unlocked. Thankfully she did not surprise him in the act. Camera recordings provided a clear description of the perpetrator and police found him within 20 minutes at a local homeless encampment. A 19-year-old kid high on meth with a long criminal history including rape. Police recovered everything and returned it after holding it as evidence. It's an incredibly sad situation all around.
  - immibis 5y ago
    A 19-year-old with a long criminal history? People only grow up that way in terrible surroundings. It is not that person's fault they grew up that way, but it might be too late to fix it.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  Anecdata is a poor choice of source for any kind of decision making. But here's my datapoint: while nobody was at home we got one of the windows cracked by what looked like a gunshot. That happened in West Seattle. I heard from the repair company, that it is common. Note, this happened 1 time in 15 years. We had no other issues otherwise.
- lenocinor 5y ago
  I live in downtown Seattle and have for a few years. 3rd between Stewart and Pike (where this office is) is not good. I mostly avoid there. I also don’t get off the light rail at Pioneer Square. Everything else in and around downtown is fine. I don’t fear for my life or generally even really feel unsafe in almost any other place in Belltown, downtown, or the International District. The rest is just like any other big city to me.
advisedwang 5y ago
That's kind of taking Amazon's word for it as to reason. Amazon has been gearing up to reduce it's Seattle presence since the Tax Amazon campaign in Seattle. The situation on 3rd Ave is bad, but Amazon also wants to show the city council that raising taxes on them would result in them loosing an employer, not getting any revenue.
- laurent92 5y ago
  You’ve succeeded to say in the same sentence that the city was doing an appalling job while asking the company to fund their plans, and that it’s the company’s fault for showing the city that they can leave if it keeps worsening. Maybe Amazon can deal with people fighting against capitalism and the very idea of ownership, but levying taxes to fund a nogo zone (where people get shot), is not a project that Amazon wants to fund?
  - advisedwang 5y ago
    I didn't say who should do what or who is to blame or anything moral. I'm trying to get people not to take a press release at face value.
- tootie 5y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if it was by popular demand. And combination of fear of crime and the fact that nobody really needs to be there at all. And I'm further speculating that a lot of this sentiment in Seattle, SF and NYC is driven by the influx of affluent office workers who moved in during the lowest ebb of crime in the 2010s and are getting a rude awakening of what city life is like. Anyone who sees this as some sort of end times doesn't remember the 90s.
- jasd 5y ago
  I used to work at Amazon and I know some employees who were relocated to this building. They've always expressed some discomfort having to work from there. This was pre-covid. From what I understand, the situation has worsened. While I agree that Amazon and the city-council are in a bit of a tussle, I feel that this move is justified from an employee safety perspective.
honkdaddy 5y ago
If you want an inside look of what that area is actually like (I left Seattle in 2021 after being disgusted by the state of the city), this article has some great interviews. People on that block steal and then sell anything from diapers to beer to drugs to socks; all for a couple dollars. https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/03/04/67776468/the-people-of-3rd-and-pine https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/03/04/67776468/the-peo... I think it's great reading for anyone who believes homelessness is an issue that can be solved by throwing free housing at people. Here's an excerpt - >Andre said he has struggled with homelessness on and off since he was 14. That’s when he started selling at 3rd and Pine. He’s been there almost everyday since. He’s 30 now. “You get caught up,” Andre said when I asked him why he’s spent half his life on this corner. “You make your first sale, you get a little money. Then you’re 30 and you’re still at 3rd and Pine.” >Andre lives in an apartment thanks to a city-run housing program, but he doesn’t have a job other than selling flipped merchandise. Over the last two years, the government has forked over financial relief to taxpayers with formal jobs, but people like Andre, who work informal jobs, have not seen such benefits. By "informal jobs", they actually mean selling stolen merchandise. >I asked Andre what the city could do to get people to stop selling at 3rd and Pine. He said the city could give them something else to do: “Maybe build a basketball court? Somewhere to shoot hoops?” The logic being presented here is that because the government has only given them free housing and not a free place to play basketball, it's reasonable to expect that they'll fill their days selling stolen goods. By building somewhere to shoot hoops, the problem could be solved. This is a city where nearly any deli or corner-store has a We're Hiring sign and will gladly pay people under the table. Homelessness is a social phenomenon, not an economic wart caused by expensive housing.
- dixie_land 5y ago
  Exactly. Some of those troubled neighborhoods (belltown) were home to me when I first moved to Seattle. It’s sad seeing liberals ruining it by legalizing and encouraging crimes (no persecution). Seattle is worse than downtown Detroit by a large margin now. Probably crime capital of the nation. And they’re actively exporting the problems to the east side.
  - torbTurret 5y ago
eysquared 5y ago
Headline is a bit misleading, as this isn't all of Seattle and just one specific location. That location has been one of the worst spots in Seattle for as far back as I can remember, so it was always a bit odd they had an office there. Still I'm sure Amazon will take any excuse it can get to reduce headcount in Seattle given the city council's feelings towards them. They've been shifting to Bellevue for a few years now, and most hiring in Seattle proper has slowed or stopped due to headcount caps.
- MartinCron 5y ago
  That specific location for an Amazon office never made sense to me. It's like someone at Amazon was making late night impulse buys of real estate.
  - bink 5y ago
    Not sure if Seattle is the same but San Francisco has tax incentives for companies that open offices in under-served areas.
- qiskit 5y ago
  > Headline is a bit misleading, as this isn't all of Seattle and just one specific location. It's mainly the tourist part between king street station and pike place. And pretty much outside of 2nd and 3rd, you don't see it. It doesn't represent 99.99% of seattle and yet people here make it seem like all of seattle is overrun with homelessness.
  - toast0 5y ago
    SoDo is pretty sketch too. Lots of people living in RVs that won't move. The McDonald's has a bouncer and the bathroom has uv lighting. Tents on the side of most freeways. There's a lot of Seattle where this isn't the case, but I don't think it's 4 nines nice.
  - vkou 5y ago
    All of Seattle is overrun with homelessness, because most of the ~11,000 homeless people in King County live here, and less than half of them are sheltered. But no, 99.9% of Seattle does not look like the block bounded by 2nd, 3rd, Pike, and Pine. Or like Pioneer square.
ricardobayes 5y ago
Living in HCOL metropolises is like thinking ICE cars make sense because they make a 'vroom vroom' sound. I visited a big city for the first time in two years this past weekend and couldn't stay for more than 30 minutes. People on top of people, litter, crazy traffic you name it. I moved to a cozy coastal area where people know each other by their first names. People take the time to get to know you, make a joke, or help you out. After living all my life in big cities now the whole concept of it seems so foreign.
- fassssst 5y ago
  When you visit a city, venture out of the downtown area. Most people that love living in big cities actually live in the neighborhoods, not in the high rises.
- ketralnis 5y ago
  So don't. It's not for everyone. Apparently it's not for you. That's okay. Some of the "people on top of people" like cities better.
- nluken 5y ago
  I think there's a lot of people who live in these areas who don't take full advantage of them. Jobs funnel these people into the cities when they could have a higher standard of living elsewhere. That said, I hate the cities vs. towns debate because it dismisses the fact that people are different, and value different experiences. Cities offer a lot of things that smaller communities don't. There's much more vibrant arts scenes, a greater variety of amenities (bars, restaurants, concert venues, museums, etc.) and much greater diversity. Traffic isn't a problem if you don't own a car, and city neighborhoods (outside downtown) can provide more a sense of community than you might think. The tradeoff is, of course, space and affordability. For some people, that tradeoff is worth it, and for others it isn't.
- asdff 5y ago
  The best thing with big cities are the scales bake in selection and redundancy. What happens if your nearest x, be it neighbors, restaurants, shops, whatever, just sucks? Tough for you. For me I have backups and backups. Neighbors all over the place. Food from around the world at all price points. Every hobby I have manages to have enough supporters in the population to support a specialist shop or three. My neighbors we know eachother, we help eachother out. The fact that there are more of us in the group chat means that we can more reliably get some people together in the common areas for wine.
GoodJokes 5y ago
skrowl 5y ago
Multiple articles have been written about this. It's not just Amazon that it's impacting. Seattle city council made deep cuts (but stopped short of totally "defunding the police") to the police there and ... shockingly ... crime has gone way up since then. The vote was 8-1 https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2021-11-23/city-council-cuts-seattle-police-budget-drawing-criticism https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/...
- Splendor 5y ago
  That's the 2022 budget which has been in effect for less than four months. And so far in 2022, crime has not "gone way up" -- at least not according to the city's crime dashboard[0]. That shows a grand total of 47,612 crimes in 2021. Divided by 12 months gives us an average of ~4k per month. So far the only total for 2022 is from January and shows a total of 4,023 crimes. [0]: http://www.seattle.gov/police/information-and-data/crime-dashboard http://www.seattle.gov/police/information-and-data/crime-das...
  - anonfornoreason 5y ago
    People stop reporting. We have had an office break-in, multiple car break-ins, none reported to the police. They don't show up for hours, they can't do anything, and it doesn't change the situation for the reported. Easier to just skip. Talked to half a dozen people with the exact same story.
    - Splendor 5y ago
      With respect, I prefer to ignore anecdotal explanations that conveniently lack the ability to be verified. But thanks for adding your perspective.
      - pnathan 5y ago
        that's a pretty common perspective here.
      - 5y ago
jdonaldson 5y ago
CyberPunk 2077 hits different if you live in Seattle. I'm not saying Seattle is as bad as a dystopian video game, but more of a point on the same line.
- hemloc_io 5y ago
  Since I moved here I always said Seattle is the most Cyberpunk city! (not that that's a good thing, but cool to see someone else share the opinion.) Walking from downtown to Amazon's campus is wild, feels like the corporation owns that entire part of town.
  - psyc 5y ago
    I lived in Seattle from 2005 to 2018. By the time I left, the combination of all the tent cities, uniformed private security everywhere, metal detector lines in the ER, and at least 3 tech giants absolutely had me feeling like I was in a dystopian future. I used to walk the whole city at all hours and take it all in.
vlorch 5y ago
3rd and Pine is the Mos Eisley Cantina of Seattle
racl101 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
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- watwut 5y ago
  The police was not defunded nor reformed.
  - jmcphers 5y ago
    The police force in Seattle has indeed been significantly defunded, and currently has hundreds of vacancies because officers have been quitting and no one wants the job. I don't blame them. Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/seattle-city-council-defunds-the-police-again-11638572886 https://www.wsj.com/articles/seattle-city-council-defunds-th...
adamredwoods 5y ago
Link to the WSJ article referenced in the article: https://archive.ph/hUmyv https://archive.ph/hUmyv Summary: >> The testimony revealed business desperation, but don’t expect help from Seattle’s politicians. In response to a business owner’s question about how to address gun violence, City Council President Debora Juarez said, “I don’t have an answer for you” about “what’s going to happen to stop people from getting a gun and coming into your store.” >> She admitted that black Seattle residents want some assurance of safety. But she added that “to be frank with you, I don’t also believe that hiring way more police or addressing every issue with a gun and a badge works either. Because we know who gets affected the worst. It’s people of color. They get killed.” >> In other words, as criminals terrorize Seattle, its leaders still think police are the problem. The lawlessness will persist until Seattle voters stage a revolt.
- Cymrukicks 5y ago
  Wow what a poor take. "In other words, as criminals terrorize Seattle, its leaders still think police are the problem. The lawlessness will persist until Seattle voters stage a revolt." I think a better take would be that it leaders acknowledge that police are not the solution. They would probably be basing this off the fact that the US has the highest incarceration rates and still has the highest violent crime. This a complex situation that requires pretty much all stratas of society to come together to solve. Going 3000 AD isn't going to help.
- techsupporter 5y ago
  This is a staggering misrepresentation of what Councilmember Juarez wrote. (I will point out by way of potential bias that CM Juarez is the councilmember for my district and I voted for her in the last election.) Seattle PD is the problem in a lot of ways. We've made one simple ask of them: stop arbitrarily shooting people. They have failed in that task, and every time we, the voters, try to hold them accountable, we are told that "the Mayor doesn't supervise the police department" or "Office of Police Accountability has no authority" or "the consent decree prohibits us from passing that ordinance." CM Juarez, who is a person of color I might add, is correct that the actual statistics say that being a person of darker colored skin around a Seattle PD officer is a risky endeavor. So adding more badges and guns to the street won't do much.
kache_ 5y ago
Homelessness is the biggest driver of remote, and a big reason why I haven't taken my family to San Fran or Seattle. Flying down there once a quarter is fine for me, an adult male. But there's no way I'm subjecting my children to that level of lack of safety.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  I grew up in a big city myself, but I have a second degree connection with people who grew up in the SF Tenderloin, and it looks like it did make them wary of people. I've also noticed that this is common for people who grew up in the bad parts of Oakland: they think everyone is going to scam them. Also, in my experience, people who grew up in the country are wary of people who don't look like them, and folks from diverse cities (like London) are very inclusive of people. So to me there's some sort of curve where both isolation and living in the worst part of cities leads to some sort of automatic trust loss. I want my children to be trusting (I expect them to be scammed some number of times and survive the experience) so it does make me consider where I want to live where they can experience independence, other children, and end up secure people.
- pnathan 5y ago
  I live about 1-2 miles from this specific location (this specific office building everyone's talking about), with my wife and kid. The hot spot is, about roughly, 9 blocks. The boundaries are slightly amorphous as seasons change. It is not the vast majority of Seattle by land area or population. There's a lot elsewhere to do and see in Seattle that doesn't involve this area. Most of the other troubled areas are considerably safer than this specific location. I live in another troubled area. I'm not thrilled about it, but it is an order of magnitude better than 3rd and Pike. Anyway, I'd suggest not being in fear of taking the family to Seattle.
  - ertian 5y ago
    This is very true. But: "Hey, guys, we're going to Seattle! What would you like to see?" "Let's go to Pike Place, I've heard a lot about that!" "Ehh...okay, but we'll have to stick to the inside of the market. Don't wander out, it's not safe!" "We could go to Pioneer Square!" "Holy crap, no way! It's scary down there." "The art museum...?" "Maybe, first thing in the morning, before things start getting...weird..." "We could, er, have lunch in the historic International District?" "Uhm...you're comfortable wielding a knife, right?" "What about, uhh...the arboretum?" "The arboretum! What a great idea! We'll go to the Arboretum. See, I told you Seattle is a great place to visit." Point being: about 90% of the stuff tourists come to see in Seattle is within that hot spot. And it is bigger than 9 square blocks, though it's still only a small part of the city, much less the municipal area.
aaomidi 5y ago
Seattle and San Francisco got so rich while forgetting that a greater society outside their bubble exists. The class difference in these areas is staggering. The taxation method is regressive (at least in Seattle and Washington). And there's very little public service outside of neo-liberal solutions provided to the greater city.
adamredwoods 5y ago
If anyone is curious how sketchy this location in Seattle is, this is the Yelp reviews for the McDonalds nearby. It has had a marked history for the past decade or so. https://www.yelp.com/biz/mcdonalds-seattle-27?hrid=wXm1o4rv1JkFNZyp-8zf7A https://www.yelp.com/biz/mcdonalds-seattle-27?hrid=wXm1o4rv1... There was also a twitter page for a while: https://twitter.com/3rdandpike https://twitter.com/3rdandpike
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  > It has had a marked history for the past decade or so. I worked at 3rd and Pine McDonalds in 1994 just before I got into the UW CS department. It was notorious even back then, I assume before 94 as well.
  - bckr 5y ago
    Is it 3rd and Pine or 3rd and Pike???
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      The McDonalds is definitely at 3rd and Pine (the main entrance is on the corner of 3rd and pine, directly across from the Bond/Macy's), pike is on the other side of that block. But ya, everyone always gets those two streets confused: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o78v8EE7Ano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o78v8EE7Ano 3rd and Pike has a chipotles (that obviously wasn't there in the 90s). Pike is also much worse than Pine in terms of its unhoused problem (they hangout more at the Target, Pike Place Market area, 3rd and Pine is a bit of an outlier).
    - saulpw 5y ago
      Pine is one block north of Pike. They are all but identical intersections.
hbarka 5y ago
San Francisco and Seattle are turning into sister-cities. What baffles me is why drug DEALERS are allowed to do so with impunity. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/safe-sights-drug-dealers-tenderloin-sf-use-soma-13286197.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/sa...
- sydthrowaway 5y ago
  Read the book San Fransicko. The policy makers are bonkers.
- standardUser 5y ago
  The difference between users and dealers is mostly in the imagination of middle-class people.
- coryfklein 5y ago
  The Wire[0] is a very interesting portrait into the challenges involved in managing drug crime in a city. I'm not a cop so I can't say how far the realism extends, but the show seems to try pretty hard to be grounded in reality as opposed to – say – CSI. [0] https://www.hbo.com/the-wire https://www.hbo.com/the-wire
  - hotpotamus 5y ago
    The Wire was written by David Simon, a Baltimore journalist who wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (made into a TV show named Homicide before The Wire) after embedding with the police for a year. It's basically the magnum opus of crime documentary from that era. The Wire is fiction but draws strongly from that work. I don't know how his experiences influenced him, but David Simon's politics are extremely left wing these days so make of that what you will.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
WFHRenaissance 5y ago
LOL, the area home to what I called "The Bulletproof McDonald's" on my last visit. All food is served through a slot. The storefront resembles a bomb shelter. No one is allowed inside.
- hemloc_io 5y ago
  We called it McStabbies, and I think they actually closed recently. it even had a twitter account for a while. https://twitter.com/3rdandpike?lang=en https://twitter.com/3rdandpike?lang=en
  - thefunnyman 5y ago
    Yup, lovingly called McStabbies by all the locals I know.
techsupporter 5y ago
Since threads about topics like this often have a very similar vibe regardless of forum, I would like to make one ask: Please, remember that actual people live here and not just bits displayed on a screen. Also remember that these are incredibly complex problems and that any solution you type into this text box is not going to be easy to implement, easy to track, or easy to push to resolution. Life is not a set of Jira tickets. I have lived inside the city limits of Seattle virtually my entire life. Except for a brief stint in Texas for work, Seattle has been home. Seattle, like all cities, has its warts and problems. The absolutely staggering level of income and wealth inequality we have experienced in the last decade has taken all of those problems and multiplied them tenfold. Seattle is a beautiful city with a lot to offer...which is why tens of thousands of people move here every year. Should there be crime on 3rd Ave? No. Should there be crime anywhere? No. But, finally, please remember that agendas exist and are being pushed and, bluntly, Amazon has a lot of arrows in its quiver if it wants to make a proper good influence on our shared hometown. Odd that it so rarely uses those arrows, except for press releases.
- girzel 5y ago
  > The absolutely staggering level of income and wealth inequality we have experienced in the last decade has taken all of those problems and multiplied them tenfold. This is the key, to me. Amazon moving out because of crime seems like some kind of full-circle irony, when they have contributed so much to that inequality in the first place. I grew up in Seattle, and live here now. Crime and homelessness has been an issue for a decade or so, and it's become a much bigger issue (more spread out than it was) since COVID. None of that indicates getting "tougher" on crime/homelessness as a solution to our problems. Not to me, anyway.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    > This is the key, to me. Amazon moving out because of crime seems like some kind of full-circle irony, when they have contributed so much to that inequality in the first place. The greatest irony of all is that municipalities continue to fall for this trick. American corporations have been doing it for nearly a century now, and Amazon is only the latest to pick up the proud tradition.
screye 5y ago
Seattle homelessness has 2 standout aspects that I have not seen with homelessness in other cities. The first is the high degree of mental illness & civilian harassment per capita. In my experience, Seattle's homeless come across as particularly scary in their audaciousness and willfulness to commit minor crimes. Part of it may have to do with the car centric design of Seattle, which does not give you the NYC-esque safety in numbers. Whether it be 2 am in an empty-ish subway or a park with a lot of homeless people taking shelter, I have never been harassed in NYC. On the contrary, I seem to get confronted by a homeless person rather often when I walk through Seattle's most affected areas. FWIW, my intuition is that drug abuse is much more rampant among Seattle's homeless communities. The most confusing thing about Seattle's homelessness, is that it coincides with the high foot-traffic touristy areas. In most other cities (Boston, NYC, DC); popular walkways, green spaces and core touristy areas tend to be policed and kept clear of homelessness. The problem persists, but doesn't directly interfere with your average civilian's life as much. In contrast, Seattle's most scenic and pedestrian-dense parts are more affected by this problem. Walking from one end of downtown (Pioneer Square) to the adjacent party neighborhood (Capitol Hill) is practically a walking tour of the city's homelessness crisis. I know a few people who do not leave their houses in downtown/pioneer square without a car. I want to blame the last decade's incompetent city leadership. But then again, it is the people of Seattle who are voting for them.
- globular-toast 5y ago
  What kind of harassment is it? I'm British and it's fairly normal for homeless people to ask for money or whatever here. But they don't often approach you, they are not persistent and I've never been followed or anything like that. When I first visited Paris I was shocked at how different the homeless people were. They were actively going around targeting people and trying all kinds of tricks to get you to give them money. This was in the major touristy areas too. I can't say I ever felt unsafe, but I certainly felt less inclined to spend time outside (and I was wearing a money belt at all times, nothing valuable in my pockets).
  - Wohlf 5y ago
    Parisian homeless sound similar to aggressive street vendors I've experienced in SEA, they were annoying and would occasionally leave me feeling somewhat violated but never really scared, except for possible pickpocketing. With homeless here (at least in Portland and Seattle) it really depends. Most completely ignore you, some ask for money, some will be very loud and aggressive at no one in particular possibly from hallucinations or just being upset in general. A small but significant percentage will act extremely unhinged, so much so they make me nervous as a larger guy with military experience. I've heard that a lot of this is due to a new kind of meth on the streets that causes terrible psychosis.
excalibur 5y ago
Telling office workers where they can and can't work in 2022 is a bad look, period.
dinoreic 5y ago
Ban begging and sleeping on a streets, make huge homeless shelters on outskirts of a city and provide basic healthcare to those people in need. Is it that complicated and costly compared to this shame? USA people are so strange.
- t-writescode 5y ago
  "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread." - Anatole France
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    The law also forbids rich-only things which poor people are not affected by, like white collar crimes.
    - t-writescode 5y ago
      I don't think I would compare shelter and food on the same level as "market manipulation" in this conversation.
      - oh_sigh 5y ago
        I thought we were talking about the majestic equality of the law
- immibis 5y ago
  The problem is they will stop after step one. They will make it illegal to beg or sleep on the streets, and then, they will expect those people to just magically disappear.
dang 5y ago
Recent and related: Amazon shuts small Seattle office after spate of crimes in area - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30635654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30635654 - March 2022 (115 comments)

204 points by ghostoftiber 5y ago

I am especially interested to hear from HN readers who live (or until very recently lived) in Seattle, as to whether or not the impression this gives of the city matches with your experience?

deleted 5y ago
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pnathan 5y ago
I've lived in Seattle since 2014, with a short break living in Tacoma. For most of that time, I've wandered downtown. I like the high-crowd energy. 3rd and Pike/Pine has been a bad location for this entire time. I am given to understand that it's been bad since, idk, the 80s? When Covid hit, the visible homelessness situation exploded. I can't speak to all the factors as to why, but it was unbelievable. Normally 3rd and Pike/Pine were mitigated by the normals wandering through. That all vanished. It was rough. In the last few months, it seems that there's been a shooting in Seattle daily. Many do not seem to be directly connected with traditional gang-gang violence over drugs/turf wars, or the long-standing tradition of arguing with armed drunks after the bar closes. I can't speak in nuance to homelessness relationships to violence, but I can clearly note that there seems to be a relation. > Last month The Wall Street Journal editorial board declared that “lawlessness now hampers Seattle’s economic recovery.” I would not rent or buy any office space in Downtown Seattle until the City addresses the violence; addressing that at a deep enough level, the homelessness situation - nonprofit services, camps, etc. that are all downtown will need to be relocated. That is almost certainly politically untenable here. What the WSJ might be missing is that there's very little reason for knowledge workers to show up to an office daily to stare at their computer. So cities like Seattle, which have spent 20 years investing into knowledge work companies, are going to take that hit to the face, hard. I'm personally talking with my wife about finding a city with more sun and cheaper houses...
shepherdjerred 5y ago
3rd and Pike is notorious for being sketchy. I avoid it when I can, but it's not like I'm fearing for my life while walking down the street. There is a clear problem with homelessness here, and that's very evident downtown. When you get to the more residential area it feels like a normal city. It feels more uncomfortable than it does unsafe.
livueta 5y ago
As a lifelong Seattle resident/employee (psq, eastlake, cap hill), minus a few year-ish expat stints, I'd say it is partially correct but not the whole picture. All this said, I like it here and have no plans to leave permanently. 1) bad stuff definitely exists 3rd/Pine, parts of SoDo, the couple blocks between Occidental Square and Kobe Terrace, Aurora between like 85th and 145th, and bits of Beacon/Columbian/Rainier, are all what I'd call legitimately unsettling/dangerous experiences for WASPs and I totally understand why places downtown are having issues. 2) bad stuff isn't new I got mugged multiple times on free-ride-zone buses as a kid/teen, lost lots of bikes, etc etc. The police have always been worse than useless and nobody I knew, even upper-middle-class neighborhood-dwellers, bothered reporting petty property crime. The impact of homelessness on downtown quality of life has pretty much always been a thing; consider https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/warning-seattles-free-ride-zone-coming-to-an-end/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/warning-seattles-f... (from 2012) - the free-zone buses were literal mobile drug dens after a certain hour or on certain routes, was pretty nuts. Before the viaduct was torn down, it was effectively a miles-long open-air shelter. I actually wonder how much of the current tensions are attributable to having physically gotten rid of one of the more inherently accommodating structures in the area, driving that population more out into the open a few blocks uphill. 3) bad stuff is getting worse No argument that things haven't accelerated throughout the pandemic, though. Having actually spent a lot of time wandering around outside in the international district in early 2020, I can say that the current trajectory absolutely didn't start around/after the summer unrest. Imo, that's a totally unjustified attempt at ideologically linking unrelated concepts. As mentioned, cops have been useless since forever. The pandemic and pandemic-related restrictions have engendered an enormous amount of economic instability that bureaucratic-focused measures like rent assistance and eviction moratoria often fail to meaningfully mitigate; those most in need of help are the ones who aren't getting it. I think the destabilizing economic impact of the pandemic on the populations most vulnerable to homelessness is systematically discounted by the smug suburbanites who really really really want to find a cause, any cause, that isn't rooted in housing/inequality issues. Much easier to blame defunding the police. 4) rate of increase appears proportional to amount of socioeconomic deprivation My take is that the amount of badness tracks pretty closely with aggregate economic fucked-ness. I did a lot of volunteering at the Compass Center circa the 2008 economic crisis and saw the progression firsthand: expensive housing begets housing instability, which is often the first step on a long downwards slide towards being a naked screaming shit-flinger. One gets driven into an encampment and now one's proximate to drug sales and has a lot of free time - doesn't take the most detailed analysis of all time to see how things continue to slide. People talk about multiple "classes" of homeless - the real honest Americans temporarily down on their luck, vs. the insane drug addicts accosting randoms on the street. While those distinctions do exist, it's often ignored that the boundaries between them are pretty fragile and it is very easy to progress downhill; the actual crazies come from somewhere, and that somewhere is unfortunately frequently the cauldron of fucked-ness that is living without stable housing. All this said, I live my daily life without worrying about it much or even encountering examples of visible homelessness. The region is increasingly segregated on the basis of economic class, so for your Amazon dev working from home in Magnolia or whatever the issue is largely academic.
tyjen 5y ago
Like most cities, criminality is highly dependent on where you are and what time it is. The rampant homelessness issue is clearly evident and the only city from my experience that rivals Seattle's homeless rate is Honolulu. Honolulu also imposed stricter criminal laws at the time I lived there. We did not encounter any direct criminality against us while we lived there, although my wife had a close call. She stayed late to finish up work and left her internal office door unlocked to grab food. Within that 15 minute window, someone hopped a fencing structure, gained entry to the building, and managed to steal anything he thought was important. It was one of the few offices unlocked. Thankfully she did not surprise him in the act. Camera recordings provided a clear description of the perpetrator and police found him within 20 minutes at a local homeless encampment. A 19-year-old kid high on meth with a long criminal history including rape. Police recovered everything and returned it after holding it as evidence. It's an incredibly sad situation all around.
- immibis 5y ago
  A 19-year-old with a long criminal history? People only grow up that way in terrible surroundings. It is not that person's fault they grew up that way, but it might be too late to fix it.
lostmsu 5y ago
Anecdata is a poor choice of source for any kind of decision making. But here's my datapoint: while nobody was at home we got one of the windows cracked by what looked like a gunshot. That happened in West Seattle. I heard from the repair company, that it is common. Note, this happened 1 time in 15 years. We had no other issues otherwise.
lenocinor 5y ago
I live in downtown Seattle and have for a few years. 3rd between Stewart and Pike (where this office is) is not good. I mostly avoid there. I also don’t get off the light rail at Pioneer Square. Everything else in and around downtown is fine. I don’t fear for my life or generally even really feel unsafe in almost any other place in Belltown, downtown, or the International District. The rest is just like any other big city to me.

advisedwang 5y ago

That's kind of taking Amazon's word for it as to reason. Amazon has been gearing up to reduce it's Seattle presence since the Tax Amazon campaign in Seattle. The situation on 3rd Ave is bad, but Amazon also wants to show the city council that raising taxes on them would result in them loosing an employer, not getting any revenue.

laurent92 5y ago
You’ve succeeded to say in the same sentence that the city was doing an appalling job while asking the company to fund their plans, and that it’s the company’s fault for showing the city that they can leave if it keeps worsening. Maybe Amazon can deal with people fighting against capitalism and the very idea of ownership, but levying taxes to fund a nogo zone (where people get shot), is not a project that Amazon wants to fund?
- advisedwang 5y ago
  I didn't say who should do what or who is to blame or anything moral. I'm trying to get people not to take a press release at face value.
tootie 5y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it was by popular demand. And combination of fear of crime and the fact that nobody really needs to be there at all. And I'm further speculating that a lot of this sentiment in Seattle, SF and NYC is driven by the influx of affluent office workers who moved in during the lowest ebb of crime in the 2010s and are getting a rude awakening of what city life is like. Anyone who sees this as some sort of end times doesn't remember the 90s.
jasd 5y ago
I used to work at Amazon and I know some employees who were relocated to this building. They've always expressed some discomfort having to work from there. This was pre-covid. From what I understand, the situation has worsened. While I agree that Amazon and the city-council are in a bit of a tussle, I feel that this move is justified from an employee safety perspective.

honkdaddy 5y ago

If you want an inside look of what that area is actually like (I left Seattle in 2021 after being disgusted by the state of the city), this article has some great interviews. People on that block steal and then sell anything from diapers to beer to drugs to socks; all for a couple dollars. https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/03/04/67776468/the-people-of-3rd-and-pine https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/03/04/67776468/the-peo... I think it's great reading for anyone who believes homelessness is an issue that can be solved by throwing free housing at people. Here's an excerpt - >Andre said he has struggled with homelessness on and off since he was 14. That’s when he started selling at 3rd and Pine. He’s been there almost everyday since. He’s 30 now. “You get caught up,” Andre said when I asked him why he’s spent half his life on this corner. “You make your first sale, you get a little money. Then you’re 30 and you’re still at 3rd and Pine.” >Andre lives in an apartment thanks to a city-run housing program, but he doesn’t have a job other than selling flipped merchandise. Over the last two years, the government has forked over financial relief to taxpayers with formal jobs, but people like Andre, who work informal jobs, have not seen such benefits. By "informal jobs", they actually mean selling stolen merchandise. >I asked Andre what the city could do to get people to stop selling at 3rd and Pine. He said the city could give them something else to do: “Maybe build a basketball court? Somewhere to shoot hoops?” The logic being presented here is that because the government has only given them free housing and not a free place to play basketball, it's reasonable to expect that they'll fill their days selling stolen goods. By building somewhere to shoot hoops, the problem could be solved. This is a city where nearly any deli or corner-store has a We're Hiring sign and will gladly pay people under the table. Homelessness is a social phenomenon, not an economic wart caused by expensive housing.

dixie_land 5y ago
Exactly. Some of those troubled neighborhoods (belltown) were home to me when I first moved to Seattle. It’s sad seeing liberals ruining it by legalizing and encouraging crimes (no persecution). Seattle is worse than downtown Detroit by a large margin now. Probably crime capital of the nation. And they’re actively exporting the problems to the east side.
- torbTurret 5y ago

eysquared 5y ago

Headline is a bit misleading, as this isn't all of Seattle and just one specific location. That location has been one of the worst spots in Seattle for as far back as I can remember, so it was always a bit odd they had an office there. Still I'm sure Amazon will take any excuse it can get to reduce headcount in Seattle given the city council's feelings towards them. They've been shifting to Bellevue for a few years now, and most hiring in Seattle proper has slowed or stopped due to headcount caps.

MartinCron 5y ago
That specific location for an Amazon office never made sense to me. It's like someone at Amazon was making late night impulse buys of real estate.
- bink 5y ago
  Not sure if Seattle is the same but San Francisco has tax incentives for companies that open offices in under-served areas.
qiskit 5y ago
> Headline is a bit misleading, as this isn't all of Seattle and just one specific location. It's mainly the tourist part between king street station and pike place. And pretty much outside of 2nd and 3rd, you don't see it. It doesn't represent 99.99% of seattle and yet people here make it seem like all of seattle is overrun with homelessness.
- toast0 5y ago
  SoDo is pretty sketch too. Lots of people living in RVs that won't move. The McDonald's has a bouncer and the bathroom has uv lighting. Tents on the side of most freeways. There's a lot of Seattle where this isn't the case, but I don't think it's 4 nines nice.
- vkou 5y ago
  All of Seattle is overrun with homelessness, because most of the ~11,000 homeless people in King County live here, and less than half of them are sheltered. But no, 99.9% of Seattle does not look like the block bounded by 2nd, 3rd, Pike, and Pine. Or like Pioneer square.

ricardobayes 5y ago

Living in HCOL metropolises is like thinking ICE cars make sense because they make a 'vroom vroom' sound. I visited a big city for the first time in two years this past weekend and couldn't stay for more than 30 minutes. People on top of people, litter, crazy traffic you name it. I moved to a cozy coastal area where people know each other by their first names. People take the time to get to know you, make a joke, or help you out. After living all my life in big cities now the whole concept of it seems so foreign.

fassssst 5y ago
When you visit a city, venture out of the downtown area. Most people that love living in big cities actually live in the neighborhoods, not in the high rises.
ketralnis 5y ago
So don't. It's not for everyone. Apparently it's not for you. That's okay. Some of the "people on top of people" like cities better.
nluken 5y ago
I think there's a lot of people who live in these areas who don't take full advantage of them. Jobs funnel these people into the cities when they could have a higher standard of living elsewhere. That said, I hate the cities vs. towns debate because it dismisses the fact that people are different, and value different experiences. Cities offer a lot of things that smaller communities don't. There's much more vibrant arts scenes, a greater variety of amenities (bars, restaurants, concert venues, museums, etc.) and much greater diversity. Traffic isn't a problem if you don't own a car, and city neighborhoods (outside downtown) can provide more a sense of community than you might think. The tradeoff is, of course, space and affordability. For some people, that tradeoff is worth it, and for others it isn't.
asdff 5y ago
The best thing with big cities are the scales bake in selection and redundancy. What happens if your nearest x, be it neighbors, restaurants, shops, whatever, just sucks? Tough for you. For me I have backups and backups. Neighbors all over the place. Food from around the world at all price points. Every hobby I have manages to have enough supporters in the population to support a specialist shop or three. My neighbors we know eachother, we help eachother out. The fact that there are more of us in the group chat means that we can more reliably get some people together in the common areas for wine.

GoodJokes 5y ago

skrowl 5y ago

Multiple articles have been written about this. It's not just Amazon that it's impacting. Seattle city council made deep cuts (but stopped short of totally "defunding the police") to the police there and ... shockingly ... crime has gone way up since then. The vote was 8-1 https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2021-11-23/city-council-cuts-seattle-police-budget-drawing-criticism https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/...

Splendor 5y ago
That's the 2022 budget which has been in effect for less than four months. And so far in 2022, crime has not "gone way up" -- at least not according to the city's crime dashboard[0]. That shows a grand total of 47,612 crimes in 2021. Divided by 12 months gives us an average of ~4k per month. So far the only total for 2022 is from January and shows a total of 4,023 crimes. [0]: http://www.seattle.gov/police/information-and-data/crime-dashboard http://www.seattle.gov/police/information-and-data/crime-das...
- anonfornoreason 5y ago
  People stop reporting. We have had an office break-in, multiple car break-ins, none reported to the police. They don't show up for hours, they can't do anything, and it doesn't change the situation for the reported. Easier to just skip. Talked to half a dozen people with the exact same story.
  - Splendor 5y ago
    With respect, I prefer to ignore anecdotal explanations that conveniently lack the ability to be verified. But thanks for adding your perspective.
    - pnathan 5y ago
      that's a pretty common perspective here.
    - 5y ago

jdonaldson 5y ago

CyberPunk 2077 hits different if you live in Seattle. I'm not saying Seattle is as bad as a dystopian video game, but more of a point on the same line.

hemloc_io 5y ago
Since I moved here I always said Seattle is the most Cyberpunk city! (not that that's a good thing, but cool to see someone else share the opinion.) Walking from downtown to Amazon's campus is wild, feels like the corporation owns that entire part of town.
- psyc 5y ago
  I lived in Seattle from 2005 to 2018. By the time I left, the combination of all the tent cities, uniformed private security everywhere, metal detector lines in the ER, and at least 3 tech giants absolutely had me feeling like I was in a dystopian future. I used to walk the whole city at all hours and take it all in.

vlorch 5y ago

3rd and Pine is the Mos Eisley Cantina of Seattle

racl101 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
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watwut 5y ago
The police was not defunded nor reformed.
- jmcphers 5y ago
  The police force in Seattle has indeed been significantly defunded, and currently has hundreds of vacancies because officers have been quitting and no one wants the job. I don't blame them. Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/seattle-city-council-defunds-the-police-again-11638572886 https://www.wsj.com/articles/seattle-city-council-defunds-th...

adamredwoods 5y ago

Link to the WSJ article referenced in the article: https://archive.ph/hUmyv https://archive.ph/hUmyv Summary: >> The testimony revealed business desperation, but don’t expect help from Seattle’s politicians. In response to a business owner’s question about how to address gun violence, City Council President Debora Juarez said, “I don’t have an answer for you” about “what’s going to happen to stop people from getting a gun and coming into your store.” >> She admitted that black Seattle residents want some assurance of safety. But she added that “to be frank with you, I don’t also believe that hiring way more police or addressing every issue with a gun and a badge works either. Because we know who gets affected the worst. It’s people of color. They get killed.” >> In other words, as criminals terrorize Seattle, its leaders still think police are the problem. The lawlessness will persist until Seattle voters stage a revolt.

Cymrukicks 5y ago
Wow what a poor take. "In other words, as criminals terrorize Seattle, its leaders still think police are the problem. The lawlessness will persist until Seattle voters stage a revolt." I think a better take would be that it leaders acknowledge that police are not the solution. They would probably be basing this off the fact that the US has the highest incarceration rates and still has the highest violent crime. This a complex situation that requires pretty much all stratas of society to come together to solve. Going 3000 AD isn't going to help.
techsupporter 5y ago
This is a staggering misrepresentation of what Councilmember Juarez wrote. (I will point out by way of potential bias that CM Juarez is the councilmember for my district and I voted for her in the last election.) Seattle PD is the problem in a lot of ways. We've made one simple ask of them: stop arbitrarily shooting people. They have failed in that task, and every time we, the voters, try to hold them accountable, we are told that "the Mayor doesn't supervise the police department" or "Office of Police Accountability has no authority" or "the consent decree prohibits us from passing that ordinance." CM Juarez, who is a person of color I might add, is correct that the actual statistics say that being a person of darker colored skin around a Seattle PD officer is a risky endeavor. So adding more badges and guns to the street won't do much.

kache_ 5y ago

Homelessness is the biggest driver of remote, and a big reason why I haven't taken my family to San Fran or Seattle. Flying down there once a quarter is fine for me, an adult male. But there's no way I'm subjecting my children to that level of lack of safety.

renewiltord 5y ago
I grew up in a big city myself, but I have a second degree connection with people who grew up in the SF Tenderloin, and it looks like it did make them wary of people. I've also noticed that this is common for people who grew up in the bad parts of Oakland: they think everyone is going to scam them. Also, in my experience, people who grew up in the country are wary of people who don't look like them, and folks from diverse cities (like London) are very inclusive of people. So to me there's some sort of curve where both isolation and living in the worst part of cities leads to some sort of automatic trust loss. I want my children to be trusting (I expect them to be scammed some number of times and survive the experience) so it does make me consider where I want to live where they can experience independence, other children, and end up secure people.
pnathan 5y ago
I live about 1-2 miles from this specific location (this specific office building everyone's talking about), with my wife and kid. The hot spot is, about roughly, 9 blocks. The boundaries are slightly amorphous as seasons change. It is not the vast majority of Seattle by land area or population. There's a lot elsewhere to do and see in Seattle that doesn't involve this area. Most of the other troubled areas are considerably safer than this specific location. I live in another troubled area. I'm not thrilled about it, but it is an order of magnitude better than 3rd and Pike. Anyway, I'd suggest not being in fear of taking the family to Seattle.
- ertian 5y ago
  This is very true. But: "Hey, guys, we're going to Seattle! What would you like to see?" "Let's go to Pike Place, I've heard a lot about that!" "Ehh...okay, but we'll have to stick to the inside of the market. Don't wander out, it's not safe!" "We could go to Pioneer Square!" "Holy crap, no way! It's scary down there." "The art museum...?" "Maybe, first thing in the morning, before things start getting...weird..." "We could, er, have lunch in the historic International District?" "Uhm...you're comfortable wielding a knife, right?" "What about, uhh...the arboretum?" "The arboretum! What a great idea! We'll go to the Arboretum. See, I told you Seattle is a great place to visit." Point being: about 90% of the stuff tourists come to see in Seattle is within that hot spot. And it is bigger than 9 square blocks, though it's still only a small part of the city, much less the municipal area.

aaomidi 5y ago

Seattle and San Francisco got so rich while forgetting that a greater society outside their bubble exists. The class difference in these areas is staggering. The taxation method is regressive (at least in Seattle and Washington). And there's very little public service outside of neo-liberal solutions provided to the greater city.

adamredwoods 5y ago

If anyone is curious how sketchy this location in Seattle is, this is the Yelp reviews for the McDonalds nearby. It has had a marked history for the past decade or so. https://www.yelp.com/biz/mcdonalds-seattle-27?hrid=wXm1o4rv1JkFNZyp-8zf7A https://www.yelp.com/biz/mcdonalds-seattle-27?hrid=wXm1o4rv1... There was also a twitter page for a while: https://twitter.com/3rdandpike https://twitter.com/3rdandpike

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
> It has had a marked history for the past decade or so. I worked at 3rd and Pine McDonalds in 1994 just before I got into the UW CS department. It was notorious even back then, I assume before 94 as well.
- bckr 5y ago
  Is it 3rd and Pine or 3rd and Pike???
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    The McDonalds is definitely at 3rd and Pine (the main entrance is on the corner of 3rd and pine, directly across from the Bond/Macy's), pike is on the other side of that block. But ya, everyone always gets those two streets confused: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o78v8EE7Ano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o78v8EE7Ano 3rd and Pike has a chipotles (that obviously wasn't there in the 90s). Pike is also much worse than Pine in terms of its unhoused problem (they hangout more at the Target, Pike Place Market area, 3rd and Pine is a bit of an outlier).
  - saulpw 5y ago
    Pine is one block north of Pike. They are all but identical intersections.

hbarka 5y ago

San Francisco and Seattle are turning into sister-cities. What baffles me is why drug DEALERS are allowed to do so with impunity. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/safe-sights-drug-dealers-tenderloin-sf-use-soma-13286197.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/sa...

sydthrowaway 5y ago
Read the book San Fransicko. The policy makers are bonkers.
standardUser 5y ago
The difference between users and dealers is mostly in the imagination of middle-class people.
coryfklein 5y ago
The Wire[0] is a very interesting portrait into the challenges involved in managing drug crime in a city. I'm not a cop so I can't say how far the realism extends, but the show seems to try pretty hard to be grounded in reality as opposed to – say – CSI. [0] https://www.hbo.com/the-wire https://www.hbo.com/the-wire
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  The Wire was written by David Simon, a Baltimore journalist who wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (made into a TV show named Homicide before The Wire) after embedding with the police for a year. It's basically the magnum opus of crime documentary from that era. The Wire is fiction but draws strongly from that work. I don't know how his experiences influenced him, but David Simon's politics are extremely left wing these days so make of that what you will.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

WFHRenaissance 5y ago

LOL, the area home to what I called "The Bulletproof McDonald's" on my last visit. All food is served through a slot. The storefront resembles a bomb shelter. No one is allowed inside.

hemloc_io 5y ago
We called it McStabbies, and I think they actually closed recently. it even had a twitter account for a while. https://twitter.com/3rdandpike?lang=en https://twitter.com/3rdandpike?lang=en
- thefunnyman 5y ago
  Yup, lovingly called McStabbies by all the locals I know.

techsupporter 5y ago

Since threads about topics like this often have a very similar vibe regardless of forum, I would like to make one ask: Please, remember that actual people live here and not just bits displayed on a screen. Also remember that these are incredibly complex problems and that any solution you type into this text box is not going to be easy to implement, easy to track, or easy to push to resolution. Life is not a set of Jira tickets. I have lived inside the city limits of Seattle virtually my entire life. Except for a brief stint in Texas for work, Seattle has been home. Seattle, like all cities, has its warts and problems. The absolutely staggering level of income and wealth inequality we have experienced in the last decade has taken all of those problems and multiplied them tenfold. Seattle is a beautiful city with a lot to offer...which is why tens of thousands of people move here every year. Should there be crime on 3rd Ave? No. Should there be crime anywhere? No. But, finally, please remember that agendas exist and are being pushed and, bluntly, Amazon has a lot of arrows in its quiver if it wants to make a proper good influence on our shared hometown. Odd that it so rarely uses those arrows, except for press releases.

girzel 5y ago
> The absolutely staggering level of income and wealth inequality we have experienced in the last decade has taken all of those problems and multiplied them tenfold. This is the key, to me. Amazon moving out because of crime seems like some kind of full-circle irony, when they have contributed so much to that inequality in the first place. I grew up in Seattle, and live here now. Crime and homelessness has been an issue for a decade or so, and it's become a much bigger issue (more spread out than it was) since COVID. None of that indicates getting "tougher" on crime/homelessness as a solution to our problems. Not to me, anyway.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  > This is the key, to me. Amazon moving out because of crime seems like some kind of full-circle irony, when they have contributed so much to that inequality in the first place. The greatest irony of all is that municipalities continue to fall for this trick. American corporations have been doing it for nearly a century now, and Amazon is only the latest to pick up the proud tradition.

screye 5y ago

Seattle homelessness has 2 standout aspects that I have not seen with homelessness in other cities. The first is the high degree of mental illness & civilian harassment per capita. In my experience, Seattle's homeless come across as particularly scary in their audaciousness and willfulness to commit minor crimes. Part of it may have to do with the car centric design of Seattle, which does not give you the NYC-esque safety in numbers. Whether it be 2 am in an empty-ish subway or a park with a lot of homeless people taking shelter, I have never been harassed in NYC. On the contrary, I seem to get confronted by a homeless person rather often when I walk through Seattle's most affected areas. FWIW, my intuition is that drug abuse is much more rampant among Seattle's homeless communities. The most confusing thing about Seattle's homelessness, is that it coincides with the high foot-traffic touristy areas. In most other cities (Boston, NYC, DC); popular walkways, green spaces and core touristy areas tend to be policed and kept clear of homelessness. The problem persists, but doesn't directly interfere with your average civilian's life as much. In contrast, Seattle's most scenic and pedestrian-dense parts are more affected by this problem. Walking from one end of downtown (Pioneer Square) to the adjacent party neighborhood (Capitol Hill) is practically a walking tour of the city's homelessness crisis. I know a few people who do not leave their houses in downtown/pioneer square without a car. I want to blame the last decade's incompetent city leadership. But then again, it is the people of Seattle who are voting for them.

globular-toast 5y ago
What kind of harassment is it? I'm British and it's fairly normal for homeless people to ask for money or whatever here. But they don't often approach you, they are not persistent and I've never been followed or anything like that. When I first visited Paris I was shocked at how different the homeless people were. They were actively going around targeting people and trying all kinds of tricks to get you to give them money. This was in the major touristy areas too. I can't say I ever felt unsafe, but I certainly felt less inclined to spend time outside (and I was wearing a money belt at all times, nothing valuable in my pockets).
- Wohlf 5y ago
  Parisian homeless sound similar to aggressive street vendors I've experienced in SEA, they were annoying and would occasionally leave me feeling somewhat violated but never really scared, except for possible pickpocketing. With homeless here (at least in Portland and Seattle) it really depends. Most completely ignore you, some ask for money, some will be very loud and aggressive at no one in particular possibly from hallucinations or just being upset in general. A small but significant percentage will act extremely unhinged, so much so they make me nervous as a larger guy with military experience. I've heard that a lot of this is due to a new kind of meth on the streets that causes terrible psychosis.

excalibur 5y ago

Telling office workers where they can and can't work in 2022 is a bad look, period.

dinoreic 5y ago

Ban begging and sleeping on a streets, make huge homeless shelters on outskirts of a city and provide basic healthcare to those people in need. Is it that complicated and costly compared to this shame? USA people are so strange.

t-writescode 5y ago
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread." - Anatole France
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  The law also forbids rich-only things which poor people are not affected by, like white collar crimes.
  - t-writescode 5y ago
    I don't think I would compare shelter and food on the same level as "market manipulation" in this conversation.
    - oh_sigh 5y ago
      I thought we were talking about the majestic equality of the law
immibis 5y ago
The problem is they will stop after step one. They will make it illegal to beg or sleep on the streets, and then, they will expect those people to just magically disappear.

dang 5y ago

Recent and related: Amazon shuts small Seattle office after spate of crimes in area - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30635654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30635654 - March 2022 (115 comments)