Neighbors Try to Bulldoze Developer
The Stranger recently had an article about the house my friend are renting on Capitol Hill, Historical Materialism, Neighbors Try to Bulldoze Developer:
LAST WEEK’S LANDMARK PRESERVATION Board hearing about the fate of a house on 611 13th Avenue East was an amazing display of what well-off, politically connected people can do when they want to. The endless testimony, impressive slide shows, and extravagant arguments–all designed to save a cute but unremarkable house–were so inventive and exhaustively researched that they rose to the level of art.
Yes, the house is both cute and unremarkable. There’s four young professionals living in it and the main floor is almost completely devoid of a furniture because no one owns enough to fill the many empty rooms. The kitchen and bathrooms haven’t been renovated in 20 years. I am quite confident none of them live there for the home’s historical value. In fact I’d guess that none of them knew of this until they read the stories themselves in The Stranger.
