It’s one of those Sundays where the chill of winter peeks out behind the mask of fall. The air is crisp and biting, the trees, perplexed by the sharp change in weather, go harlequin. Not quite sure if summer is over they drop their green hues in a panic. A mosaic of color is creeping across the foliage, yet somehow brown leaves are already crunch under foot of passersby.
I open the door of the café, Jess sits at a table near the window. She pushes here glasses up the bridge of her nose, while a cup of Earl Grey pours steam into the spine of her book.
“Bit cold, yeah?” I greet her.
“Well, as Dylan said, the times they are a changing” she says without looking up.
“What are they up to in the old Harvard Exit?”
“Besides tearing it to pieces?” Jess says as she places a bookmark between the pages.
“I loved that place, had you ever been inside? The lobby was like a grandma’s old parlor room. The first time I went in there I was meeting up with Kenny. I thought I walked into the wrong place.”
“Yeah well, it’s going the way of everything on the hill. Probably going to be some new apartments or another soy based vegetarian steak fusion restaurant.”
“Sounds lovely” I replied, “that’s my favorite kind of fusion you know.”
Across the street workers milled in and out, from a distance I was sure they looked like an ant colony. Furiously rearranging bits of dirt, carving out new corridors and chambers. A leaf fell from the tree. Seattle smells sweet in the fall.
“People like to rip on change. But before Harvard Exit was built I bet people in the 1920’s were moaning that they were tearing down some locally owned book store to build the theatre.”
Jess laughed, “Yeah, and in 100 years time tenants will be protesting that you can’t tear down the historic Harvard Exit Condominiums. It’s a neighborhood treasure!”
“The Coliseum was built over a giant garden and lake amphitheater. They filled in the entire lake, destroyed all the little pavilions. Now people have the thing on their bucket list. They walk around with fanny packs and open mouths and say, ‘It’s incredible. Human ingenuity incarnate!’”
“Imagine if they bulldozed Volunteer Park to build a new home for the Sonics.”
“I bet the comments section on Capitol Hill Blog would be a bloodbath.”
“Probably”
