Jane’s Famous House of Prostitution in Everyday Ramblings

This is the upper stairway for the VA Steps. All 145 of them. It is this grand stairway through a forested hill with this split into two circular stairs (one of which I show here that ends in… yep, a parking lot. They paved paradise and all of that. I really wish I had a decent book about the history of this neighborhood. I just took this before lunch.

The park service is doing some trail augmentation on one of the short cuts up the hill. There are still a couple of places one has to scramble a bit but it is very nice easy switchbacks as opposed to the goat trail I normally ascend on the other side of my old gym.

After I wrote the above I went looking for some history of the area, mostly I was looking to see if that stairway did lead to a mansion at one time. The whole area was clear-cut; I have found pictures of that. The area just north of where I live was a muddy gulch.

What I stumbled onto though, while looking online, was a Masters in Sociology dissertation from 1974 at our local university about the urban renewal of this area. The progressive young man that wrote it goes into great detail with much colorful language from the time, vernacular. The guy must have lived on this block, or one over.

And apparently Jane’s Famous House of Prostitution was nearby, though he does not identify it. He mentions there were two buildings built as apartment buildings and I know exactly where they are, one had a fire a few years back. Oh man, I will have to find someone that knows where it was. It is probably gone but it could be the house across the street that rents small apartments with very thin walls to college students because that is not one of the two dedicated apartment buildings. Or the dissertation writer could have lived there too…

Apparently this neighborhood was hopping in the late 60’s and the sedate pesticide-free park half a block up that is mostly used by the expensive liberal private school across the street as a playground was a hotbed of drug activity and he even describes in which parts of the park various social groups hung out in.

Oh, oh and I completely missed the Psychedelic Supermarket. It had to have been down near the café.

He captured very well the mood and ethos of those times. The neighborhood I lived in at the same time in Seattle was demographically very similar. Although this one has a longer history in terms of settlement and what buildings have survived are marvelous.

Last night I listened to a Jack Kornfied Dharma talk as I walked around the track. I found it very comforting. I am taking all this uncertainty as an initiation into the ways of the wise old crone. At least I am around to experience it, even if it is challenging.

Speaking of hotbeds of activity, this morning things were hopping at the Farmer’s Market. It was clear and dry and reasonable out and the cherries and berries are coming in. Still no proper organic tomatoes though, my favorite organic farmstand for them said they would be in by the end of June.

Clearly there is much yet to discover. But as with the elevator stairs also much rich material to riff off of in terms of a story or a poem.

Last updated June 07, 2015