Urban Explorer: Ballard

If you spend enough time in Seattle, you will undoubtedly hear natives talk longingly of the Ballard of old. Few of them were here when the last mill closed, or immigrants landed on these teeming shores from the east and the west, but all they know is that the neighborhood has changed. In their eyes, it is ground zero for gentrification, housing inequality, rapid change, expansion skyward, and a city that continues to tie itself in knots attempting to keep young tech employees happy. Of course, they aren’t completely wrong, but neighborhoods have always changed, evolved, and pushed themselves forward. A neighborhood and a city are living things. In a march toward progress, there will always be unintended consequences. From these oversights, new work is born.

Armed with this history, I hit the pavement on a warm Saturday in August of 2021 on a mission to explore one of my favorite neighborhoods in this city. I have lived in and around this city off and on since February of 2011. In those ten years, I have spent countless hours tucked away in Ballard bars and restaurants. Neighborhoods like Ballard made me fall in love with this city, and they are what keep me here (for a bit longer). As I played urban explorer, I did so with no set agenda. My first stop was the only demand of the day. Beyond that, my mission was to explore, document, gain a sense of what has changed since I moved back from Los Angeles…