— पांच हजार चार सौ निन्यानवे —
It's a Very Laney Couple of Days at the moment.
I suppose I should have excpected it, but the Grand Opening event at
Pride Place yesterday evening was a much bigger affair than I expected. It was
really crowded, probably somewhere between 150 and 200 people, in a relatively confined space. It was held in what is hoped to be the future space of a ground-level business tenant. I mean, the space looks kind of large
when empty of people, but they chairs that had been set up were mostly filled up, and a ton of people stood on the sides and in the back of the room.
The event was scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m., and I left work at 3:30, just one hour early. When Laney told me she had been invited to speak at the event, I don't think she had any expectation that I would come, but then I asked when it was and if it was a public event. She later texted me the official web page for the event, and I told her I couldn't promise but I put it on my calendar. We basically left it at that.
Ultimately I decided, even though I am also taking the entire afternoon off today to help her unload her truck, leaving just one hour early yesterday wouldn't be a big deal. I didn't even send out a calendar announcement for that one. Getting back to work this morning, I don't think anyone even noticed.
Still, leaving at 3:30 and with the event starting at 4:00, and without my bike (because it was raining in the morning), taking transit I was really assuming I'd get there several minutes after 4:00. But, I really lucked out with busses: I caught a #1 on Denny, and transferred to a #11 at 4th and Pike within just a few minutes. I was off the bus at Broadway & Pine at 4:01. I took a moment then to cross the street and get an exterior photo of the front of the building.
I had to walk to the other end of the block, at Pike, to cross the street and then come back. There, I found the
sandwich board announcing the PRIDE PLACE GRAND OPENING EVENT, and I went on inside.
During the lunch Zoom call with Karen yesterday, she told me she knows a young architect who worked on Pride Place—also a wheelchair user, also with OI, with purple hair closely shaved on one side. I knew she'd be easy to spot. And then she was two people ahead of me in line just inside the door. It was already crowded, though, and very loud. I didn't want to bother her so immediately, and when I saw her shortly after filling out a name tag at the welcome table, it was even louder. It was only after the speaking program was over, and people were filing out for timed guided tours of the building grouped by nametag color (I was the blue tour), I finally asked if she was Emma (I also used her last name), and told her I know an architect friend of hers.
I had actually registered my name on their website for this event, so I thought maybe they would have a checkin. But nope, they just had a welcome table—manned on one side by a thin, very young man in glasses who was achingly adorable—and signup sheets for tours. Yes, please!
I then went to find a place to sit. I knew I wanted to be close enough to get good photos, but not too close to either be a distraction or get in the way of where speakers would be sitting. I found a chair three in from the right side, four rows back. I was there a few minutes, and turned around to take a crowd shot of the people in the room. When I turned around, Laney was sitting in the row ahead of me, at the far right, chatting with a Black man in front of her who I later learned was also a resident.
I don't think Laney even realized I was there. She and I both had masks on, and it was still pretty loud in there, so I reached over and tapped on the chair next to her hard enough to get her attention. She clearly hadn't known for sure to expect me there so I it seemed like quite the pleasant surprise for her to see me there. Within a couple of minutes I moved up to the chair next to hers. So now I was only three rows back.
— पांच हजार चार सौ निन्यानवे —
— पांच हजार चार सौ निन्यानवे —
The speaker program took over an hour, but it was something that was deeply meaningful to me, not just because it's such a great place for Laney to presumably live out her remaining years, but symbolically for the queer community overall: Pride Place is our state's first-ever queer-affirming senior housing community. The weight and meaning of this really cannot be overstated.
There were
eleven speakers, and I took at least one photo of every one of them:
Aleksa Manila, local drag queen emcee, who did a very good job. She quipped a couple of times at certain men in the room: "My pronouns are 'she' and 'single.'"
Christopher Parsons, CEO of Community Roots Housing.
Judy Kinney, Executive Director of GenPride, the organization that spearheaded getting this project done (and basically the parent organization of Pride Place, I think).
Dr. Karen Fredriksen Goldsen, Professor, Director, Golden Institute, Aging with Pride, University of WA.
Nicole Macri, (openly gay) Washington State Representative who was evidently moved up in the program, presumably due to constraints of her own schedule.
Laney, billed only as "Pride Place Resident." She was also the only one not listed, or introduced, with her last name included, which must have been a choice. I still need to ask her about that.
Maiko Winkler-Chin, Director of Seattle Office of Housing.
Julie Timm, CEO of Sound Transit, who noted that she was the only representative of an organization not specialized in housing, but making the clear link between affordable housing and transit accessibility. She also spoke of her gay son who attends college with a boyfriend in North Carolina, and how much hope a place like Pride Place gives her for their future.
Jamie Pedersen, (openly gay) Washington State Senator, who informed us that Nicole Macri informed him before she left that he was now elegible to live here [having met the age requirement].
Simon Foster, King County Division Director of Housing, Homelessness and Community Development—excepting Laney, my favorite of all the speakers. He told the story of a close friend and roommate in college coming out to him, and how when he said to the friend, "And?" the friend replied with, "And what are you going to do?" This anecdote
really tugged at my heart, because it gets to the heart of how problematic it can be for straight cis people to respond dismissively to someone coming out as if it should be obvious that they have no reason to care. Except we are a community constantly under attack—by official government forces—and that response does nothing to acknowledge the very real,
and justified, fears people have about coming out, even to the people closest to them. Because—and this gets to Simon Foster's point—we just don't ever really know what people are going to do.
I also loved what Simon said was his response: "I'm going to take action."
Bob Powers, Managing Director, JP Morgan Chase Community Development Banking. I must admit I wasn't as excited to see a representative from a bank, but it did occur to me: projects like this, unfortunately, can't happen without them.
One of these speakers—I think the first, Christopher Parsons of Community Roots Housing—noted that Pride Place had no fewer than eleven sources of funding. It's also an affordable housing building, which tied in involvement from both the County and the State. It made me wonder how precarious long-term funding really is. And when people spoke about the challenges of being queer, and specifically in today's political climate, I have to admit I got dark visions of what could become of a place like this, a safe haven for so many, if Republicans truly succeed at taking over the country. My faith in the local community is one thing, but the impacts of federal shifts in power cannot be underestimated.
Anyway, the link to a still photo of Laney that I provided in the list above was the only still shot I got, barely, of Laney right after her speech—because I made the very wise decision to record her nearly nine-minute speech (she was surprised to learn that later; apparently she had been asked to keep it at five minutes, but whatever, the crowd rightfully loved her) in its entirety.
Side note: I did see Mitch, who used to sing with us in the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus and now works in some capacity with GenPride, at the event, but I never had occasion to say hi to him; I only saw him
from across the room. In that same crowd shot I took, you can see retired Col. Grethe Cammermeyer, who sued to counter Clinton's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, and last year the
Seattle Times wrote
a profile on her on the 10th anniversary of Marriage Equality in Washington State. I think she had been stadning in the back, and when Aleksa Manila saw her from the state she said, "Colonel Cammermeyer, we have a seat for you up here." She pointed to the front row, but Cammermeyer found an empty seat about halfway back in the room. As famous as she is to the queer community, I think she didn't want to take up too much attention at an event that was not specifically about her, but presumably means a lot to her—she's 81 years old now. (There was no indication she was moving into the building, for the record. I would assume she's already well situated somewhere else.)
In all likelihood, there were many other people just as notable for one reason or another in that crowd, and I just didn't recognize or know them. I would always be thrilled to see a senior housing community open on Capitol Hill, but I was only there at this event because one of my closest friends happened to secure a unit there.
And Laney was both organic and intentional about this, volunteering with GenPride very early on—though noting, as you'll see in the video of her remarks, she only even learned about Pride Place from a woman she was cat sitting for. But through both connections like that, and connections through volunteer work, she got direct lines to people with information on when applications would start to be accepted, etc. She was genuinely worried for a while about getting a unit, but last I heard, the building currently remains about half vacant. I'm sure it will fill soon enough, but it did not sell out quite as quickly as we might have expected. Still, there is a complicated process for applying for affordable housing, very much related to what your level of income is, made even more complicated by the fact that so many potential tenants are elderly and have challenges with understanding it all. Laney has actually volunteered to help shephered other people through the process, which is awesome.
Once the speaking program was over, at around 5:35, people began to gather for their color coded tour groups. Laney said she had a television interview to do but if we were both still around when we were done would I want to go get a drink to celebrate. Even though I had told Shobhit I did not expect to be going out afterward, and even though I am over budget, I said yes.
It took some minutes before my group was maybe the last to go, as they staggered them five minutes apart. The guy who works as the building manager wound up coming on my tour, which worked out well for us. There was a woman who was already a resident also on our tour, so she could use her fob to get us up the elevator. We went to a few common areas, and the tour went to three different empty units for people to see, both on the second floor and on the seventh (ther eare eight floors, and Laney will live on the sixth).
I got a solid forty photos out of the event and tour yesterday, and have added them to my working photo album for "
Pride Place 2023: Laney Moves In." And she still hasn't actually moved in! Ha! The album already has 59 shots in it, with more to be added after today—when the literal move-in will finally happen.
The tour alone took a good 45 minutes, and that included a detour for me, when my tour happened to go into the elevator Laney was in by chance, on her way to her 7th-floor
TV interview, held in another empty unit, on the same floor my tour was headed to. Laney invited me to come along. I kind of hid in the adjacent bedroom to stay out of the shot while Laney was being interviewed, which she told me would later be used by organizers in fundraising efforts: she repeated a lot of the stuff she said in her remarks downstairs.
When the interview was done, we found my original tour group, now shrunk a bit as some others had left, still in another empty unit. I got some nice shots of views out seven-story windows, which would thus be just a bit better than the view Laney will have, which is fine in its own right.
When we all went back downstairs and the tour was done, Laney suggested we go to nearby Poquito's, which worked for me. I knew I had food at home, so I ordered an overpriced margarita, and Laney had a beer with an order of chips and salsa that we shared. We actually weren't there that long; we'd have gotten to Poquito's around 6:30 and it was shortly after 7:00 when I got home. I spent the rest of the evening editing and uploading the day's photos—and, of course, the one video, which I included in my posts across my socials.
— पांच हजार चार सौ निन्यानवे —
[posted 12:00 pm]
