Slice of life full of diversity, contrasts

By REGINA HACKETT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

South Park is a neighborhood of contrasts. The Sea-Mar Community Health Center, like the South Park Community Center, is evidence of public money well spent. The non-profit health center offers medical/dental services, social outreach and family support, and runs both a nursing home and a day-care center.

The Concord Elementary School, a historical landmark building, is being renovated and will reopen in the fall of 2000. There's a thriving community P-patch, a new park named in honor of Cesar Chavez and an environmental coalition to help small and medium-sized South Park businesses develop plans to dispose of hazardous waste.

On the other hand, sidewalks are a sometime thing, and the houses tend to be small and old. Personal choice instead of neighborhood consensus dictates decorating styles.

Some yards are precisely maintained, with weed-free and closely cropped grass. Other yards are free form. On 14th Street, the neighborhood's main drag, is a house whose yard is AstroTurf over concrete. On top of the AstroTurf is a roomy old sofa, a perfect place to loll at leisure and watch the passing parade.

Some people fill their yards with flowers. Roses bloom in untidy profusions, morning glories climb all over chain link fences, and calla lilies line the path to sagging front porches. The neighborhood rises and falls along a gentle slope, and trees are everywhere, in yards, lining the streets and heading into the hills.

But this is not a good place to be a cat. Dogs are nearly as common as cars and take their job as guardians seriously.

After enduring the perils of drugs and prostitution, South Park is facing gentrification. The place has become a draw for young professionals eager to own homes close to the city at low prices. The median house price is in the low $70,000s, and apartments rent for under $400.

As professionals move in, they tend to fix up their places. Prices and taxes rise, and poor people get pushed out.

On the other hand, where yuppies go, good places to have coffee are sure to follow, as well as good grocery stores, bookstores and video rentals. Churches are in South Park already, mostly Christian, from Roman Catholic to fundamentalist Protestant.

Tyler Stone, 26, bought a newly renovated home. Last April the AT&T account executive purchased a beautiful little home with solid oak floors, two bedrooms and a study sitting on three lots with a river view from the yard for $130,000. "For a first home," he says, "it isn't bad."