1988: Seven Houses Come Down

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Living next to a bustling elementary school had its disadvantages: the early morning shrieking, the school bus traffic, the occasional baseball crashing through your window. After school kids would play basketball in the schoolyard, and the bounce, bounce, bounce of the ball on the pavement sometimes went on late into the night. In the 1970s, as the neighborhood sank into an economic slump, the hoops would sometimes vanish in the night; eventually the school bought clip-on hoops that could be taken down and locked away every evening.

But mostly the neighbors felt pretty fond of Whitworth, even if changes to the school assignment plan meant their kids didn’t necessarily go there. They certainly never imagined that their proximity to the school would result in their houses being demolished.

When the District announced the expansion of the Whitworth site, some of the neighbors fought back. They wrote letters, testified at School Board meetings, and filed a lawsuit to prevent the taking of their homes by eminent domain. After a long, bitter struggle, the District scaled back its plans, taking only seven houses instead of the twelve originally proposed. The District paid the homeowners between $50,000 and $70,000 for their homes, and one by one the families packed up and moved out.

One neighbor whose house was spared remembers helping another man move out of his home, which was adjacent to the schoolyard on Bennett St. “We found a pile of rusty old basketball hoops under the porch.” he recalled. All those years we thought the kids were stealing them at night, but it was really him!”

He goes on: “I remember the day they tore down those houses. I stood right here and watched them. Those houses all came down in a single day, you know. It’s funny, the City’s always so concerned about not letting you build any permanent structures without a permit. But I realized that day: Nothing is permanent.”

Evidence


Sources: Seattle Times and P-I articles, School Board minutes, Whitworth School Environmental Impact Statement, neighbors’ memories.
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