Long Live Edith!

soup kitchen

I'm just hoping he makes available her book, "Where Yesterday Began" which I've heard Edith wrote under the pen name Domilini... I'd love to borrow it.

Why would they demolish it? It's the best looking thing on that block.

You'd think that Pixar would be all over this guy to do some kind of tie-in for the movie "Up". (http://www.myballard.com/2008/08/01/pixar-movie...)

I'm sure Mr. Martin, in his wildest dreams, never expected this responsibility in his construction career. Looking at the picture, Edith's Macefield's house will make an interesting transition.

You didn't get the press release? It's going to be the new headquarters of the TOBPAAGOOMOTTNWBWITWAEBITFOCO (The Old Ballard Preservation and Anti Gentrification of Our Old Memories of Things That Never Were But We Insist They Were and Everything Bad Is The Fault Of Condo Owners) What? TOBPAAGOOMOTTNWBWITWAEBITFOCO doesn't just roll off the tongue? It's a great acronym if you say it in Swedish.

@7- harhar. Now that's funny. Thanks for the laugh. Usually i want to cry after reading comments here.

Soup kitchen...too funny.

Photos of this house always brings a smile to my face. I moved from Seattle about three years ago and it looks different each time I visit. Ballard's almost unrecognizable from the time I lived there. Nothing lasts forever, I suppose…

I visited the Trader Joes yesterday for the first time and they seemed busy. It’s quite a transformation from a run down polluted site to a modern business complex.

They should turn it into a place where crackhead methfreak "artists" can take showers and do their drugs and make their plans for the next robbery they are going to commit to support their addictions... oops, sorry, I mean to support their "art supplies habits".

Wouldn't it make a great pub?

@13, yes, but there is a pub around the corner too. Same block, next to LA Fitness. Serves chili.

"Ballard Cheers" have a ring to it? Heard the guy who the show Cheers was based on just got let go, after some 30+ years tending bar. Looks like it'd be a near perfect fit and a carpenters dream to transform it. Parking is there already. Just do it.

I think it would be a great pie shop! Maybe with some micros on tap? "Edith's Pies and Pints." You know - shop at TJ's for some soy munchies, Edith's for some pie followed by a guilt work out at LA Fitness, Mars Hill for some God and then back to Edithss for a pint to help digest the sermon! Can't go wrong...

How about an old timey salute to Old Ballard: A Brothel...

A fine idea, Chance. Might help with the high unemployment too!

When ever I drive by that house I salute Edith and her desire to remain. I bet she haunts the old place. I hope whatever is done with the house and her belongings there is respect given to her determination and her spirit.

You know she told Barry Martin that she had decided to sell, but then she broke her hip and moving was too much work. It's at the end of the article.

You can believe she was a stubborn holdout who stood her ground in the face of profiteering but the truth is she broke her hip. You know what a broken hip can be like?

Ballard would have fewer inane discussions about its future if we could let go of the urban myths and stick to facts.

Pff. Facts are no fun.

let's ask susan what she would do? my new slogan is WWSD?

she's so smart.....

I like the soup kitchen idea!!!! Good thinking, Matt!

sorry that was a tad snarky i suppose.

TOBPAAGOOMOTTNWBWITWAEBITFOCO

Inspired!

I think a pub is a great idea. So what if there's another one nearby? The utility of public amenities increases with their density; two pubs is synergistically better than one pub, in an area that could use some relief. Makes the beginnings of a pub crawl possible, for starters.

Soup kitchen
Coffee shop/bistro
Pub
Public outreach
Ballard social hub
Any of these sound good to me. That house is cute as it is, in a light-industrial-Ballard kind of way (my favorite kind of Ballard). If someone could turn it into something that brings folks together, that would be a great use of the place. I'd hate to see it just get torn down.

don't tear it down! That's all I am asking!
Anne

How about 50%pub/coffee house & 50% Edith
museum. Photos of the original place then
progressive shots as construction went on
with video loops of all the TV coverage
(did you see Katie Couric talking about her?)
Could include some general history about
the area...call it Edith's BlockHouse perhaps?

They should make it a produce stand since Trader Joe's doesnt always have the best produce selections.

Who is this 'they' everyone thinks should do something?

I think it should either be a coffee shop or a restaurant that focuses exclusvely on 1970's caserole cuisine, sort of like Zadda Buddy's but minus the pizza and more on the cream of mushroom soup.

Just really noticed the tree next to the house there.

It's the Tokonoma of that street. Rather pleasing to the eye.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokonoma

Italian shoe emporium!

not sure that tree is a Tokonoma.

besides it will be dead within a year being constricted against that concrete building. I'm sure the roots were mostly removed for foundation work.

hopefully Edith (and the tree) will haunt Trader Joes.

“I’m not really ready for that, because what do you do with somebody else’s stuff?”

...Donate some of it to Adams Elem. for their auction/ fundraiser?

“I’m not really ready for that, because what do you do with somebody else’s stuff?”

There any number of estate sale services to appraise items and then run a sale.

“I’m not really ready for that, because what do you do with somebody else’s stuff?”

http://freesheepfree.org/

Pie and coffee -- no espresso. Just the old fashioned drip. Leave her stuff on the walls, let her haunt the place and hang out with the new Ballard people and scare them all away. Oh wait, I'm one of them!

So where is the line of demarcation between new Ballard people and old Ballard people?

I'd like to see Edith's house stay intact, no matter what they make of it...it is a tribute to her that should remain a shrine/ great story in Ballard....with that being said, perhaps it should be a pub!

from PI article:
"I don't want to move. I don't need the money. Money doesn't mean anything," she told the Seattle P-I in October.

She continued living in the little old house in the 1400 block of Northwest 46th Street even after concrete walls rose around her, coming within a few feet of her kitchen window. Cranes towered over her roof. Macefield turned up the television or her favorite opera music a little louder and stayed put.

dont touch it. It looks so perfect there with the little figurines in the window. we will leave it in ballard as is and it will be a new tourist spot that will be a must see along with the Locks, and old historic ballard.

We can then rival my old hood fremont who has the troll, lenin, and the rocket.

Tear it down.
Give all the pointless commenters something else to complain about . . .

I also need to know the difference from Old and New Ballard. Please and thank you.

Panda..does not really matter, It's 2009 Ballard is Ballard and if we all live here we are all Ballard folks...some just know more history than others...therfore more passion around certain topics.

Darn good answer, MJ!

great answer MJ, no need to open THAT can of worms yet again....

I still think its bad form to sell it for your own daughter. Thats selfish, he should donate the money to a local charity.

I love that it is still there. It's a human scale building in contrast to the concrete monoliths on either side.

I didn't know Edith but I wish I had. She sounded real interesting. I'd like to read her book too. From what I've read, she had an interesting life.

I agree with Rounder. Martin should definitely give back to the Ballard community that Edith was a part of for so many years.

As an old Ballardite (here since 1982) I say bulldoze it and build something that emplyes people and raises the tax base.

It's sure nice to see how generous people are willing to be with Martin's money.

It's the Little House!

Lefty..he wants to sell it..so it is a suggestion to the *new* owner...Martin can do whatever he wants with the money he gets..thats why Edith left it to him. These are all well meaning suggestions not mandates

Sounded like a guilt trip to me, e/c

Instead of trying to put a time limit on Old Ballard/New Ballard, I think of it this way:

New Ballard: People who live in any of the new, ugly, soul-less, mixed-use buildings. Whether you buy your compartment or rent it.

Old Ballard: People who live in an interesting old structure in Ballard.