Queen Anne St.: The Backbone of a Community

The sun was shining in Queen Anne on Tuesday, a rare sight this time of year anywhere in Seattle. People were out everywhere, encouraged to leave their homes and offices to enjoy this sunny exception in an unusually cold winter. I'm out too, walking down Queen Anne St, a bit south of the Seattle Center. This street is the main throughfare for the Queen Anne neighborhood, and contains enough hotels, restraunts, coffee shops, and businesses to spend an entire day shopping without ever leaving the street.

The first place that I come to is a park that it's impossible to come to this area without noticing: The Seattle Center. Built in the '60s as the site for the World's Fair, it's known as a place for tourists by most Seattle locals. Walking into the center, the huge fountain glistening in the sun, a woman and her child play in the water jets, while a man wails on his saxophone in the background. There is lots to do here that isn't necessarily the expensive tourist traps that the Space Needle elevator and the EMP are - The Pacific Science Center has laser shows to classic rock music on the weekends, as well as huge-screen IMAX movies all week. There are several theatres scattered around too, and currently the Seattle Repretory Theater is doing a production of "The Diary of Anne Frank."

This huge park always has something going on, and it's definitely a place that Seattle residents should visit more often.

As I continued my walk down Queen Anne St, I made it to a more commercial area with shops lining both sides of the street. I found myself inside Twice Sold Tales, a bookstore which only deals in used fare. The store was tucked away on a corner, and once inside it's clear that this isn't an ordinary bookstore. The sterile, expansive, corporate America feeling you get from stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble is gone.

At Twice Told Tales, it's been replaced with a dark cavelike feeling, with books packed in everywhere you look, and several cats roaming around at their pleasure. It's hard to get cash for your old books here, but easy to trade them in and find something else in the store instead. A friendly staff, huge selection, and the good feeling you get supporting local businesses will bring me back to this store the next time I'm looking for a good read.

My next stop would be Uptown Espresso. In a city with coffee shops across the street and next door to other coffee shops, to be successful is to be different. The first thing I noticed about Uptown is the lamps that were on the tales - every one was different from the others.
Mine happened to be a windmill, and I sat down and enjoyed the best cup of hot chocolate I've had in a while. The textured walls, festive lamps, and general atmosphere made this coffee shop feel more like I was enjoying a cup at my own home. The woman at the counter looked over to me and asked "If you were a superhero, which one would you be?"

I quickly responded: "Batman, duh."

Queen Anne St, (and Queen Anne in general) is an exciting place full of good businesses and good people. I only spent an hour walking down the street and visiting stores and parks, but I'm sure one could spend much more time here if he had it. As I came out of Uptown, the sun had been hidden away behind growing cloud cover. I knew it wouldn't last long.

Easy Street Records: A Queen Anne Staple

As I walked in to Easy Street Records last Tuesday, I was greeted with a familiar smell that I can only describe as "music store." The musty smell of old records in their cardboard cases mixed with plastic CDs makes me feel at home in any store, and Easy Street Records in Queen Anne isn't an exception.

Since opening up shop 5 years ago in 2003, Easy Street records has been offering free in-store concerts for bands who want to be able to promote their music without much hassle, and they are always well attended by Queen Anne residents and music lovers all over the city of Seattle.

Tuesday's show was an album release party for an indie rock band out of Portland, "The Helio Sequence." As the band set up at the end of the store behind a garage door, the crowd found spots to watch among the shelves of records and CDs. There was hardly any lighting and a bare bones stage, but what matters most to the people attending was the music. The Helio Sequence rocked out hard playing songs from their new album, and the several-hundred strong crowd was definitely enjoying it.

The staff at Easy Street records said that they enjoy doing the in-stores, and that it's always interesting to see what bands decide to make a stop there -- usually accompanying another show in a bigger venue around the same time. The in-stores are usually lower key performances - sorter and with less glam, and that's an element that can draw some people to them that might not want to be part of a 500 person mosh pit at the Paramount. There are more than 20 shows at Easy Street every year, and in the past such famous artists as M.I.A and Pearl Jam have performed, all for absolutely no money.

"Pearl Jam was definitely my favorite of the in-shows because we didn't announce it," employee Tanya Jessen said. "They just showed up and started playing, and before we knew it the entire store was packed."

Most shows are announced however, and if you're ever broke in Queen Anne looking for something to pass the time, check out the big rotating sign outside of the store to see if there are any good bands scheduled to perform. They also post upcoming store events on their website.