Downtown Seattle is a tale of two cities

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]We did two parts of a series with Jonathan Choe and also our friend Tom Wolf, a recovery advocate, out on the streets of Seattle looking in the Belltown neighborhood and the Chinatown International District. We had the first part on Monday, second part on Tuesday.

[00:00:13]Well, we've put them together in one big special. It's called Hell on Earth.

[00:00:19]Our Undivided special report about how the city of Seattle is trying to, it seems, push the homeless drug addicts into de facto detention zones to keep them out of the downtown core during the World Cup, a similar tactic that they used during the All-Star games. You can watch that across all of our platforms.

[00:00:37]It's available right now.

[00:00:39]I'm also working on some other stories ahead of the World Cup and this will kind of hint at hint at one of them, but you know, so what what Jonathan Choe's noticed and and he's down there covering these issues more than anyone else and it's remarkable the amount of expertise he has in this area.

[00:00:55]And what he's noticed, you know, is they're just they're kind of they're not being as aggressive in clearing the homeless like if they're in Belltown or if they're in the Chinatown International District because basically what they want, it seems, is for a tourist to be able to stay in the downtown core in one of the hotels, go to Pike Place Market, do all the things Seattle-y things there in the waterfront, and then walk to the stadium for World Cup games and not see the worst of what Seattle has to offer. And so they're sort of pushing them out of there. And I will say, here's some video. Went to Pike Place Market as part of this. Beautiful, vibrant.

[00:01:29]Go ahead.

[00:01:30]Lovely.

[00:01:32]And packed, absolutely packed. And I love For the record, I love Pike Place Market.

[00:01:38]I love it. I like the the Pike Place Alley. I like the restaurants. You can get some beautiful cheap flowers down there, but it was it was fascinating to watch that cuz it's like a tale of two cities.

[00:01:50]Because then you go up two blocks, two blocks to 3rd and Pine, 4th and Pine, and this is what it looks like.

[00:01:59]Looks dystopian.

[00:02:01]Can you even tell what that what used to be? All it's just vacant storefronts.

[00:02:04]That was an Abercrombie & Fitch, by the way. Just vacant, boarded-up storefronts. Occasionally, they'll try to paint some sort of work of art, so it doesn't just look like a boarded-up storefront.

[00:02:16]There's even that uh oh the Starbucks, remember that used to be like the Starbucks in Westlake Park? Now they use it as like an advertisement, all the windows. I mean the the store is empty.

[00:02:24]There's nothing in there.

[00:02:27]And all the homeless people and then 3rd and Pine even, although we were just talking about a violent crime that occurred there. If you're familiar with how much drug activity is usually right there, right there, I saw none. I didn't see one drug user when I was down there in the middle of the day. It was a Friday on 3rd and Pine. Doesn't mean it's not dangerous. I mean we just talked about the violent random assault on an elderly man there at night, but it is very clear where the drug users that we saw and the dealers and and and all that that we saw in Belltown and Chinatown ID have come from. And there's always been some of that element there, especially at 12th and Jackson, but it's it's absolutely overloaded now.

[00:03:08]So, do I still think like look, I struggle with this because I want the World Cup to be a good experience for Seattle businesses. I don't think all Seattle voters and all Seattlites and all Seattle businesses have elected this class of politician.

[00:03:26]I I certainly don't want any visitors to our city to be harmed or to be exposed to some of this horror.

[00:03:33]Uh absolutely not children. So, I want people to be able to come here and experience the World Cup, but I also want our city to actually solve the problem, not just sweep it away.

[00:03:44]And it doesn't seem like the current mayor has any desire to do that.

[00:03:48]And so, I'm working on a story about the sort of vacancy issue. Uh I think we'll probably air later on this month in comparing Seattle to other places. One of the things I really noticed though, remember I was down in Portland covering the initial kind of siege on the ice facility there.

[00:04:05]And at the time the governor of Oregon and the mayor of Portland were downplaying, "Oh, Portland's a lovely city. It's fine." And so I went with my friend Tera Fowler who's a street photographer around downtown Portland.

[00:04:17]She covers the homeless situation down there.

[00:04:19]And this reminded me of it because one of the things that became very apparent in Portland is the worst of the crisis was in Chinatown.

[00:04:28]The worst of the drug element was in the Chinatown International District in Portland. Where is the worst of the drug element at in Seattle?

[00:04:38]Chinatown.

[00:04:40]And I'm sorry, you go out there and you look at the drug abusers, they're not Asian.

[00:04:45]It's not like the Asian-American community has a big drug problem.

[00:04:49]No, they're black and white and Hispanic.

[00:04:52]And maybe native a few Native Americans.

[00:04:55]So you have these very woke cities on the West Coast that are pushing the criminal element onto the Asian community.

[00:05:06]Because what? They don't think they'll say anything? They don't think they'll fight back?

[00:05:10]There's a reason for this.

[00:05:12]There's a reason for this that it's happening in multiple blue cities. It's not by accident.

[00:05:17]Again, if the drug users were all Asian, I'd be like, "Well, yeah, it makes sense that the Asian drug users are there."

[00:05:21]They're not Asian. I didn't see one Asian actually like high on being one of the high on drugs or dealing drugs.

[00:05:27]There were a few trying to walk around.

[00:05:30]So there's something else going on there. And I think it's because they believe and a lot of people in the Chinatown International District do not speak English.

[00:05:37]And I think it's because they believe that in there a lot of them are elderly that they're not going to fight. They're not going to push back. They're not going to ask questions. And I think that's why they're stuck with it. It's really quite disgusting.