For decades, a 100-year-old building at the corner of 23rd and Cherry Street in the Central District has served as a hub of Black culture. While restaurants, shops and barbers all came and went, one thing remained consistent: they were always Black owned, operated and appreciated.  

But six months ago, three businesses occupying the building—a barber, an East African restaurant and Miss Mary’s Flowers 4 U (the only known Black florist in the entire Pacific Northwest)—fell silent. Within the following weeks, they were abandoned, and today, only rubble remains in their place.  

“We didn’t know anything about it, like getting totally demolished, that happened super suddenly,” Marijke Keyser said, a facilities manager at Coyote Central, a creative non-profit that teaches art classes to local youth. Coyote Central was a longtime neighbor to Miss Mary and the other businesses at 23rd and Cherry. “I don’t know what’s going in next over there. Maybe more housing.” 

Keyser was correct. The Acer House, a short-story apartment building coined as Seattle’s first “anti-racist private development,” in an area that “hasn’t been gentrified,” is currently under construction to fill the hole at 23rd and Cherry. According to their website, the building will feature over 100 units, with thirty percent allotted to affordable housing, and is slated to include Black-owned shops, a cafe and childcare facilities. To reflect the historical significance of Black culture in the Central District, the building will be designed in an Afrofuturist style. 

The Acer House is the official kickoff to the development of the Garfield Superblock Community Project, which will revamp the blocks surrounding Garfield High School by the “creation of a pathway that integrates art and amenities that reflect the immense cultural diversity and rich history of the Central Area.” The park improvement project, currently up for bidding, will include new playgrounds, fields, courts, restrooms, a climate-adaptive garden and a walkway of artwork reflecting the formative cultures of the Central District.  

But despite the Superblock Project’s anti-racist intentions, the effects of its development are striking an all-too-familiar chord within the community, and gentrification is nothing new to the Central District. According to Harvard Law School’s Systemic Justice Program, Seattle’s C.D. went from 73.4 percent Black in 1970 to a mere 18 percent Black by 2014, attributed to “many out-of-towners [moving] to Seattle to pursue job opportunities big tech companies provided while taking advantage of the ‘affordable’ housing options.” 

The forced removal of the Black business owners at 23rd and Cherry for “affordable” housing is reminiscent of the many gentrified areas of the C.D. While the project is community-forward and is intentionally honoring the cultural history of the neighborhood, BIPOC residents are still being displaced, or at least significantly inconvenienced by the changes.  

“I hear so much about how, you know, just 30 years ago, this neighborhood used to be like all Black folks, right? You look at, like, the demographic maps that we have in, you know, our building, and they show the population is all Black folks in the C.D. And now everyone has been pushed out,” Atiyeh Assaf said, a market coordinator at Byrd Barr Place.  

Assaf, like Keyser and those at Coyote Central, was similarly shocked by the demolition at 23rd and Cherry and had no prior knowledge of the Superblock’s development, only learning about it for the first time during our conversation.  

Byrd Barr has been a foundational element of the Central District for over 60 years, particularly in its efforts to fight for social justice and against gentrification. Byrd Barr has a long-standing history in the C.D. as a “safety-net service” that provides food, shelter, financial tools and more to Seattle residents. 

“Working to serve others and address these issues [social justice and gentrification] with gratitude, respect and dignity is the essential mission of Byrd Barr,” Jo Moreau said, a third-year public affairs student at Seattle University and frequent food-packager at Byrd Barr. “Volunteering at Byrd Barr has shown me how important it is to be an active part of my community.”

Because of their sizable impact on the local community and their efforts to create affordable housing and systemic change within the Central District, it was a shock to Assaf that Byrd Barr Place had been left out of such a vital conversation. 

“Right now, Byrd Barr is, you know, we’re associated with that gentrification. And so it’s been really difficult to try to engage with the community again and be like, hey, no, we’re still here, doing this good work,” Assaf said.

Assaf said that Byrd Barr has been working against rising gentrification rates for over six decades and is determined to continue doing so for another. Though he is unsure about what the Superblock means for the future of C.D.and Byrd Barr, and whether its development is a positive step toward restoring the cultural and economic value of the neighborhood or just another act of gentrification under a progressive disguise, Assaf was confident in the one thing that unifies us all: resiliency.  

“I think the future looks bright because we’re not going anywhere. We’re a place where community shines bright, and I think we’re seeing that community get stronger and stronger and stronger. And I’m excited for that, you know. It’s scary, it’s all impending, but we’re gonna do it together,” Assaf said.

If you’re looking to get involved in the Central District and serve the community, you can register to volunteer at Byrd Barr here: https://byrdbarrplace.org/get-involved/volunteer/