donkeymonkey

GROUP PROJECT URL

http://students.washington.edu/lheian/ExtraLocal/

 *The team’s already working on replacing the multimedia story images with non-copyright restricted images.  I anticipate this will be done by Friday.  If that timeframe is a problem, please let me know.

INDIVIDUAL PROJECT

http://students.washington.edu/lheian/AveHaveNots/

*Originally wanted the navigation to be directly embedded in the graphic, but could only figure out how to link audio with graphic buttons.  So the audio story is available by clicking on the panhandler icon.  The remainder is through the nav bar at the bottom.  (All photos and artwork are 100% original works by me). 

 Group 2 Discussion Lead -

“Visualization in Information Retrieval : A Three-Level Analysis”; Min Song

http://jis.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/1/3

Individal Project_Audio Script

“The Ave and the Have-Nots” Audio Story Transcript    NARRATOR : Something strange happens when a street gets a nickname.  It becomes human.  A living, breathing functioning member of that community with a personality, history, and future entirely its own. 
Seattle has over a hundred and fifty avenues running through the city limits.  But there’s only one “Ave”.        If the Ave were quite literally human – let’s feminize it for tradition’s sake – she would be quite the force to be reckoned with.  She’d be a short woman, slightly inclined, highly educated and globally enlighted but with a mysterious past involving drugs, alcohol, and assorted crimes.  In recent years, she would’ve recently cleaned up her act and sought out a career in the commercial sector.  And in that endeavor, she’d be largely successful.  But her troubled past would never totally go away.      This is the Ave.  It’s a highway of bars, Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese restaurants, sandwich shops, print shops, cafes, book stores, and second hand music stores, all in the progressive shadow of theUniversity of
Washington.  It is a bastion of small business, rivaling Capitol Hill’s Broadway as the most concentrated collection of non-corporate enterprises within a single street in
Seattle proper.  Bruce Lee opened his first kung fu school here.  Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and Alice in Chain’s Layne Staley each held apartments here at one point.       The namesake nickname comes from its ancient days as merely

, a moniker that was changed to

in 1919 after a student contest held at UW.  Its abbreviated handle, however, has been known as such for nearly ninety years.   The turn of the millenium marked an increase in violence on The Ave.  In 2000, The Ave’s crime rate per 10,000 people was more than twice that of
Seattle’s median.  That same year,
Seattle passed the first in a series of anti-aggressive panhandling initiatives, specifically designed to improve the commercial viability of such districts as The Ave.         But things on The Ave would only get worse.  On Tuesday, April 9^th 2002, motorist Demetri Andrews was struck in the head with a skateboard by Timothy R. Strano.  Strano was described by the city’s deputy prosecutor as a young man who’s led “led a rootless and itinerant life,” seeming to fit the profile of the nickname also given to those making their daily lives on The Ave, “Ave Rats”.    The gruseome nature of the attack brought city-wide attention to the state of affairs on The Ave.  The following year, in 2003,
Seattle mayor Greg Nichols launched The Ave Revitalization Project : an urban improvement initiative widening sidewalks, installing lighting, public art…an initiative bent on beating down the public image of The Ave as a seedy     Peter works as executive director with a non-profit organization housed within theLutheran
Center on The Ave.  He’s been in the building for twenty years and has seen The Ave evolve tremendously over that time.  As far as he’s concerned, the Revitalization Project did what it set out to do.    PETER : As far as the revitalization, it appears to me that [the Ave has] cleaned up dramatically.  Primarily from youth homeless.  You will still have the occasional addictive personality : drugs, alcohol, whatever, that are homeless and find refuge on The Ave.  But as far as the largest change I see is in the youth homeless. 

NARRATOR : But the Ave Rat is finding a new place amidst the Starbucks and Chipotle’s and American Apparels on The Ave.  They’re getting comfortable being there again.   

Geno Amenta Morah has been living around The Ave for just a year and three months.  So he represents the new guard.  Among other things, Geno is iconic.  He’s tall.  He’s bald, but still manages to sport striking, matted dreadlocks on the other three sides of his head.  He wears a long, raggedy trench coat : possibly white in a past life. You can usually catch him lounging against a black grate fence fronting a Japanese diner, bumming smokes or spare change off the stream of students passing him by.      At fifty-four, Geno entertains a knack for vocabulary and oratory that burst out of him when asked even a single question.  When asked of “his story”, he lets loose all sorts of answers.  He’s from
Fresno.  He did a stint in a
California state prison.  He was moved to the
Pacific Northwest by his big sister, who seemed to think the move would be good for him somehow.  He lived on Capitol Hill previously, but an eviction from his apartment there led to his migration to the U District, where a guardian of his found him an apartment.  So he’s not homeless.  He just panhandles.  And he philosophizes.   That philosophical side explains how he’s treated on The Ave.  GENO : Well, I get objection and opposition.  React, respond. Or treat me unfairly or unjustly…or don’t treat me right.  Usually how I’m treated is that I get objection or rejection-…objection or opposition.  -I’m a Pisces and I do have a fear of objection and opposition. NARRATOR : His reasons for liking the neighborhood are as good as a lot of students.    GENO : What it is I like about this part of town the most is the availability of sometimes – since I like to smoke marijuana – whites give me marijuana, sell me twenty dollars worth for four dollars.  And they seem to do it freely and willingly.      This is interesting to take in.  The rampant availability of drugs on the Ave   

Some members of the old guard are still around.    SUNNY : I’m Sunny.  I’m fifty-four.  And I’ve been on The Ave for about four years.  NARRATOR : Sunny is known to more students than Geno.  He’s known for sporting sunglasses, a nearly all-black wardrobe, and his infamous pitch of “spare change” that’s cast in a very polite, nearly whispered drawl.  Sunny also bears an uncanny resemblance to Lou Piniella.  He doesn’t speak much, even when engaged.  His likes things short and simple.  He takes home about $7 on an average day.  Sunny, however, remembers the Revitalization Project but doesn’t seem to think it’s changed The Ave much.  He’s a
Seattle native, having lived here all his life.        LUKE : Why do you prefer to panhandle in this part of town, as opposed to some other neighborhoods? SUNNY : Oh, I enjoy the people.  I think they’re an interesting group to be with…more than some other places. LUKE : Has The Ave changed much since the Revitalization Project?  SUNNY : Not that I know of.    NARRATOR : It’s about as simple an observation anyone can give.  The Revitalization Project and anti-panhandling legislation certainly hasn’t gotten in his way.   Chances are Sunny and Geno will never escape.  They’ll always be Ave Rats, no matter what neighborhood they happen to move to.  They would certainly like to have more money and a better place to stay.  But there’s no sign that either of them is immediately horrified   .  This is their lifestyle.  This is what they do in the universe, and they know the rules of it.        

Individual Story – Draft : The Ave & The Have-Nots

  Like some other lude institutions, you know it when you see it.  Poverty accounts for approximately eight thousand homeless needing a place to sleep on any given night within Seattle city limits.  While the problem permeates all neighborhoods, University District has housed the street life counterculture for more years than you might think, with University Way serving as the very street to be lived upon.      University Way, or “The Ave” as it is far better known, has remained the non-academic custodian of University District culture for the better part of a century.  To this day, small business represents the vast majority of commercial activity there, with a wealth of book stores, coffee shops, restaurants, boutiques, and record stores inhabiting the nine-block stretch from 41^st to 50^th.  But with the unique culture that grew up there came too something much more ulterior.  Heroin deals in alleyways.  Graffiti.  Late night stabbings and drunken brawls.  Rampant homelessness in doorways and stairwells.  The local nickname for those representing the phenomenon was “Ave Rat”.

The Ave Rat was defined by his or her gape-toothed grins, raggedy dress, unkept hair, loud vocal projections, and a callous attitude that did not go well with any hopes for a pleasant shopping experience local entrepreneurs were entertaining.  They came in a wide array of ages, but largely were only available in the form of panhandlers, drug dealers, loiterers, and general vandals.  They either screamed at you for spare change or else screamed at you for no reason whatsoever.  Home to the homeless, University Way was fast becoming less and less a shopping and dining destination for students.  And with the rise of University Village down the hill, the effect culminated into a severe business drop on The Ave in the late 90’s that prompted drastic attentions toward solving the Ave Rat dilemma.        

In 2002, Mayor Greg Nichols spearheaded The Ave Revitalization Plan: an urban improvement project installing wider sidewalks, bus lanes, benches, lighting, artwork, and even “donation meters” to curb aggressive panhandling on The Ave.  Blocks were shut down for several weeks at a time to accommodate major construction overhauls, working up from 41^st to

over the course of two years.  While a number of small businesses did not survive the interruptions in foot traffic, those that did emerged as residents of a totally revamped thoroughfare.  Business gradually began working its way back, along with the customers.   And while homeless rates city-wide may have not dropped, you are still scarce to find the Ave Rat on The Ave these days…certainly at least in the capacity he/she was available before.  Today’s Ave Rat mostly only comes out at night.  And even then, only occasionally.  The Ave still maintains a vibrant, progressive undertone.  But it is undeniably more commercial now, particularly in such shadows as those of Starbucks and Chipotle Grill.  The Ave is at least desperately trying to be conventional.  Whatever it is doing, it is enough to keep most of the old crew out of sight.    There are a few, however, that have kept their place here, and haven’t moved.  Some for as many years as anyone can remember.  But how do they survive?  How has The Ave changed for them?  Did they benefit from the revitalization?     <interviews to be conducted prior to final project>  John Doe has been panhandling on the Ave for nearly __ years.  He speaks in a low drawl that barely reaches your ears when you pass, with the trademark whisper of “spare change” that starts on a rolling high tone and ends on a low.  He is outfitted with a pair of sunglasses that rarely escapes his face, a curious black wardrobe, and an even more curious resemblance to Lou Piniella.  He doesn’t live here though.  After 5:00, he closes shop and takes the bus to __________, after pocketing anywhere between $50-$80 on the average day.  But he has been a staple on The Ave throughout the student careers of thousands of students.         

He is not an aggressive panhandler and never has been, which is maybe the only reason why he hasn’t been enforced under the anti-panhandling policies enacted in 2000.  When asked how things have changed for him personally since The Ave’s renovations,  he answers that his daily take is actually better than before.  Maybe one in thirty will drop him a little something, as opposed to one in fifty of a few years before.  He explains that there is less competition – and that the surge in foottraffic on The Ave has, more or less, allowed him to corner a robust market…largely on the block between 41st and 42nd in front of Schultzy’s Sausages. 

Jim Smith is another such staple, and you will remember only three things about him.  He has a long, brown beard.  He pulls a red cart with a silver garbage tin.  And he is never without his radio.  He is rare to actually ask for any money, and it is a wonder to several students what his daily occupation is otherwise.  You will spot him occasionally in one of the several cafe’s, sipping on an espresso that looks as if it’s a weekly ritual of some kind.  He seems less phased of any changes than any Ave resident. 

He explains that since the revitalization, students are more polite.  But they also pay less attention to him.  Which he says is just fine, but can’t be if he brought it up int he first place.  He observes that there is less of a line to wait for coffee, and that he can pass his days with much more peace than before.  But he still doesn’t seem to approve of it all.  Despite being a staple, the ground has shifted beneath his feet, and he can only try to belong there.         

In the end, neither is an Ave Rat anymore, really.  John and Jim are anomalies, but even they have become more conventional somehow.  The counterculture of The Ave now is one of healthy enterprise, highlighted with bouts of twenty-one runs and the occasional public disturbance.  But it is in the hands of the students again.  It remains to be seen how long this administration will keep control however.     

Group 2 Discussion Lead -

“Visualization in Information Retrieval : A Three-Level Analysis”; Min Song

http://jis.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/1/3