By Editor-in-Chief, Tom Doppler
I’d like to introduce myself and invite you to experience Seattle’s Maynard Park neighborhood. Whether you live in Maynard Park, are just visiting, or never visit, there are things happening here that we want to share with you in the weeks and months ahead.
I’m a former Community College instructor, and now Editor-in-Chief of this community blog. I’ve assembled a team of writers and visionaries who have committed to report and chronicle the rich tapestry that makes Maynard Park one of Seattle’s most fabulous places to call home.
Many people aren’t aware that Maynard Park is an actual neighborhood. In fact, the City of Seattle doesn’t yet recognize us in the Department of Neighborhoods official roster. We believe that a neighborhood is more than a designation. A neighborhood is a state of the mind and a place in the heart. The practical origin of Maynard Park harkens back to the historic Parcel Auction of 1997. Other well-known and stalwart neighborhoods worked in concert to more clearly define their respective lines of demarcation in a neighborhood land-grab. What was left was a series of “unclaimed” remnants and odd plots here and there, faceless and without a sense of character or identify. Over the years, the leftovers, the urban dark matter, began to come to life and take shape. The faceless and the nameless began to rise up, and we called ourselves Maynard Park. While an aerial view of the Maynard Park neighborhood may resemble something akin to a political redistricting map, there’s a whole shape here, somewhat circular, wide in some places and narrow in others.
If there’s a motto in Maynard Park, it might be, “Don’t let people tell you who you aren’t.” We’re not Belltown, we’re definitely not the West Edge, we’re not Upper or Lower Queen Anne, nor are we anything resembling the Denny Triangle, we’re not Capitol Hill or First Hill, but we have some hills, and we’re not South Lake Union to any degree, but like we say, wherever you are, we’re West of there.
