As Seattle begins to reawaken from the slumber the COVID-19 pandemic put many of the city’s aspiring plans into, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: the Emerald City still has a problem. Seattleites are noticing an alarming number of spaces and small businesses they frequent are closing their doors. Rising commercial rent prices, landlords ceasing lease agreements and overall financial instability have led to a multitude of locally owned businesses being displaced. A 2022 Washington small business profile published by the U.S. Small Business Administration found that, from March 2020 to March 2021, 18,933 businesses in Washington state closed. Just between Jan. and Feb. 2024, nine restaurants in the city ceased operations, according to Eater Seattle.
Since 2016, Vanishing Seattle has been documenting these closures as a way to keep residents attuned with the challenges these spaces face and to open doors for these businesses to receive support from community members.
Cynthia Brothers, who operates Vanishing Seattle, witnessed similar displacement when living in New York for five years. Vanishing Seattle is best known for its Instagram account, where Brothers cultivates posts spotlighting businesses that are at risk of vanishing, have vanished or on occasion have “un-vanished.” The posts dive into the business’s history, obstacles the space faced and a few profound words from the business owners. Brothers explained she didn’t originally have a plan for how Vanishing Seattle would look, but she wanted to provide support to communities that were dealing with the gaping wound left behind.
Vanishing Seattle’s first post was a 14-second video from the final night of Inay’s Asian Pacific Cuisine, a restaurant that was priced out of its North Beacon Hill location. The clip shows drag performer Atasha Manila serenading the large crowd with her rendition of Jennifer Hudson’s “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from the musical “Dreamgirls.” As the song played and Manila moved throughout the room with customers singing along, Brothers couldn’t help but feel drawn to sharing what that space meant.
In its eight years of existence, Vanishing Seattle has accumulated 82,000 Instagram followers, in addition to producing six short films and two exhibitions. Aside from the dedication to raise awareness about an alarming situation, the account begs the question of what and who will be left behind in Seattle as more third places close their doors. Real Change interviewed Brothers to gain an understanding of the impact the closures of these businesses have on communities and who is a part of the future revitalization of Seattle.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Real Change: Growing up in Seattle, how have you seen the city change and how has it affected your own personal experience?
Cynthia Brothers: Seattle’s always been kind of a boom and bust town. I think its history is one of a lot of change, flux, expansion and recession. Our history, like many other cities, has been based on [the] foundation [of the] displacement of Indigenous peoples. My experience of living and growing up in Seattle is a very quick snapshot. I think it’s also a pattern that’s been kind of cycling through since the city was settled.
Around the time that I started Vanishing Seattle in 2016, I had been seeing the impact of a boom period, largely due to the rapid growth of the tech sector and Big Tech, and I’d say the motivation for starting [Vanishing Seattle] was just seeing this kind of accelerated disappearance [and] displacement [that was] pricing out a lot of small businesses, gathering spaces and people from their homes and communities. I kind of saw it happening around me and also experienced it personally: A lot of my friends had to move away, or places that I frequented a lot, cared about and worked [as a] third space for me or for other communities had to close. That was the kind of [thing] that motivated me to make [Vanishing Seattle’s] first post. Even over the last eight years since I started the project, it seems like it’s really not slowing down.
How has the concept of third spaces for communities been impacted with the closing of many businesses and spaces?
This idea of third spaces is something that I’m really fascinated by and I think is a big running theme throughout the project. I’m really into how people and places interact with each other and how they impact each other. It’s important, as a society and community, for us to have places to come together where we feel welcomed, safe, seen and [where] we can build relationships. I think [it’s] really essential to a healthy city. That’s the point of [a] city — exciting art, ideas and creativity comes out of that. As humans, we’re meant to do more than just eat, sleep and work. It’s a loss when these spaces go away, not just because that’s someone’s life and livelihood, but because of all of the history, energy and potential that space has to hold people and give birth to new creative things emerging out of that.
The pandemic, rising rents, inflation, lack of [affordable housing] and protections for tenants — it’s hard. There’ve been a lot of places that are closing, and not necessarily because they’re not a successful or needed business but because they’re being displaced through unaffordability, or maybe their building gets sold to build a luxury development. It makes me think: What are we driving toward? Are we all just going to be sitting isolated in our places, getting everything delivered through an app? People are just trying to survive because all they have time for is to hustle and work. When you don’t have those spaces, how do we come together? How do we organize? How do we make social change? When you kind of zoom out and look at the larger picture, it can be concerning. It’s not just the barber shop or the bookstore or the bar. These [places] hold a lot more meaning in people’s lives.
Why do you think there have been efforts to create programs like Seattle Restored, which offers artists and entrepreneurs vacant storefronts, while many other local businesses are forced to close their doors?
It’s complicated, and there’re a lot of factors. I’m super appreciative and stoked for programs like Seattle Restored; it offers opportunities to small businesses and artists [who] otherwise wouldn’t have access. It really speaks to people still being really passionate and committed to understanding the importance of how we all benefit as a city when we can have these spaces inhabited by small businesses, creatives and artists. It’s [also] hard when you’re looking at these larger systemic factors like general affordability, rapidly rising rents, real estate values and speculations. Just like capitalism and how that usually will squeeze out, first and foremost, people of color-owned businesses, immigrant and refugee-owned businesses — folks who are already going to struggle to have access to the same economic opportunity and visibility.
On the flip side, there are these great programs to help folks, but I feel like there’s not a whole lot of protection. There’s been [a] long struggle around rent control or having some protections for commercial tenants. A lot of times when businesses are closing again, it’s not because they don’t have a great and popular business model necessarily. It’s because of something that’s out of their control, like the rent being raised double [or] triple or the building being sold. If the landlord doesn’t really want them there, then there’s not a lot [they] can do. I’ve seen so many GoFundMes and campaigns [dedicated to] saving spaces, which is great. But at some point, it seems like it’s on us as concerned residents and consumers to save all these places. What about some policy interventions? There needs to be some more tools to keep these places [in tact].
Why is it significant to include historical archives of businesses, groups and people in Vanishing Seattle?
I’m a bit of a local history nerd, and I like to keep digging. There’re just so many layers to our local history, and for me to be able to just keep learning and finding out new things that are cool about the people and places in Seattle is rewarding. I want to share that with folks. It’s also part of our collective history, which I think is meaningful and important to share. Seattle has a radical labor history: the 1919 general labor strike! There can be lessons learned from that to guide us toward our future. I do think you have to know what happened in the past to [understand] where you’re going.
We got some really awesome, unique and innovative history here. I always got a lot of inspiration from the Gang of Four: Bernie White Bear, Larry Gossett, Roberto Maestas and uncle Bob Santos. That was a really unique, multiracial organizing block, and there’re so many things that were accomplished through them that we still benefit from today.
During CHOP [the Capitol Hill Organized Protest], people were like, “Oh my god, who would ever do this?” [But] this is a part of our history. I want to encourage people to do some digging to remember their own city has changed so rapidly and drastically. It’s important to remember the people in the places that came before us.
How do you think accounts like “seattle.looks.like.shxt” have contributed to the narrative that the city is not a viable place to live? Why are those narratives dangerous and how is Vanishing Seattle working to counteract it?
It’s very fear-based [and] I think inaccurate. It’s, a lot of the time, politically motivated and meant to be divisive and othering. That type of stuff makes me feel sad, and I try not to follow it too closely; it’s counterproductive.
[Instead] try to come together, think about solutions and really care for each other as human beings. There’s been more of a divide and increased polarization locally, which I think mirrors a national trend, too. It just serves to marginalize people who are already marginalized. I’ve seen instances [where] there just seems to be a real erosion of empathy, and at the same time we have this increasing economic divide [and] social stratification, which I think is just not good for our city.
I don’t really know what’s the point of those accounts. I know it’s … kind of driving people to be like wolves. I think it’s totally valid to be concerned about the safety and health of your neighborhood. But when you insert that kind of fear and hatred, sometimes the solutions are presented as “We need more surveillance; we need more money to gentrify and get certain types of people out of here and get more luxury developments and rich people — that’s going to solve all the problems.” I’ve literally seen these talking points being given by some developers in the International District. Those kinds of messages and narratives are ultimately harmful to our communities, to our health as a city, and it bums me out to see it gain traction.
As someone who grew up here, how do you think perception of crime and attitudes toward homelessness have historically intersected with rising gentrification and displacement, especially in neighborhoods like CID, Capitol Hill and Pioneer Square?
I don’t want to over-romanticize Seattle’s history — it’s very complex. There’s always been people who have extracted enormous amounts of wealth from the natural environment, labor and sex workers. There’s always been this big wealth divide since the founding of the city. But I do feel like, at least growing up here, it was kind of like a blue collar, working class city or a more robust middle class. You had a lot of people who would move here and could get a good union job at Boeing or in the trades. [Someone] could have a pretty stable foothold or be a bus driver, a teacher; buy a home and start a family. It’s not just unique to Seattle; it’s a lot of other urban areas all over the country. When I was growing up, there was this phrase that I heard: “We take care of our people.” Maybe that came out of an understanding that our well-being is all connected and tied up with each other. We were not that far removed from someone who was houseless, experiencing housing instability or food insecurity.
Whereas now, I feel like there is such an economic and social divide, where it can be very easy for people to just kind of operate in their life bubble and maybe not have to interact with people who are that different from them on the bus or at the grocery store. That chasm just seems to keep getting bigger and bigger. When you don’t have, again, spaces where people from a lot of different backgrounds can come together, interact and build meaningful relationships, [then] it makes it easier to see people as others — to dehumanize them and not see that as part of your problem or well-being.
What are your feeling toward Mayor Harell’s Downtown Activation Plan aimed at “Revitalize Seattle?” What does it mean to revitalize our city, and how could this both help some while potentially harming other communities, including unhoused folks?
When there are plans to revitalize an urban area, a lot of the times it just means getting the so-called “undesirable elements” out of sight. Who is determining what that means and who’s included in that or who has to be kind of swept under the rug and out of sight? I feel like sometimes it can be about making it more palatable to tourists, making it more sanitized and homogenized. We saw this happen downtown in the ’90s and 2000s. You’ll have communities that are labeled, as like, urban blight or in need of revitalization, and it’s this pretext to then remove, demolish and displace what was there for this kind of shiny new version of whatever civic boosters believe progress looks like.
Revitalization begs the question of who is this really for? Who’s going to benefit from the revitalizations? Who is seen as the people or the places that are in the way of that vision? Who stands to make more of a profit?
A lot of the time, [the way] people talk about Seattle is “we need to be a world class city.” What does that mean? Who is that catering to? In my mind, you need to have people of all backgrounds and incomes. You need service workers, artists, teachers, organizers and not just upper class, white collar workers in order to have a world class city. We could benefit from asking a deeper set of questions when it comes to these kinds of buzzwords like “revitalization.”
What are your hopes for Seattle and where you would like to see it in the next five years?
I hope Seattle can maintain its small businesses, third places and communities in a way that is diverse and includes all walks of life, backgrounds and incomes. That such places are able to thrive and un-vanish, especially places that cater not only to the wealthy, but where weirdos, elders, artists, working class folks and more feel welcome and can interact with one another. I hope Seattle truly understands the value and essential role these places play and supports their ability to survive and continue to contribute to the city.
Marian Mohamed is the associate editor of Real Change. She oversees our weekly features. Contact her at [email protected].
Read more of the March 27–April 2, 2024 issue.