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Wednesday, January 31, 2007

The Pioneer Square Diaries, Vol. 1

O.K., I used to live on the so-called "upper Upper West Side" of Manhattan, and I've seen my share of aggressive panhandling. But I've been in Seattle for twelve years without encountering anything like the aggressive panhandling I saw tonight in Pioneer Square. It was like I was wearing aggressive-panhandler catnip (improbably, this seems to be a cream fleece zip-T, grey covert coat and jeans).

I was with a friend, looking for a place to have coffee. I was approached by about five panhandlers in less than 30 minutes, including two very persistent conversationalists. One of those, who I hadn't interacted with or even seen on the street, went so far as to enter a business, come up behind me and kind of put his arm around me. He said he had just been beaten up (not a mark on him) and needed two dollars for bus fare (the "I need bus fare" line is an old classic, believed to have been originated in anticipation of the invention of buses.) I told him more than once that if he'd been beaten up he needed to find a police officer.

The whole experience was just very strange. It was around 7 p.m. and not much was going on in the area. It was perhaps the time when people were figuring out where they would be sleeping that night, or what substances they could afford to score. Pure speculation, but that would explain the intensity of the onslaught.


posted at 12:18 AM

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