Last week, my work relocated our offices to one of Seattle’s oldest neighborhoods – Pioneer Square. In ALL the years I’ve spent in Seattle – growing up in a Suburb my entire life, and living all of my 20s in Seattle proper – I’ve never spent much time in what I’ve affectionately come to call P.Square. South of all the neighborhoods and downtown, P.Square has a bit of an interesting reputation for being a not-so-nice neighborhood, populated with shady peeps. It seems it has never really shed its character from the early 1900s when the streets were filled with brothels and “an ungodly mixture of dives, dumps… pawnshops, hash houses, dope parlors and… the et cetera that kept the police guessing.” P.Square is where the term “Skid Row” (a run-down or dilapidated urban area with a large, impoverished population) originated, if that tells you anything.

Now, there’s certainly a larger homeless population, but it’s also become a popular spot for startups in Seattle’s prosperous technology scene, so my company decided to jump into the mix of them. We moved from a stodgy, corporate skyscraper into a four story, old building with exposed brick, hardwood floors and bright blue, orange and red walls. Our new office is amazing – and fun and quirky, just like our startup culture.

Since we’ve been down here, I’ve absolutely loved it! I’ve been excited to get to know one of the only Seattle neighborhood’s I’m not familiar with… and it’s neat to be where so much of our city’s history started. P.Square is actually quite pretty – with old ornate brick and stone buildings, from the Victorian and Romanesque Revival eras; a TON of cute startup and Amazon.com boys who keeps smiling at me on my way to work; super cool graffiti and street art on the sides of a lot of the buildings; amazing places to eat lunch like Tat’s Deli, which has the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten; a ton of galleries that open their doors every month on First Thursday for wine and art; and tons of parks, including Occidental Park, which holds a farmer’s market in the summers and has tons of trees, tables to eat lunch at, and a bocce ball park!

Oh, and did I mention – P.Square has a ton of cute startup and Amazon.com boys who keeps smiling at me on my way to work. Yeah that.

I think I’m going to like it a lot down here.

Currently Feeling: Releived to have a big meeting and a 15 hour day behind me this week! Now – on to the weekend…
Currently Anticipating: A weekend in Bellingham, my alma mater town this weekend for my roommate’s birthday!
Currently Loving: That my fav yoga teacher is planning a yoga retreat to Bali in September 2011. I’m totally going!! Marking things off the Bucket List. Oh yeah.

More on this topic...

• Back to basics in SF with some of my girls
• One of the best trips of my life
• From the worst trip of my life to one of the best

Tags: Pioneer Square, Pioneer Square neighborhood in Seattle, Pioneer Square's Startup Culture, Work

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