Aurora is the American dream

Editor, The Times:

You guys missed the boat.

Here it comes again, the crime-on-Aurora-Avenue story [“Decades of decay haunt infamous Aurora,” page one, Sept. 28]. In the 60 years my family has lived and worked on Aurora, I have seen this story every few years on TV, in the papers and heard it on the radio.

Hello? This isn’t the story.

The Aurora Avenue merchants association I belong to has worked for more than 25 years to keep the criminals off Aurora. Sure, we haven’t achieved perfection, but through our work with the motels, Seattle police, neighbors, 24-hour hotline and our politicians we have made noticeable gains.

There are bank robbers, prostitutes and drug dealers in suburbs and small towns today, but that isn’t the story either.

Heads up, Seattle Times, take some time and look a little deeper at the businesses on Aurora. This is where the seeds for the future economic turnaround in Seattle are being planted. The 500 or more small businesses that comprise the majority of the “Aurora shopping mall” are changing and adapting to the new economy.

We don’t ask for government stimulus money, we just work a little harder or a little longer and we make necessary changes to benefit our businesses and community. We work together to find new ways to market to our customers, and despite the new employee head taxes and the other difficulties our government creates for us, we make it work.

Many motels on Aurora are upgrading their properties. Also, our car dealers are selling real gas savers to the people who can’t afford a clunkers deal, our restaurants are offering lunch specials and many small businesses have cut expenses, including their own salaries, so they don’t have to increase prices.

We will survive and Aurora will prosper because we will do whatever is needed to make it happen.

Think about Aurora as the American dream. It isn’t decayed, haunted or infamous.

— David Quiring, Seattle

Dig a little deeper please

I was encouraged when I began to read the front-page article about Aurora Avenue. It seemed like The Times was finally going to shed some light on the positive stories up and down the Aurora corridor.

But when I turned the page it immediately dawned on me that this introduction about a faithfully involved neighbor was just a cover, just an excuse to retell the most recent news about troubled motels, drug deals and prostitution busts, as well as dig up some sordid tales from the past.

Next time The Times devotes a front page to our neighborhood, I hope it scratches beneath the surface a bit further. It would find much more fascinating, yet simple stories — stories about neighbors sharing pancakes and picking up trash together, about an AmeriCorps volunteer rallying neighbors together for a baby shower for a single mom living in a motel, and about a community garden where local residents and recovering addicts gathered for a weekly cookout.

These, too, are stories worth telling the city of Seattle.

— Ben Katt, Seattle