For 25 years, Bennie Baldwin lived comfortably in a lovely four-bedroom home in the Oakbrook neighborhood of Lakewood. Raised a family there.
Then on Nov. 5, 2004, she picked up The News Tribune’s Business section, saw the headline, “Pinch yourself, this is Tacoma,” and believed these words I wrote about a downtown condominium project that had just broken ground:
“If you step into the Marcato showroom … the color and classiness of the faux dining room, kitchen and living spaces will slap you in the face so hard you’ll want to peek outside just to remind yourself that, yes, you’re still in Tacoma.”
Then last week I opened an e-mail from Baldwin’s daughter, Michelle, who informed me, “Because of your article on urban living a couple years ago, my mother made the move into the Marcato in January. … She keeps saying that the reason she moved was due to your article!”
Gulp.
People don’t really listen to the pontifications of a business columnist, do they? Certainly no one would risk a life decision worth several hundred thousand dollars based on my words, right?
“Yes, your article is what really got to me,” Baldwin said Wednesday when I met her and her sister/roommate, Liz DeCaterina, at their new condo on the fourth floor of Reverie, the Marcato village’s first building.
“Within a couple of days, I went down there to the showroom. I walked in and looked at the model, and I think I scared the girl,” Bennie recalled. “I said I’d sign the papers, and she said, ‘Are you sure?’ I made a reservation right then.”
OK, Bennie, but do you like it here? Or did I wrongly steer you into a 1,050-square-foot condominium in a neighborhood still trying to shake the dust of decline?
“I absolutely love it down here. Every day, I say, ‘Pinch me,’” she said. “I was ready to leave the suburbs.”
Whew!
And how about you, Liz?
She likes it much better than the apartment she moved from in Puyallup.
“I was never one to really sit. But you know,” Liz said, nodding toward the sweeping view of Tacoma from Mount Rainier to Commencement Bay, “life here is just happening all around. I could just sit, and time gets away from me.”
Wednesday morning’s sitting session including catching the 7:05 a.m. sunrise and watching the window washers dangling from the roof of the Sheraton Tacoma Hotel.
To Bennie, Tacoma isn’t foreign territory. From her corner condo’s wall of windows, she can see the AT&T office building where she started work in 1952 as a telephone operator. In those days, if you wanted to call Puyallup from Tacoma, you had to dial the operator to patch you through, she recalled. In 1995, she retired as the local manager of operator services.
Consequently, Bennie experienced downtown Tacoma’s 1950s zenith and 1980s nadir. Now she’s joined its nouveau resurrection.
“At one time, I belonged to the Downtown Tacoma Association, the board of directors of the Tacoma Symphony and the Tacoma Urban League,” she said. “I was involved in downtown, and it was pretty dead. I kept rooting for it and hoping it would get better and better, and it has.”
“I haven’t seen anything scary around here,” Liz added.
The two urban pioneers have, in barely a month, discovered Sixth Avenue eateries – Primo Grill, Asado, Masa. They regularly walk four blocks to the main branch of the Tacoma Public Library. Down the South 15th Street hill sits Sea Grill, one of their new favorite restaurants. They’ve seen independent films at the Grand Cinema.
Next week, they’ll walk to the Sheraton for the Daffodil Festival’s formal Princess Promenade, at which Bennie’s granddaughter, Gabrielle Baldwin, will participate as the princess from Eatonville.
“I tell people, ‘I read that Dan Voelpel’s column, and here I am,’” Bennie said, causing me to cringe again. “There’s a world of things to do down here. It’s coming back. It really is, and I love it.”
http://www.thenewstribune.com/business/columnists/voelpel/story/6386282p-5696472c.html
