(Image: GenPride)
By Matt Dowell
What happens when a city makes a place for its LGBTQIA+ seniors to remain in the middle of the changing queer-friendly community many of them grew up in? On Broadway just between Pine and Pike, Lots of good things like bumping into neighbors like you getting morning coffee or visiting the 4,400-square-foot health and community services center right on the ground floor.
There are also things from the other end of getting older and seeking a quieter, more peaceful existence than Broadway around 2 AM on a Friday night.
“Noise is not just an annoyance – it kills and disables,” says Rick Grossman resident at Pride Place, the affordable housing development for LGBTQIA+ seniors on Broadway.
“We’ve measured noise levels in an eighth floor apartment with a closed triple-paned window at 95 decibels,” he said. “Earplugs don’t help when the floor and bed vibrates. One neighbor sleeps in her bathroom.”
Grossman’s months-long campaign to address nightlife noise levels near his building has caught media attention. He says that in the last eighteen months, the streets near Pride Place have seen an increase in both unpermitted street food vendors who blast amplified music and cars that race with modified exhaust systems.
But Grossman says that he has had a hard time getting in touch with local leaders. When he’s made contact, he’s not been satisfied with the results.
“It feels like the city has ignored the LGBTQIA+ seniors,” said Grossman. “Whether because we are gay or are older. It feels that our concerns are dismissed and we are just old codgers shouting, ‘Get off my front lawn.’”
Pride Place opened in late 2023 as a first in the state development focused on affordable housing for LGBTQIA+ seniors. Affordable developer Community Roots Housing follows the city’s “community preference” guidelines to reach out to LGBTQIA+ seniors who meet income requirements but accepts applications from all seniors interested in being part of the community. There are 118 homes in the building.
Its proximity to transit, resources, and senior-friendly policies when it comes to things like pets make it an ideal place to age — in a neighborhood people love enough to want to stay in.
“I missed my queer community,” one new resident told CHS as the new building opened three years ago. “I returned to Seattle but there was no way that I could afford my apartment on Capitol Hill any longer — I couldn’t return to my beloved neighborhood.”
Pride Place changed that for her. Meanwhile, developers hoped the conveniences of modern construction and quality windows would help keep dance club Neighbours a good neighbor and the rest of Capitol HIll’s nightlife scene at a healthy distance.
Grossman has decided to get involved, reaching out to a long list of public agencies – the Seattle Police Department, SDOT, City Council, King County Health Department, the mayor’s office. When officials speak with Grossman, he says they often point to the logistical hurdles that make nighttime food permit enforcement difficult.
This area around Broadway is the site of ongoing public safety issues that include violent crime, which has led SPD to commit extra officers to the area on weekend nights.
Police say they are trying to help Grossman and his neighbors at Pride Place.
“We are engaged with the community and are listening, but there is no simple solution,” an SPD spokesperson told CHS. “There are multiple facets of government involved here, and we are coordinating directly with them.”
Meanwhile, the city is sensitive about strictly enforcing unpermitted vending rules.
“As an agency, our enforcement process starts with support, not punishment,” a city spokesperson told CHS.
According to King County Public Health’s Unpermitted Street Food Vending Closures dashboard, they are on track to match 2025’s closure of 99 vendors in Seattle this year. Since the start of May of this year, two street food vendors in the Pike and Pine area have been shuttered.
When law enforcement has happened, not everybody on the streets of Capitol Hill has approved. In the era of heightened ICE activity, the image of officers and government officials taking down a food stall with often-Hispanic workers can cause concern.
Jen Carl, Capitol Hill Neighborhood Safety Coordinator with the GSBA chamber of commerce, has been in contact with Grossman about Pride Place hopes for quieter nights.
“We understand the full scope of problems stemming from unpermitted vending, including taking business from small businesses in the area, creating traffic and pedestrian safety issues, driving larger-scale issues like human trafficking, and the noise complaints driving health concerns that Rick has championed solving.”
Carl said that “community concern around removing the vendors in the current manner” remains an important factor.
As far as the race cars with modified exhausts go, Grossman believes that the city has failed to commit the same resources that it used to address the infamous “Belltown Hellcat” last year. Grossman notes that four cities on the Eastside have created the Safe Streets Task Force to address street racing and modified exhausts, leading to dozens of citations and multiple arrests.
Meanwhile, Pike/Pine and Broadway on a weekend night might be some of the loudest streets in the city. That isn’t necessarily the complaint. Nor are planned and coordinated major events like the many beer gardens and stages being set up for Pride this weekend or the Capitol Hill Block Party later this summer.
It is the night to night grind Grossman worries about. And the frustration that nobody seems to be responding to him and his neighbors.
“Sometimes we are told to move. We pay rent, but have fixed incomes. Searching, packing, unpacking, deposits, cleaning, is not easy at a certain age,” Grossman said.
Surely, a city like Seattle that figured out how to fund and foster a place like Pride Place in the middle of Capitol Hill can sort out ways to make life high quality for the LGBTQIA+ residents it was trying to protect in the first place. Maybe if enough people understand the goals — and the risks — they might even consider the way they party and the many lives — senior and all — that are going on around and above them, trying to sleep and enjoy life on Capitol Hill.
“Some blame the victim by saying we moved into a loud neighborhood,” Grossman says. “When we moved here, we had people going to and from clubs, and a little rowdiness. We did not have street racing, cars with no mufflers, dozens of unlicensed food booths blasting music, and street takeovers.”
“No one seems to understand that our lives are being cut short,” Grossman says.
Pride Place is on Broadway midway between Pike and Pine. If you are partying nearby, maybe ask your friends to “shhhh” after last call, look up, and wish your LGBTQIA+ senior neighbors a good night. Quietly.
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