No question about it, my neighborhood of Ballard [0] is changing. Every other storefront is now a boutique. Condominiums and town homes are seemingly springing up at a rate of one per fortnight. The swinging singles crowd that was once found only in Belltown now finds its way into Ballard nightly, largely confined to a bar whose name I won't mention out of decorum (cough Matador [0] cough). All one can do to fight the future is to find the bits of Ballard that are clinging to the old ways, to a time before people like me came in and ruined everything.
Mike's Chili Parlor [0] is such a place. Located in the shadow of the 15th Street Northwest bridge on Ballard Way, Mike's embodies working Ballard like few other joints: It doesn't take credit cards or offer wireless Internet, and the menu consists largely of meat. To be specific, the specialty of the house is a delicious, meaty chili, which you can enjoy on spaghetti or burgers or — do you dare? — as a standalone with a crumpled handful of crackers. If I were a tough, wind-and-sea-hewn fisherman or longshoreman instead of a soft-handed dot-com weenie, I'd have lunch at Mike's three times a week, washing down my chow with ice-cold local beers from Hale's [0].
If I were such a bloke, I probably wouldn't give much thought to the graffiti-covered abandoned building next to Mike's. Being me, however, I'm pretty much in love with what some locals call "The Ballard Wall," [0] after the wall that once kept capitalism out of East Berlin. It's both beautiful and ugly, an ever-changing (and highly illegal) gallery of "street art" that could collapse at any minute.
That being said, it is unlikely nature will kill The Ballard Wall before man does. According to a city-posted notice, the lot is slated to become a commercial development. I know it's all for the better and only a fool would romanticize a condemned building and illegal graffiti, but still, something about that posted notice makes me want to return to Mike's, dunk my head in a bowl of chili and hide out until my fellow yuppies grow old and begin yearning for simpler times.
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