West Seattle Junction Neighborhood Service Center closes, quietly

June 30, 2011 at 7:05 pm | In Neighborhoods, West Seattle news | 4 Comments

With just a minute to go till 5 pm, one last visitor went into the city’s Neighborhood Service Center in The Junction, which then closed quietly, permanently.

We dropped by about 10 till 5 to see what was happening in its final moments.

The customer-service rep didn’t want us to take his photo. He’s one of the people losing his job because of the midyear budget cut that shut the center down, less than a year after passionate lobbying by neighborhood advocates saved from a previous budget ax.

At 4:50: “I didn’t know this place was closing down,” a woman said, aloud but to herself, in the lobby’s corner.

4:52, another woman walked in: “Where’s the nearest pay phone?” The customer-service rep told her she could use the phone on the wall right outside his window.

4:55, another woman came in to pay a bill. Maybe two.

Another employee entered the lobby. Maybe we can photograph you closing the door one last time? we ask. He pointed out the door is power-assisted and closes automatically. So much for the potentially poignant shot; the NSC – “linking city government to Seattle’s neighborhoods,” as its webpage says – was just going to unlink one neighborhood without fanfare. As of tomorrow, you can transact city business in the one remaining NSC on the peninsula, in Delridge, north of the library.

4 Comments

  1. If only it would have sold pot, it could have stayed open…..

    Comment by More WS Family — 7:31 pm June 30, 2011 #

  2. Zing! 1 point for More WS Family… LOL.

    How about this one:

    If they deep-bored a tunnel for the offices and put a skyscraper on top, they could have stayed open…

    Comment by Cascadianone — 9:00 pm June 30, 2011 #

  3. Good to know we can still pay for crappy public art but we can’t pay for a place for the seniors who aren’t internet savvy to go pay their bills..

    Comment by WSfamily — 3:16 pm July 1, 2011 #

  4. Or those who don’t do financial transactions over the internet, WSF.
    I won’t compare this to another area where we citizens can deny ourselves something nice or convenient, but this is yet another example of reducing services to the majority of the citizenry in order to continue funding the super-rich. Maybe no direct corelation, but this is just another example of reduction in services which we individually must make up for out of pocket, which will ultimately end up costing us more.
    —
    Still waiting on that flood of good-paying jobs in America that trickle-down economics is going to create. Guess they should have told us it was going to be WAY more than a thirty year plan.

    Comment by dawsonct — 11:25 am July 2, 2011 #

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