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Goodbye to Seattle's Italian enclave, Garlic Gulch
seattlepi ^

Posted on 04/05/2021 9:19:20 AM PDT by mylife

In immigrant enclaves around the world, waves of new communities build upon the foundation left behind as the previous tenants move away. New cultures and businesses build on top of the old ones, stacking up like the layer cakes that Remo's in Seattle's Rainier Valley neighborhood once made more than one hundred of each day. Those cakes, bought for weddings, birthdays, and graduations for generations, came out of the area once known as the Garlic Gulch,

“We had several Italian grocery stores at Atlantic Street, Italian pharmacy, Italian barbershop. The residents were mainly east and west of Rainier Avenue, going all the way up to Beacon Hill, as far south as – oh, a little south of McClellan Street,” Remo Borracchini described in the book “Rainier Valley Food Stories.”

None of that remains, so when his three daughters announced the bakery’s permanent closing this week just days after another classic Garlic Gulch brand, Oberto, announced it would be shutting its factory in the neighborhood, it felt like the end of an era.

When the Italian community first arrived in Seattle in the first decade of the 20th century, they came for coal mining jobs. The area Borracchini describes appealed to the mainly rural immigrants because of the available space for farming. Then, as quickly as the neighborhood became known as Italian, they were joined by Japanese residents, then the Black community spread south from the Central District. In the late 1970s, refugees from the Vietnam War moved in, along with Latino immigrants and newly arrived people from East Africa. By the early 2000s, Borracchini’s and Oberto shared the streets with pho shops, taco trucks, teriyaki counters, and Ethiopian restaurants, reflecting similar populations as the neighborhood just to the south, which was then considered among the most diverse in the country.

(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat; Food; Miscellaneous
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To: mylife

Maybe they moved to Colorado and will re-open as Galt’s Garlic Gulch.


21 posted on 04/05/2021 9:50:53 AM PDT by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: rellic

Obertos just closed


22 posted on 04/05/2021 9:55:22 AM PDT by steel_resolve (Stephen Miller is my spirit animal)
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To: mylife

“I imagine it was the covid”

Which doesn’t exist!


23 posted on 04/05/2021 10:06:57 AM PDT by ConsCA
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To: Revelation 911

Livingston County, nr Geneseo.


24 posted on 04/05/2021 10:10:13 AM PDT by djf (Better to be anecdotally alive than clinically dead!)
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To: Revelation 911

BTW, I was born in Rochester also.


25 posted on 04/05/2021 10:12:51 AM PDT by djf (Better to be anecdotally alive than clinically dead!)
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To: alternatives?

“What is the real reasons for the closings?”


This is an admittedly uninformed opinion. I am not Italian, and I’ve never set foot in Seattle. I think a lot of it is the passage of time. A large part of the Italian migration was well over 100 years ago. People live their lives, prosper, or don’t and leave things like businesses to their children. Their kids may well enthusiastically take over the family business, but the grandkids? The great grandkids?

There is an Italian section in St. Louis called ‘The Hill’. Lots of restaurants, delis, etc. The Hill is almost ferociously kept nice and actively resists encroachment by what the locals consider undesirable elements but the homes and lots, in keeping with their age are quite small. I frankly think it will eventually disappear, like we all will.


26 posted on 04/05/2021 10:14:35 AM PDT by hanamizu
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To: GOP Poet; All

I didn’t see much in the article either. Even if it was, you have to wonder if what is stated in the press is the true reason. Maybe the best reason is just time and the Italians were absorbed and combined into the oppressive whites. The US used to be a melting pot. Don’t see that happening anymore by design.


27 posted on 04/05/2021 10:23:17 AM PDT by alternatives? (If our borders are not secure, why fund an army?)
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To: mylife

Yes, and they do not deserve to life in a free country or to have good things in life! The know this, so they (sub)consciously destroy all the good things!


28 posted on 04/05/2021 10:37:21 AM PDT by gr8eman (Elder Non-Binary Sibling is Watching You!)
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To: gr8eman

When I was young and short in wisdom, about 40 years ago now, I worked at the Rainier Valley welfare office. We often went to the dwindling Italian community for lunch. Even then it was clear the time left to that community was limited. I am surprised only they held out this long.

That area today must be a real hell-hole.

My experience as a welfare worker (I think I lasted about 3 years) made me a conservative. Learned about government idiocracy. Learned that welfare wasn’t for the needy, but for the greedy. And learned how the left had absolutely poisoned the black community with their Great Society programs.


29 posted on 04/05/2021 10:45:05 AM PDT by TheConservator (Beware the tyranny of the woke mob. There has never been a greater threat to liberty.)
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To: TheConservator

I remember shopping at a very nice market near Berkeley. The man in line ahead of me was black, well dressed, wearing a very expensive gold watch. Bought expensive groceries too.

I was amazed when he paid with a wad of food stamps.


30 posted on 04/05/2021 11:45:48 AM PDT by Veto! (Political Correctness Offends Me)
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To: mylife

Say goodbye to pizza and good food, and hello to your new masters who are arriving and making babies.


31 posted on 04/05/2021 1:02:42 PM PDT by I want the USA back (I fear my government many times more than I fear the chinese kungfu virus.)
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To: mylife

I believe the Hartford south end (where Italians lived after urban renewal hit Front Street) is no longer Italian and I bet Boston North End (where Tony’s mom yelled out the window Anthony in the Prince spaghetti commercial) is not Italian either...


32 posted on 04/05/2021 2:51:43 PM PDT by Deplorable American1776 (Rest In PEACE, Rush H. Limbaugh III. You are missed already...)
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To: Deplorable American1776

I liked the seafood


33 posted on 04/05/2021 2:56:24 PM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: Deplorable American1776

I dont know how obertos went down but they sell jerky everywhere there and fish, seafood.... but not Italian


34 posted on 04/05/2021 2:59:37 PM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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