Edith Macefield's Ghost's Town

The project that made secret novelist and unmovable Ballardite Edith Macefield a Seattle household name is finally finished. The LA Fitness is up and running and the Trader Joe's opened today, with help from the Seafair Pirates.

Of course, neither gets to occupy the street front in the middle of the block, where sits Macefield's fenced-off, still off-the-market former home and where resides--if you believe in such things--a ghost that will now be fit and well-fed.

While Macefield has been celebrated as a defender of property rights and bulwark against gentrification, her greatest legacy--assuming her house remains--will be the pure, miniaturist, visual incongruity she's left us. It's a remarkable sight, regardless of its meaning.