It's hot, it's hip, it's . . .Ballard?

One of these men is Al Mycon, whom Clark describes as "a couple sandwiches short of a picnic" and whose properties Clark says are "going to shit." But one animal's feces are another's manure. Since the Al Mycons of Ballard don't place a high priority on building maintenance, they can keep the rents down for artists. As Sev Shoon's Haroutunian puts it, "Slumlords, yeah, but in a good way."

Contrary to Clark's generalization, Mycon is in his 70s, quite lucid, was reared in Spokane, and insists that his properties "are maintained as good as any of them on Ballard Avenue." Ironically, the owner of five turn-of-the-century Ballard Avenue buildings is currently staying with his son in a Belltown high-rise. Mycon began buying buildings as soon as he arrived in Seattle in 1941, on the advice of a friend who said, "Move in where people aren't and wait for them to come."

ERIK CASTRO

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• Scott Clark
• Warren Aakervik
• Kenny Alhadeff
• Politics
• Local Politics

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Mycon barks good-naturedly at the newbies, singling out Alhadeff's Bay Theater. "The Bay Theater up there must be a $5 million project, with no parking. Ballard Avenue will be a driveway for 400 cars; that's not what people want to wake up to."

DESPITE MYCON's grousing, what's striking about Ballard's renaissance is that while some opinions of neighborhood stalwarts are as different as night and day, few (if any) harbor real ill will toward newcomers.

However, as the Chamber's Miller puts it, there's a certain ethic of community involvement that business owners must abide by: Those interested in making a fast buck and leaving need not apply. If you come to Ballard, you'd best be in it for the long haul.

Ballardites feel they never really have to leave the neighborhood; any wishes for better clothing stores are drowned out by Aakervik's playful assertion that if Ballard wanted to, it could easily secede.

While city officials can wax enthusiastic over Ballard's uprising, they would be wise to watch their backs. Taken over and mindlessly digested nearly a century ago by its bigger, younger rival, there remains a pervasive antidowntown attitude among Ballard merchants and residents that can be summed up by the phrase: "Come one, come all. . . . And remember, we have everything right here for ya, so there's no real reason for you to leave."

Be afraid, Seattle, be very afraid, for the city of Ballard is rising again.