What is the Belltown Bugle?
About the Bugle
What is this? Why start it? In short, my friends and I had been discussing creating a neighborhood newspaper for a few months when I came across the New Yorker article ‘Your Friendly Neighborhood Newsletter’…and I loved the idea.
What these [neighborhood newsletter] projects have in common is a desire to fight back against two forces: the disintegration of local media and the impersonality of the algorithmic internet, which aims content at the widest possible audience. As Dornblaser put it, “You’re more likely to be served restaurant recommendations for Paris or real-time updates on a Senate primary than relevant information about what is happening in your own neighborhood.”
- Kyle Chayka in Your Friendly Neighborhood Newsletter, The New Yorker
What the Belltown Bugle is:
A ~twice-a-month neighborhood newsletter, with a focus on hyper-local news impacting Belltown (or Downtown, Queen Anne, etc.), neighborhood events, restaurant recommendations, rants, and occasional deep dives into special topics.
In an era of increasing alienation and placelessness, the Belltown Bugle is meant to be a small effort to reinforce neighborhood and community ties.
Human-written. No AI slop. Ever. But we love the em dash — we’re reclaiming it.
What this is not:
The Stranger or Seattle Times or Queen Anne & Magnolia News or the West Seattle Blog. This is its own thing!
An ‘official’ voice for Belltown residents/businesses. For that, please check out Belltown United (they have a newsletter!) and the Belltown Community Council.
Real journalism: I’m not a journalist. None of my friends who might pitch in are journalists. But the truth is important to me, so wherever relevant I’ll do my best to include sources.
The now-defunct Belltown Messenger (though we aim to fulfill a similar purpose!)
A for-profit venture. We’ve enabled donations to help cover any future costs (stickers ain’t cheap!) and to encourage deeper dives, but they aren’t expected and we do not intend to run ads or need paywalls for the primary newsletter.
About the editor:
Hello! My name is Ethan. I’m in my mid-20s and moved to Seattle (Belltown!) after college with my boyfriend, Matthew. We’ve loved it here and plan to stick around. You may have seen me walking around the neighborhood, or from more popular exploits such as when I walked from Pike Place to SeaTac.
Ask me anything by emailing Ethan@BelltownBugle.com and I will respond in a future issue or directly. I read everything!
Our first newsletter is coming in the next week or so! Here’s what to expect:
In the News: A rundown of local news stories we think are relevant to Belltown residents. Expect this in every issue!
Eat Here: A restaurant rec — we won’t include this every issue, only when we go somewhere really good that we think you should know about.
Get Off the Couch: A curated mix of events and things to do. These may be in Belltown or the surrounding neighborhoods, and will include a mix of paid events and free activities. We want to highlight the really good stuff rather than have an exhaustive list — though a neighborhood events calendar could be in the works?
What’s Going On…?: A shallow to deep dive on something happening that we think you should know about. These will vary from ‘what’s that local construction project?’ to ‘What does an expanded Seattle Transit Measure mean for Belltown?’
We have more sections cooking for future issues, spanning from art/movies to neighborhood history. But more on those later ;)
That’s all for now, folks!
We’re very excited to continue sending these out and seeing what this becomes — thank you for being along for the ride!