West Seattle, Washington
26 Friday
Thanks to the tipster who reminds us, Nov. 13 is the anniversary of the day in 1851 that the schooner Exact brought the rest of the Denny Party to Alki, several weeks after their scouts discovered our little bit of heaven. HistoryLink has the true tale.
-The Seattle Weekly has two tales of West Seattle nightlife in its latest edition. One is a straightforward “Club Pick” piece about Skylark; the other is a fantastical journey into an alleged Beach Drive scene that you might actually start to believe, until the later paragraphs. (Kudos to the writer for quite an imagination. Best civically minded satire since Exit133.com took on Carl’s Jr.)
-Wonder if the rain will keep the Initiative 937 campaigners off the Fauntleroy walkover today. They’ve been up there sign-waving for two recent commutes … immediately causing me to feel excruciating guilt for being alone in my car (at least it’s a gas-thrifty little-bitty car, honest). But at least we’re not driving a big yellow truck like the McG crew (it was back in Yasuko’s north lot yesterday morning, with the addition of a guy having his own tailgating party outside it).
-Have you seen the bear under The Bridge yet?
All along just a few blocks of Fauntleroy, including the last stretch of The Bridge:
-The Walking on Logs peeps in spooky garb, including jack-o-lantern heads
-A spooky (well, spooky if you’re a Dem) yellow truck idling near Walking on Logs, with huge Mike McGavick campaign signs all over it (the same one was haunting the parking lot on the north side of Yasuko’s this morning)
-The former Rainier Roaster finally has a “Starbucks, Coming Soon” banner draped over the old RR sign
No trick-or-treaters yet in our neighborhood. Boo.
We mentioned a few days ago that the West Seattle shoreline would be headquarters to some participants in Seattle Wireless Field Day. Just found an interesting blogpost with details on what it was really all about, including a cool photo of the blogger’s setup at Don Armeni.
First, we spotted a mild outbreak of NoMo. Now, comes SOA — on a flyer for Tuesday’s expanded trick-or-treating in the Admiral business district (3-6 pm), with half a dozen or so businesses south of Lafayette School joining it this year, and identifying themselves as SOA (South Of Admiral). What next? WeCa? EaCa? NoFa? SoFa? AlAl? (as in Almost Alki, a la the marketing of Verge Condos)? We could at least turn Beach Drive into SoAl. But I’m still looking for a justification to meld Luna Park and someplace-or-another into LunaSea …
Beyond the trick-or-treat events (see post below), here’s some of what else is happening this Hallo-weekend around West Seattle … Our favorite is WASL Haunted High at Youngstown Arts Center tonight … Tomorrow night at Youngstown, it’s “Grease Frightening” (scary tweaked photo on the info page) … Also unusual, the themes for the arts conference at Mars Hill/West Seattle today & Saturday … Admiral Theater moves up the monthly “Rocky Horror Picture Show” (get in the mood with this video) screening to Saturday night (scroll down this page) … “Haunted Hoedown” tonight at Skylark Cafe … As mentioned earlier this week, Seattle Wireless Field Day is Saturday at 3 locations including Alki … The WS Chamber puts on Monster Bingo tonight at the golf course … Free Halloween Family Swim, 7 tonight at the Southwest Community Center pool … Halloween Carnival at Alki Community Center, 6:30-8:30 tonight … “Halloween in the Forest,” two sessions tonight at Camp Long … “Freaky Fall Festival,” 6-8 tonight at High Point Community Center, and in a slight variation, it’s the “Freaky Fall Carnival” 6:30-8:30 tonight at Hiawatha CC … “tick, tick … BOOM!” ticks on this weekend at ArtsWest … Leave a comment or e-mail us with anything we’re missing (and don’t worry, we’ll get to the Monday & Tuesday Halloween festivities in a day or so)!
A few posts down, a comment asks what’s up with a couple sites between Admiral Junction and The (Alaska) Junction, including the burned-out Schuck’s @ Charleston & Cali. Just so happens, the Design Review Board meeting for that site is tomorrow night at the Madison Middle School library. Anyone who’s able to go (we can’t), we’d love a firsthand report!
Not sure if all this is enough to qualify WS as Geek Capital of the World. (Though we aspiring geeks at WS Blog World HQ think it’s a great place to be.) But two upcoming WS events are noteworthy for those with technotendencies: This Saturday, Alki is one of three spots for Seattle Wireless Field Day; in a few weeks, Youngstown Arts Center will host Seattle Mind Camp 3.0.
Now that the weekend’s over … you don’t have to wait till next weekend to have fun. Just discovered an exceptionally worthy-sounding wine tasting & auction happening here in West Seattle, this Thursday, to raise $ for WS Helpline. You can even buy discount tickets online.
A sampling of West Seattle fun ‘n’ stuff this weekend: Tonight, the Twelfth Night Cabaret @ Youngstown Arts Center … also tonight, Family Movie Night (“Charlie & the Chocolate Factory,” free!) @ High Point Community Center … first weekend for Tick, Tick … BOOM! at ArtsWest … Saturday, EarthCorps needs help with planting & invasive-plant removal @ Lincoln Park … Sunday, remember the WS Farmers’ Market is still going strong, two more months (lettuce and tree fruit were both awesome last week, among other things)!
Some eclectic events (and thanks to those who’ve e-mailed us about some of this happenings): Megawatt’s “Chautauqua” tonight … a health fair at Freedom Church today (little signs have been up on my side of WS for weeks) … yard sale season is winding down; this one today sounds interesting … live tunes tonight at venues including the lively Skylark Cafe … HS football tonight with Ingraham vs. West Seattle @ WS Stadium … an “educator reception” at Westwood Village Barnes & Noble today with editors and writers of books for “young adults” … my last plug for the Water Taxi’s final day (check the video link on this page; a report from yesterday, kinda cute) … still bored? peruse the offerings at our local community centers — like Alki CC (fall brochure here) … See you out and about!
-Is one of our best-known West Seattle day-care centers in danger? Could be, according to the last item in the new fall newsletter from the Fauntleroy Community Association. The nonprofit group that runs the Fauntleroy Children’s Center at the former Fauntleroy School (uphill from the business districtlet) gets a break on rent from Seattle Public Schools, but apparently the new push to get more $ out of closed school properties (as SPS prepares to close more) could bust that deal. (Seems like the district’s being penny-wise and pound-foolish these days.)
-On the other side of the coin(s), belated props to West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician for stashing some anti-graffiti $ in his new budget (near the end of the first list of bullet points in this city news release). If you’ve been dropping by here a while, you know we think graffiti vandalism is evil. So we don’t mind seeing a few of our tax dollars spent to fight it, although we would also like to see some thought given toward creative restitution — perhaps force graffiti vandals to create actual art that could be auctioned, with the $ to fill a paintout fund? Just an idea.
F3 has socked us in pretty good here on the south side of WS, at least the upper reaches. I guess it’s technically the Last Summer Fog since the autumnal equinox doesn’t hit till just after 9 o’clock tonight, but let’s not pick nits over 12 hours.
I know it’ll clear up soon; wish the same could be said about some of the hot local topics in which West Seattle has a stake. Let’s see … according to the papers and the Save Seattle Schools blog, nobody’s happy about the latest school-change proposals, not even the Pathfinder people who were so thrilled to win their “No Boren” fight. And right this very moment as I write, city council members are dropping the gavel on the meeting at which they are likely to sing “Kumbaya” over the tunnel option, despite its wallet-wrenching cost, and proclaim that we voters don’t need to worry our pretty little heads over it. Last but not least, I imagine every caffeinated blogger from coast to coast has thrown in their two cents regarding Starbucks adding five cents. Guess that’s what’ll help pay for the Morgan Junction reno work. Meantime, West Seattle’s original Starbucks (the only one when we got here) hasn’t changed much over time.
Later today, something more fun: The weekend highlights, including the WS debut of our city’s most-publicized megachurch, whose leader cannily takes a dig at bloggers … in a blog entry. WWJB?
-Maybe it was sabotage. Seattle Public Schools leaders choose to announce the next round of shutdown plans one day before the Initiative 88 vote. Concurrently, they scamper around floating insanely expensive projects like this. So certainly no surprise the vote turned out this way.
-Never thought a building permit could make me laugh but this one did. The one-line project description is something many of us can identify with in our workplaces: “FINISH WORK STARTED BY OTHERS.”
-Speaking of building permits, work crews are burning the midnight oil at the Morgan Junction Starbucks. We’ve driven by a couple times very late at night in the past week and they’re always very, very busy in there. But no sign yet of the “sidewalk cafe.”
-And one more thing from the newest West Seattle Herald (besides the school $$ link above) — here’s a letter-writer who is right up my alley (er, my switchbacks).
-All this kvetching makes me hungry. Hey! The impending Junction location finally made the Garlic Jim’s “coming soon” page!
A tiny bit of West Seattle history lives on in San Francisco — one of those trivia tidbits we bump into sometimes while Web-wandering. An SF facility called the Zeum is home to a merry-go-round (carousel, if you prefer) that once graced the long-ago WS fantasyland called Luna Park (which was nowhere near the bridge-vicinity area now carrying that name). Here’s the merry-go-round’s history, including a link to historic photos.
The Mars Hill-West Seattle blog reveals that the mega-evangelical mega-church will make its WS debut on the campus of Chief Sealth High School, since its new digs at the ex-Doxa on 35th won’t be ready in time for the planned fall debut. Wonder if this will draw any controversy a la Antioch Bible Church’s activities on an Eastside public-school campus. (P.S. If you haven’t read much about Mars Hill, let alone been there, it just got another national writeup, this time on Salon.)
The Festival of India that has set up on Alki this long holiday weekend (and has been there before) is apparently simply the 21st-century successor to the dancing/chanting Hare Krishna displays I saw on street corners around the West when I was a kid.
As they continue preaching vegetarianism (among other things) on the beach, we will likely be taking our omnivorous selves to nearby Cactus for lunch tomorrow, now that it’s had a week to shake things out.
… let’s shout it together so it can be heard all the way across the water, from Vashon to Bainbridge to Magnolia … WHERE DID THE SUMMER GO? (Did you notice how early it’s getting dark? Sigh …)
Here are three things you might want to add to your to-do list, since within a few weeks you won’t be able to do them again till sometime next spring:
-Ride the Elliott Bay Water Taxi. It goes on hiatus at the end of this month.
-Go swimming (or sunbathing) at Colman Pool. A week from Sunday is its last day of operation this year. There are few sights sadder for us Lincoln Park walkers than the fall/winter plywood up over the CP plexiglass.
-Enjoy a demonstration at the West Seattle Farmers Market. The market itself is supposed to stay open every Sunday through mid-December, but the demos on its calendar only run through September (this Sunday, fresh tomatoes! yum!).
Got out and about for the first time in a few days … First, a couple notes from the Junction: Though the space posted as the future “Divina Cantina” does not appear open yet, a new store in front of it called “Divina” appears to be almost set to go. Its doors are posted with an artsy flyer trumpeting simply “Divina/Objects Of Beauty.” Looks like said objects include clothes, dishes, and wall hangings, among other things we didn’t quite have time to catalog while peering through the window … Also, just noticed that the former “In-Out Espresso” south of Pagliacci has changed its name to “Red Cup Espresso.” Sorry if that’s old news — gotta wonder, though, did those California burger people come after them, or did they just get tired of saying “No relation”?
Now, from Beach Drive … the “For Sale” sign at the historic Satterlee House sprouted a “PRICE REDUCED” signlet sometime in the past week or so, so we checked the listing again … wow, down to $2.5 million, from the original $3,000,000. Gosh, maybe I should try the mortgage calculator again.
Last but not least, we returned home to find out in a roundabout way that one of our favorite non-amateur blogs has poked fun at us, sort of. Wow … when the venerable Dan Savage is aware of your existence, you know you’ve really arrived.
Somewhere.
It’s been one of those weeks where offline life interfered with online life. Now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging …
-Just got a note from one of the owners of Cactus Restaurants — he confirms that the new Alki location is opening this Monday, and says they’ve deliberately held back on trumpeting a definite date, but now they’re ready to go:
It is very important to us that we do a great job with the first customer who walks in the door. Our goal is to make available the same quality food and service to the West Seattle community that we have been providing in Madison Park and Kirkland for over 15 years. At our core, we are a neighborhood restaurant and look forward to serving locals like yourself and those that read your blog. I suppose the truth is that after weeks of telling people I don’t know when we are going to open, I’m excited and ready to spread the news.
-More food news: One of our most intrepid tipsters got to the latest liquor-application filings before we did, and discovered that Garlic Jim’s Pizza is apparently on its way to The Junction, in a near head-to-head with Pagliacci — the address on the app is for the former First Mutual Bank space on the east side of Cali Ave, near Quidnunc. (But will THEY deliver to my side of WS? Pagliacci still snubs us down here, grrrr …) Incidentally, this will be a return to WS, in a way, for the company’s prez, who according to this article from earlier this year was a founder of Jet City Pizza, which used to have an outlet in Morgan Junction.
-And speaking of tipsters, thanks again to everyone who’s been writing us with what they’re hearing and seeing around WS. It makes this little endeavor not only more informative, but also a lot more fun. (The e-mail link is on our “About WSB” page.)
Regarding the display of grill equipment in front of the Delridge store behind an imposing fence: “Oh look, it’s a petting zoo for barbecues.”
The Blue Angels have arrived and all’s right with the world … Oh wait, there’s a little something wrong. A tipster sent us a link to the Whole Foods Market webpage mentioning the upcoming West Seattle store … just one little problem … the address isn’t quite right, unless Fauntleroy Place is moving way far away from Fauntleroy!
The banners on the Fauntleroy walkover are getting livelier. Spotted one the other night that simply read TOGA, TOGA, TOGA. On the other side, somebody declared his love for his wife on the occasion of “30 HOT YEARS OF MARRIAGE.” One of these days, we’re going to get somebody in the WSB Posse to sneak up in the dead of night and hang something like WESTSEATTLEBLOG.COM LOVES YOU. (Because of course we do.)
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