West Seattle, Washington
25 Monday
Wandering through the Admiral District this morning, we spotted West Seattle’s Only Moviehouse in the process of getting a paint job (note the primer above the marquee):
… no, not Bon Marche (does that old jingle still ring in your head? does in ours) but rather, Thriftway. Our curiosity was piqued by a checkstand sign at Morgan Junction Thriftway saying “13-Hour Sale” this Friday (the 13th, of course), 8 am-9 pm. The checker told us to check the forthcoming flyer; it’s online now, with the “13-Hour Sale” items on the last three pages. Nothing looks really outrageously deal-riffic to us, except maybe the 88-cent bread, but judge for yourself.
Lest anyone think we only mention Christian churches here at WSB … let’s meander over to the other side of the faith field. You might not know WS has a thriving Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. It’s not in its own building, but it’s apparently grown plenty since we dropped in on a then-living-room-size gathering loooooong ago (triple-digit attendance these days). And in a week and a half, on 4/21, its members are throwing a bash to which they’re inviting the entire community: a Hungarian Gala, with a Hungarian feast plus entertainment by the Kisbetyarok Hungarian Family Dancers. If you’re interested, call 932-2731 as soon as you can to ask about tickets (they hope to get something of a headcount ahead of time); proceeds, by the way, go to the village of Torockoszentgyorgy in Transylvania, Romania.
Tonight the state House passed the domestic-partnership bill, with a fair amount of WS legislator involvement — Sen. Erik Poulsen co-sponsored the Senate version, Rep. Joe McDermott co-sponsored the House version (and invoked Alki Point during debate).
Results from last weekend’s “street-level survey” in the Admiral District are already available online.
Neighborhood discontent is brewing on the west end of Alki over a proposal for more cell-phone antennas at the west end of Admiral Way. Details have been posted in the past 24 hours at Beach Drive Blog and on the Alki Beach Community group @ Yahoo, with plans for concerned neighbors to meet this Sunday. According to the property history on the city site (which includes information on this permit application), this has been an antenna site for at least a dozen years. UPDATE: Here’s a photo of the apartment building where the additional antennas are proposed for the roof. If you look hard you can see several of the existing ones (“screened” as they are).
Until this article today on the stinky seaweed phenomenon that has frequently plagued Fauntleroy for years, and apparently now is spreading, we didn’t know the seaweed in question was called “sea lettuce.” One thing to take away from the story: the valuable reminder that runoff from everything we do eventually finds our way into the Sound. Just one valuable step you could take: don’t use fertilizer on your lawn or in your garden; enrich your soil (Cedar Grove compost from recycled yard waste is our fave) instead.
Fun stuff happening midweek on our side of the bay, so here’s an advance alert:
-For family fun: High Point Community Center sponsors Springfest tomorrow.
-Two big entertainment events in The Junction on Wednesday night: “On the Verge” opens @ ArtsWest; Jonatha Brooke performs live-in-store @ Easy Street.
Just a semi-amusing P.S. on our recycling post below, inspired by the city’s promise that a new recycling study would be available for perusal. First word came in a council press release mentioning the study would be published last Friday and available at the Seattle Public Utilities site. Now, there’s a new press release from the mayor, saying the study was to be published today and available at the SPU site. Tonight — STILL not there. Guess they technically have till midnight to fulfill the promise, though we’re not recycling holding our breath.
Though a “for sale” sign is still up in front of the ex-Gatewood Baptist Church south of Morgan Junction, it’s been sold, and its new owners have their own big sign up on the Cali-facing side of the building: Seattle International Church. According to the church’s website, it’s moving here from Belltown. The site doesn’t say much about the church’s philosophy or any denominational affiliation; the church got a couple paragraphs in a Belltown Messenger roundup of neighborhood churches last year, and there’s a bit of biographical info about half its husband-wife pastor team, Dr. Ray Hampton, at this online-shopping page for a book he wrote.
If you’re not a parent or school worker, it might not be on your radar, so a friendly reminder, Seattle public schools (and most if not all private schools in the city) are out all week for spring break.
As a city, we’re still not recycling enough, or so suggests a press release previewing a council briefing this week on a new study about how to move closer to “zero waste.” (Says the study itself would be posted on the Seattle Public Utilities site this past Friday; as of right now, it’s nowhere in sight.) Got us thinking about how recycling works, and doesn’t work. Do you recycle everything you possibly can? If not, why not? Here at WSB HQ, we consider ourselves pretty good recyclers, nowhere near perfect. Probably our biggest sin of omission: We don’t recycle food waste, even though we know we can just collect it and put it in the yard-waste bin for composting. Highest on our wish list for making other recycling easier: Collect it weekly. We usually exceed bin capacity (just found out you can get a second bin; we’ve been wasting big paper bags all these years! still, weekly pickup would be nicer). #2 on the wish list — some way to recycle more plastic bags, not just the grocery type. #3 — straighten out the electronics-recycling situation. Trying to wade through this list (the only option we know of) is daunting enough to make even a hardcore recycling devotee just throw old phones, computers, etc. in the basement till someone works it out someday. Oh well, excuse us now, time to drag the bin to the curb …
We’ve mentioned before that White Center holds many pleasant surprises for WSites who venture south of the city limits. Cafe Rozella, for one. Not far from there, also on the WS-WC border, if you can call it that, is the Salvadorean Bakery. We’ll admit to not having been there, yet. This detailed post/review has us ready to check it out, as soon as we can!
Might be too early in the morning for you if you’re still up as we post this, but worth a mention anyway, however belated: West Seattle does have a bonafide Easter sunrise service, with several churches participating — 6:30 am @ Forest Lawn (east of High Point).
A few weeks after our last update on the neighborhood organizers determined to take Ercolini Park west of The Junction from purchased parkland to bonafide park by summertime, there’s more news. Organizer Bill Barna says they’re almost halfway to their goal of getting 1,000 hours of volunteer time pledged; find out more about what’s up and how you can help, at the park website or e-mail Bill directly.
Both finalists for the Seattle Public Schools superintendent job were in town this week, and both visited four schools including Chief Sealth HS here in WS. If you’re interested in more on the finalists and what district-watchers think of them, there’s excellent coverage on the unofficial Seattle Public Schools (formerly Save Seattle Schools) blog.
Or so say a couple newspaper articles today, including this one from the Times with a mostly-WS focus. Almost enough to make you want to put yours on the market and reap the profits … oh wait … as we remind ourselves here at WSB HQ, the only problem with selling our house at a nice (relatively) fat price would be, then we’d have to go jump into one of those bidding wars for some other house up for sale at a nice (relatively) fat price … sigh.
Busy weekend in store for West Seattle — Saturday morning has a holiday-weekend event at each and every one of our city-run community centers, and that’s just a start — lots more, just a click away:Read More
Thanks to Shane Marr for sending this photo of the harbor-seal pup who’s been the center of attention on Alki (larger images on his site). We haven’t been able to make it to the beach; any updates on its status, please add a comment or e-mail us — thanks!
If you’re not spending Saturday morning at an egg hunt (those will be in our weekend roundup tomorrow), here’s your chance to spend a few hours helping document the state of part of WS, for posterity, history, later reference, all sorts of worthy reasons. The Admiral Neighborhood Association would love to have your volunteer help with its “street-level survey” of the Admiral District. Just show up @ Megawatt HQ at 9 am this Saturday morning; what will ensue will be a bit of training (combined with some free food) with the devices you’ll be using to record what you see, followed by strolling around to use ’em. Here’s what last year’s survey found, in case you’re curious.
Got a note from someone concerned about a baby seal that turned up out of the water on Alki, and wondering what to do in a situation like that. Authorities’ advice: Leave it alone, until and unless at least 36 hours have gone by; seal moms sometimes leave their babies on a beach so they can go look for food, and they’ll be back. If you think that much time has gone by, or you think it’s injured or otherwise in imminent danger, there’s a hotline at 206-526-6733. (And lots more information here.)
The Stranger is the latest to gush over Beato, under the headline “West Seattle Grows Up.”
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