West Seattle, Washington
17 Tuesday
(photo by Christopher Boffoli)
Just back from tonight’s Admiral Neighborhood Association meeting. Huge news for those who lamented the plan to tear down Charlestown Court, the 80-plus-year-old brick fourplex (photo above) across from Charlestown Cafe. Quick backstory – its owner wanted to tear it down and replace it with a mixed-use building; the landmark proposal slowed its progress, but after the “no” vote un April (WSB coverage here), it seemed the backhoes were on their way. The project is set for one more Design Review meeting this Thursday night — and tonight, when the ANA got a preview from the architecture firm on the project, Junction-based NK Architects, a surprise: A brand-new design that would preserve and lift the two distinctive front sections, or “wings,” of the building — arches and all — as part of the project, demolishing only the rectangular back section. We’ve got a photo of the design rendering and many more details we’ll share in the full writeup later tonight (as well as other news from the ANA meeting).
Notes from two businesses that recently moved out of West Seattle and headed east — Marilyn Murphy from Murphy’s Furniture Studio e-mailed to say her new store in Pioneer Square is now open at 314 1st Ave S., next to Elliott Bay Books, and she’s offering a 15% discount on any one item this month to anyone who comes in and mentions West Seattle. (If you missed the news, an Italian restaurant called Cafe Revo is moving into the ex-Murphy’s space.) Meantime, Herban Feast, which is now based in SoDo but still has a booth at the West Seattle Farmers’ Market on Sundays, is planning to offer barbecued wild-salmon burgers at the market this Sunday, in honor of Father’s Day.
If you haven’t already seen it today, there’s a happy ending to the “Don’t hate us because we love your town, help us move here” thread in the WSB Forums (first mentioned here 10 days ago). Now there’s word these would-be West Seattleites have found a place. Welcome to West Seattle!
We’ve got someone on the scene to find out more – he reports “smell of smoke in the air” and traffic blocked off at 16th/Henderson (map) – on approach to the scene of a “fire in building” call at 9027 16th SW, an apartment building. More shortly. 5:28 PM UPDATE: 16th is closed between Henderson and Barton till the fire units all clear out – but that may not be too long; firefighters at the scene tell WSB “contents of a room” caught fire, and we’re seeing some units already pulling back. No injuries reported.
In comments on our running outage/storm coverage last night, Pete mentioned seeing this toppled tree on the fence bordering the east side of Cooper Elementary School‘s parking lot, so we went back this afternoon for a closer look. Hard to get perspective but that’s a five-foot (or so) fence pulled up by the tree roots. It’s in the greenbelt that stretches east from there, so it’s not blocking anything; the fence damage is the only real impact.
At left is Cheryl Crazy Bull, special guest at the West Seattle Rotary meeting today at The Kenney. She’s president of Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, but on an even wider scale, she’s in her fourth term as board chair of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. Her appearance brought special student guests to the Rotary lunch — representatives of the Native American student clubs at West Seattle High School and Chief Sealth High School. Other Rotary news included the dates for their upcoming berry sales — strawberries starting June 27, raspberries starting July 11, blueberries starting July 25. More info on that (and other upcoming events) on the West Seattle Rotary website.
Thanks to those who called and e-mailed to ask about a police motorcade just spotted along California SW in the Admiral vicinity – we’re checking with the precinct. When it happened around this time last year (late May to be precise, WSB writeup here) it was a training exercise. 2:23 PM UPDATE: And thanks to the Southwest Precinct‘s Lt. Steve Paulsen for speedy confirmation that yes, this is/was “annual training.”
That lovely cauliflower photo is courtesy of Aviva with Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle, which is now recruiting participants for its upcoming first-ever Edible Garden Tour. Here’s the official announcement:
Are you a gardener in West Seattle or White Center who is growing an abundant food garden?
Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle is having an Edible Garden Tour July 26th.Are you…..
Committed to growing food in an urban environment?
Interested in meeting other food gardeners?
Sharing information and inspiration?We are looking for a diversity of gardens both in size and driving principles. Please add your garden to the tour!
Call: Helen at 206- 932-9537 (before 8 pm please) or e-mail Aviva at: info@gleanit.org
In other “edible garden” news, we have an update on Longfellow Creek Garden:
That’s one of the photos sent to us by organizer Zach, as he announced that Cedar Grove has donated 30 cubic yards of compost. He’s also continuing to organize volunteers, and currently asking if there’s a regular day of the week/month they want to sign up for. His e-mail address is zach@growingwashington.org; you can also track LCG’s progress at their site, longfellowcreekgarden.blogspot.com.
Interesting West Seattle tidbit at the end of the City Council Parks and Recreation Committee meeting that just wrapped up – the committee (chaired by West Seattle-residing Councilmember Tom Rasmussen) approved an “easement in perpetuity” for two property owners in the 39th/Barton vicinity (map) over Fauntleroy Park, six years after they fixed a problem described as tracing back to a winter 1997 landslide from their slope into the park. Parks Department employees at the meeting noted that “fair market value” was paid for the easement, though we couldn’t find the purchase price in the fine print of what the council just approved. No doubt there’s a ton of backstory on this; we’ve been digging around online and only finding bits and pieces, though it looks like there was at least one public meeting in 2001 prior to the city-approved/landowner-paid work that fixed the problem.
Online and in “ballot boxes” placed at West Seattle businesses, hundreds of people offered suggestions for the Sidewalk Cinema Movies on the Wall series in The Junction coming up in July and August — now Lora Lewis, proprietor of Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor), which is next to the courtyard with the big screen you see above, confirms the slate is set — read on:Read More
#1: Delridge Library is a “homework help” hotspot all school year long. 5:30 tonight, you’re invited to go thank the volunteers who’ve provided that help, and celebrate the impending end of the school year.
#2: Westwood Neighborhood Council gets a Denny/Sealth project update tonight, 7 pm, Southwest Community Center, and also plans to take up the issue of those two city-jail sites proposed for southeast West Seattle.
#3: Admiral Neighborhood Association gets updates on projects including a potential playground proposal, 7 pm, Admiral UCC.
#4: Fauntleroy Community Association — monthly meeting night for FCA too, 7 pm, Fauntleroy Schoolhouse.
Many more West Seattle events, stretching from tonight well into next year, are on our frequently updated Events page.
That’s Matt Swenson from the Pigeon Point Neighborhood Council, presenting a check Monday night to Cooper Elementary principal Cathy Rutherford during PPNC’s monthly meeting at the school. As reported in this month’s edition of the Pigeon Point newsletter (read it here), the Pigeon Point sale that was part of last month’s WSB-presented West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day brought in almost $800 to be donated to Cooper. Next WSCGSD is May 9, 2009; long before then, Pigeon Point will be inviting you to a big event of its own — its first Fall Festival, on the drawing boards now for a September Saturday TBA.
(scroll down/refresh for the latest, we are adding updates and pix to the bottom of this post)
(added 9:35 pm: photo of Admiral Safeway service station, which is dark though the nearby store is not)
ORIGINAL REPORT: Just collecting info on this – Seattle City Light has very broad boundaries for what it describes as an “Alki outage,” while e-mail we’ve received describes it as North Admiral. More to come. 9:10 PM UPDATE: City Light says this is one of several outages affecting more than 10,000 homes and businesses in different areas of the city – here’s an excerpt from a news release received minutes ago:
Seattle City Light repair crews were responding to several scattered power outages throughout the utility’s service territory … after steady winds approached 35 mph.
By 8:30 p.m. about 12,000 customers were affected by the outages in Tukwila, unincorporated King County, Alki Beach and the Sacajawea neighborhood of northeast Seattle.
The specific causes of the outages were not immediately known. Until crews discovered the cause, it was impossible to provide an estimate for when power might be restored. Additional crews were being called in to
help restore power.
A WSB team member is heading north to report back on who’s out and who’s not; we’ll also be checking with City Light for progress reports. 9:20 PM UPDATE: We’re collecting weather links too. Here’s the hourly observations from the National Weather Service — “K91S” is Alki Point, with 34 mph sustained at 9 pm. Thanks to Lou for including this live weather link from Our Lady of Guadalupe (near High Point) in comments. 9:22 PM UPDATE: On California, the outage starts north of Admiral Safeway (which has power), and continues north to Walker (map). We’re checking east and west boundaries – stand by — to the east, Jack in the Box is dark; more to come. 9:27 PM UPDATE: Power is out along Admiral all the way downhill to The Bridge, according to our roving reporter, who is now heading west on Admiral to see how far it stretches toward Alki/Beach Drive. Keep the updates coming in comments – where Pete has reported downed-tree trouble in Pigeon Point – thanks! 9:33 PM UPDATE: On the west side, the outage ends at about 45th SW/Admiral – if you know of any pockets west of there that are out, please post a comment or e-mail us. Note that in the outage zone, businesses that are out include Metropolitan Market and the Admiral Theater. 9:43 PM UPDATE: Avalon is out of power too – up to Genesee (map). That includes the Luna Park Cafe area. 9:50 PM UPDATE: North of Fauntleroy on 35th, power is out on the east side of 35th (and downhill from there), but the west side seems OK. 9:55 PM UPDATE: City Light has put up its webpage with outage info – but the West Seattle boundaries are the same ones listed in the news release which are not the same ones we’ve verified (it mentions Alki Ave but we’re told Alki is OK, for example); it says almost 3,000 homes/businesses are out in West Seattle. Still no estimate on restoring power. 10:03 PM UPDATE: This photo just in from Elena Daly (thank you!), who photographed the seawall wave action at Constellation Park south of Alki Point about an hour ago:
10:12 PM UPDATE: City Light outage hotline has an update of sorts on the West Seattle situation – but there’s no new info – just “no known cause and no known time for restoration.” 10:27 PM UPDATE: Just uploaded this video from Admiral – camera sat on the dash as we drove from the outage zone (alley by Admiral Library, past Metropolitan Market, toward Admiral Safeway gas station) and into the not-out zone (Admiral Safeway itself):
11:04 PM UPDATE: City Light just sent another update but there are no West Seattle specifics; the utility reiterates that it’s called in extra crews and will work through the night as needed. We will continue checking for updates and will also head back out in a bit to see if anyone’s gotten power back in affected West Seattle areas yet. 11:37 PM UPDATE: No new outage info, but the “forecast discussion” promises things will calm down overnight. 12:06 AM UPDATE: Comments probably beat us to this report, but we’re just back from a quick spin through the FORMERLY blacked-out zone, and looks like everyone’s back on.
(photo courtesy Friends of Ercolini Park)
Two updates – first, Friends of Ercolini Park confirms that the official city-involved event to celebrate the park’s opening is now set for 10 am July 12 (but as we’ve reported before, the park and its playground are open now; the city’s working to fix the one last loose end, getting play sand for the pit). Second update — One agenda item for tomorrow night’s Admiral Neighborhood Association meeting involves “a potential new playground on a Parks-owned piece of land at California & Hill immediately adjacent to the UCC Church.” (That church is where the ANA meets tomorrow, 7 pm.)
When last we updated you on the repair work to get the Charlestown Cafe open again — it’s now been four months since fire forced it to close — co-owner Larry Mellum was hoping for a reopening around June 10th. We just checked back with him today, since that date’s almost here; here’s his reply, with two bits of news:
Things are progressing well on our construction. I will try to give you a more specific “reopening” date later this week but we expect to be open before the end of June.
I know many people have asked about our staff and what will happen with them. Last week we held a meeting to get an idea of how many people we will have to replace. Everyone attended!!! So, it looks like we will have a good staff to “reopen” with.
If you want to catch up on all our WSB coverage of the Charlestown Cafe — both the fire situation and the development proposal that had been tabled just before the fire hit — check out this archive.
You’ll hear about this in citywide media but with so much park land and other city property in West Seattle, it seems important to link here too — Mayor Nickels just announced a proposal “to prohibit firearms on all property owned by the city of Seattle, including parks and community centers,” according to the official city news release; read it here. The announcement says a public hearing is planned, but also notes that City Council approval is not required for the rules the mayor wants to put in place. You can send comments to the mayor’s office here.
Caught this photo around noon while heading to the West Seattle YMCA (WSB sponsor), where we had the chance to chat with a great group of seniors interested in hearing the latest on WS development and other happenings. (When we headed back the other way, the lights themselves were back under wraps.) Previous WSB coverage of the Fauntleroy/Dawson signal is here and here.
Never mind the clouds and mist and drizzle, Pathfinder K-8 students were out walking laps this morning on their Genesee Hill campus to show support for PE teacher Lou Cutler (left) as he celebrates his birthday the same way he does every year – doing those laps to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which helps grant wishes for kids with life-threatening illnesses. He does one lap for every year he’s been alive – that’s 57 this year, about 10 miles! This year’s run is also a tribute to 9-year-old Maddy Murakami, a West Seattle girl who died in April; Pathfinder PTSA co-president Eric Baer says, “Lou worked with her and managed to get her wish granted – she wanted to meet Ashley of High School Musical.” We’ll share the results of today’s walk – past editions have raised thousands of dollars for Make-A-Wish — when we get the word from Pathfinder.
Just in case you were wondering: Middle College High School, which is based at South Seattle Community College, has its graduation there at 7 pm Wednesday; West Seattle High School‘s ceremony is at 5 pm Thursday (at Memorial Stadium); Seattle Lutheran High School‘s graduation is 7:30 pm Thursday; Chief Sealth High School‘s ceremony is scheduled for 1 pm Saturday.
We usually crop the rear-view mirror out of “taken from the car” photos. However, the above shot seemed to capture the flavor of our drive-by survey of West Seattle gas prices late last night. It shows the station that now has the highest WS price for regular – $4.33 @ 35th/Barton Exxon. Just ahead – the full West Seattle survey, which now includes a map as well as the text list of current and past prices:Read More
As the WSB Forums have continued to grow in the past few months, thanks to you, we’ve become increasingly aware of — and embarrassed by — one pesky problem: 
The on-site search function just wouldn’t bring up forum posts along with items from the rest of the site. And the more great stuff you contributed to the WSB Forums, the more intolerable this problem became – so we’re trying an interim fix: a search widget we just put up in place of the old search box. You’ll see it right where the old search box used to be — atop the right sidebar on every WSB page. It uses Google Search to search all WSB pages, forums included, and the search result page will look like Google, except that you’ll see a small WSB logo atop the page; if the search results don’t point you to the page(s) you’re looking for, click that logo to get back to the WSB home page. We’re not so sure this is the perfect permanent solution, but since it definitely searches forum pages as well as the rest of the site, that means you have a better chance of finding what you’re looking for, which is what really matters. Thanks again for being part of WSB; we’re continuing to work on other features to better serve your West Seattle-related online needs, too.
Two notes on the fight over whether the city will build a new misdemeanor-offenders jail on one of 2 sites in southeast West Seattle, a site elsewhere in the city, or not at all: First, the mailing list for project info got an update today, noting that the city’s Municipal Jail web section has several new links. We’ve already told you about two of them — a summary of interviews with community leaders before the four “finalist” sites were chosen, and the announcement of upcoming public meetings. The others include: Collections of comments the city already has received online (broken out by day); questions city reps have been asked at meetings including May 20 in Highland Park (no answers yet, those are promised later; here’s the WSB coverage of that meeting); an aerial photo of the King County Regional Justice Center in Kent which the city calls “an example of how a jail can be a good neighbor”; a federal study of crime rates in neighborhoods with jails. Meantime, the next West Seattle meeting to take up the jail issue will be the 34th District Democrats‘ monthly meeting this Wednesday night, 7 pm, The Hall @ Fauntleroy.
Noticed these signs along the west side of California SW just north of Morgan Junction – between Graham and Raymond (map). The “no parking” warning kicks in tomorrow and the project is described on the signs as “sidewalk restoration.” (There’s also a stack of “businesses open during construction” signs ready to go, too.)
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