West Seattle, Washington
01 Friday
The “no parking after …” signs are up at strategic spots around the Junction … this time tomorrow, the street-blocking will be under way … the newly renamed Summer Fest is almost here! The musical programming we’ve been discussing here has really generated a new sense of excitement; even here at WS Blog World Headquarters, one of those acts is making the festival a Must-Go for WS Blogger Spouse.
You know parking will be a nightmare, so consider taking the bus (the Trip Planner feature is handy if you need it).
And once the Summer Fest is over … I’m going to be relentless about this … PLEASE come to the parade a week later, even if you think you’re too old and jaded for parades, or just not interested, etc. If you’ve never seen a local parade, you have to check it out at least once for yourself. Most of the summer parade regulars usually turn up — the All-City Marching Band, the Chinese community girls’ drill team, the Seafair Pirates, various assorted politicians, and a LOT more, including the Vancouver (BC) and Seattle motorcycle drill teams. Bring a chair, bring drinks and snacks, stake out a spot along Cali Ave. Which reminds me, I promised myself we’d buy new chairs before parade season this year … gotta get to the store!
Well, you knew someplace in Hizzoner’s home turf would make the Dirty Dozen list.
I still say Fauntleroy between California and Alaska is worse.
Well, you know that, and I know that.
Now the latest Seattle Weekly confirms it. Love this quote. Guess WS Blogger Spouse and I aren’t the only Easy Street patrons with, um, a couple gray hairs (but really, just a couple):
But as much as we can play up West Seattle’s younger music community, it can’t be denied that an entire generation of older folks remains. How will they take to the same summer fest they’ve been attending for the last quarter-century being transformed into a rootsier version of the Capitol Hill Block Party? Vaughan has only to look at his Easy Street patrons to see the answer.
“A lot of the old folks out here are pretty hard- edged,” he says. “In a way, they’re kind of punk rock. When they come into Easy Street, they go for Johnny Cash, lots of rockabilly, just harder-edged older music.”
With that in mind, Summer Fest’s organizers couldn’t have found a better headliner than roots-punk icon John Doe.
Local friends of ours here in WS need a real-estate agent. House is a fixer at least — nothing too major — more likely, a remodel or even teardown, peek view now, they say potentially a great view with another story or two. Anybody to recommend? Post in “comments” or e-mail me from the “about” page, and we’ll forward.
Governor Chris is visiting West Seattle tomorrow, according to the 34th District Dems. (I honestly would be happy to spotlight whatever the 34th District Repubs are up to, but their site is barely a placeholder.) It’s “campaign kickoff” time for the local legislators (Eileen Cody, Joe McDermott, Erik Poulsen). Honestly, given the huge margins these folks have tended to win by in our bluer-than-blue area, I’d think they wouldn’t even have to bother raising money, but I guess it’s unwise to take your constituents for granted.
-Casablanca Coffee on 35th has changed its name – now it’s the Coffee Shoppe. Just noticed this on a drive-by, so we don’t know yet what’s different inside.
-If you hadn’t already noticed, Super Supplements in the Junction is open. The blue and red neon is still a little much for our eyes.
-You might find this mention a little odd, but we were fascinated to see Don Swanson Insurance in the Junction finally changing its facade. It’s looked the same for all of our years here (including the years when we bought our insurance there, before the GEICO gecko seduced us away, sorry, insurance is so darn expensive, that’s one thing where i will suspend my preference for local vendors).
Back from a long day in the sun that included the Seafair Pirates’ landing at Alki.
We’ll confess, it’s been many years since we checked out the pirate event. Last time, somewhere in the ’90s, it was pretty pathetic — we wandered down to the beach, found disorganization and apathy. We enjoy the Pirates’ other appearances — especially in parades — so we decided we’d stick with those.
But given all the advance publicity this time, plus our honor-bound duty to report for This Here Blog, we decided to check out today’s event. As we arrived at the beach (on foot, after getting a ride as far as Admiral & 59th), our jaw dropped. Not just a massive crowd, but also food and merchandise booths, and even other events under way on the beach — some sort of pole-vault competition (!?). It looked like a beach in California, and we mean that as a compliment … a beach where people were truly having tons of fun in the sun.
So we staked out a spot on the rocky shore, not far from what appeared to be the designated landing spot west of the Bathhouse & statue, and watched. The fireboat Chief Seattle went by, putting on a show. A flotilla of various sailboats, power boats, and classic wooden yachts kept shuffling about, with at least one boat flying a pirate flag, leading us to wonder if the Pirates had swapped out vessels this year.
Finally, a cannon boom in the distance — and a sighting of the Army barge-type boats that we knew the Pirates had been using for these landings. One came ashore with just soldiers on board (military invasion of WS? has it come to this?), then backed up, and cleared the way for the Real Deal. Huge cheers and applause. Lots of little kids — and young women — in pirate togs. What a greeting those guys got.
We have no idea what they did AFTER storming ashore from their barge — we started walking toward the water-taxi shuttle. But we were so heartened to see thousands of people show up. Dear everyone, PLEASE turn out for the parade in two weeks along Cali Ave, OK? That’s the real heart of summer fun in WS — and it has been a bit sparse in recent years.
Not sure exactly what’s up — we’ll check while en route to the Pirates in a bit — but WS Blogger Spouse tells me that Alaska is all torn up on the block between Easy Street and Key Bank. Last-minute work in time for next weekend’s Summer Fest/Street Festival/etc.?
Speaking of which, the whole music schedule is up online for the festival … and as a tipster told us a few weeks back, it’s quite a lineup, sponsored by West 5, Easy Street, and KEXP.
Wow, in the olden days, the music lineup was pretty much something that couldn’t have been sponsored by anything more eclectic than (bless their hearts) the Senior Center and Poggie’s Tavern. How far WS has come!
Seafair Pirates on Alki tomorrow!
And we got in the mood by seeing “Pirates of the Caribbean II” today. West Seattle Blogger Spouse appropriately summed up some of its derivative nature by calling it “Pirates of the Lost Ark Strike Back.” I won’t say more, not into spoilerage :) Long but fun, anyway.
Old news perhaps to those of you who spend a lot of time on Alki … we walked on the beach for a while at midday today while waiting for a table at Duke’s, and were shocked to see it groomed … flat, grooved, even. I’ve never seen the sand at Alki that way. Maybe some post-Fourth of July sprucing up?
The superintendent’s “final” (for now) school closure/change list is out — and Pathfinder’s move to Boren is now out. Pathfinder will stay on Genesee Hill but the district says it’s got to go somewhere. More on Saving Seattle Public Schools, including links to full details.
… time for more summer fun. Here’s one event you might not have heard about: the Mediterranean Fantasy Festival, coming up a week from Saturday, right here in fabulous WS. I would never have heard of it if not for a mailing list I signed up for after becoming enthralled by a local belly-dance troupe during an offbeat Christmas show at ArtsWest a couple years back. See ya there!
We don’t have “our own” big fireworks display over here, but you can see lots of good stuff without leaving West Seattle.
BIGGEST: Fourth of Jul-Ivar’s, over Elliott Bay. Look toward the Space Needle — if you are so far up the northern side of the WS shoreline that you CAN’T see the Needle, you probably won’t be able to see the fireworks. Stake out a viewing spot early, whether you’re on the shore or up above (the Admiral viewpoint, the north Cali Ave viewpoint, etc.).
SECONDARY: If you’re at the right angle, you will see some of the Lake Union show “behind” the Elliott Bay show. Or, if you watch toward the west, you will probably catch some Bainbridge Island fireworks. And if you are on the west/south shore, looking toward Vashon, you can see some of their shows too — I hear there’s supposed to be a big display over Quartermaster Harbor this year.
As for personal fireworks, they’re illegal in the Seattle city limits, but not in the neighboring chunk of unincorporated King County known as White Center — the closest fireworks stands are in and near the parking lot of the Safeway on Roxbury, just barely over the city-limits line.
Happy Independence Day!
With the next Big Announcement in the Seattle school-closure scuffle coming up on Wednesday, it’s always interesting to dredge this up. Funny thing is that the Times did a very similar story (different writer) last year — and that one pointed out that Jefferson Square here in West Seattle is one of the district properties bringing in pathetically low returns. Why not just dare to sell whatever they close? Here in WS, Genesee Hill and Fairmount Park, both slated for shutdown (pending Superintendent Raj’s recommendations Wednesday), are in residential areas where I’m sure developers will be thrilled to pay big bucks to get their hands on some land.
The city’s latest semiweekly bulletin of land-use applications & decisions contains a few more “subdivisions” of lots on this side of WS. All along Cali Ave, it seems like at least a dozen houses have made way for townhomeplexes in just the past half-year or so. A Times columnist muses today on the subject, certainly not something affecting our side of the city alone.
Got an e-mail from someone wondering what’s up with the empty lot at the northwest corner of 42nd and Alaska. I remembered something about the city acquiring that lot as parkland, so I checked around and indeed, a park is still in the works for that site, known as “Junction Plaza” — timely question since, according to this city news release, city leaders want your ideas on exactly what to do with it; they’ll be at the Summer Fest in two weeks with a booth featuring the latest scoop.
This is the weekend to hang out around your house before West Seattle’s blitz of midsummer events: Pirates Landing next weekend, Summer Fest (formerly Street Festival) the weekend after that, The Parade the weekend after that. Of course, by “weekend” I mean literally today and tomorrow, since Monday you’ll have to get ready for fireworks viewing on Tuesday … looks like great weather for the Fourth of Jul-Ivar’s show over the bay, which is visible from the Alki Bathhouse eastward along the WS Elliott Bay waterfront.
Lagged a few days in patroling for blog material; big work project kept me megabusy. Finally getting out there and wow, so much has happened! Went through the Junction tonight, for example, and two things in particular caught my eye:
-The “Watch This Space” butcher paper over the ex-tanning salon next to Pagliacci is now replaced with hand-lettering for “Coming Soon: Clementine/Women’s shoes/Handbags/(didn’t get close enough to read the third thing.”
-Tons of motorcycles outside Matador (10 pm Friday). Is this the upscale sequel to Taco Thursday at the Alki Tavern????
OPEN: The Safeway gas depot on Admiral … finally … sometime in the past week or so; just saw it brightly lit and serving customers tonight.
ALMOST OPEN: Also brightly lit, signs and interior alike — Super Supplements in the Junction.
SHUT: Looks like the Cat’s Eye Cafe may have run out of all nine of its lives. Signs spotted on its door tonight indicate its fixtures are for sale. Some kind of construction permit is posted — though it’s so new, I can’t follow its trail online yet.
A few more details in today’s P-I re: Ron Sims’ “lots o’buses, no waiting” plan. Our neck of the woods is in line for part of it (somebody had to earmark West Seattle for SOMETHING, given the fact the monorail is toast and light rail is nowhere nearby) … but the part about “approve the tax, THEN we’ll decide the details” is just a bit disturbing. Isn’t that where the monorail went wrong — voters said yes (repeatedly), THEN a revolt brewed when some of the details (like the Financing Plan From Hell) appeared?
It was better to approach Alki from the south rather than the north. The traffic coming off the bridge was at a constant crawl. We gave up on the crowded beach and went to the Junction to be part of the ice-cream-seeking throng spilling out onto the sidewalk in front of the Husky Deli.
KOMO has the list of record temp busters here.
– As of 7:53 it was 70 degrees at Alki Point.
– At 9:30 it was 70 at Boeing Field.
– Compare and contrast with Miami, FL where it’s 75 now on the way to a high of 86.
What are you doing to stay cool today?
As noted in the Times on Friday, looks like the NO BOREN FOR PATHFINDER crowd may get some action. They’ve certainly roused a lot of rabble for a relatively small school … just hours before that article posted, we even spotted a car with a NBFP sign in its back window, parked not far from Lincoln Park’s southernmost playground.
We’re noting this as an excuse to remind you that the next round of school-closure hearings is about to begin — this time, with a hearing at each school building on the latest list. One of the first hearings is tomorrow (Monday) at Fairmount Park, 6:30 pm in the cafeteria. Pathfinder gets its hearing on Wednesday, also 6:30 pm, also in the cafeteria.
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