West Seattle, Washington
31 Thursday
You may get a different ad when you click this link for a followup to the Alki Avenue crash, but I have to say that a “Henry150s.com” ad box in the middle of a story about a vigil for a kid who died driving drunk (and the friend who died with him) just sucks. Here’s the screen grab:
Months after we first got a tip that Rainier Roaster at Fauntleroy & 35th would be transformed into West Seattle’s first drive-thru Starbucks … it’s finally about to happen. After a reader wrote to tell us that RR has a sign up saying it’s closing as of this Saturday, we checked the city permits … and there it all is, plain as day. Let’s see … Alki, Admiral, Morgan Junction, Westwood Village, three Safeways, Westwood QFC, and the “half” would be WV Barnes & Noble. Don’t we need just a few more?
You may have noticed already — the Junction boutique Clementine is now open in the former tanning-salon spot next to Pagliacci, with a sign/awning as its facade’s finishing touch. Across the street, in the old Neilsen Florist space, the city’s just accepted the construction-permit application for the food/drink spot that’s been posted for months as the future “Think Tank”; same thing’s just happened a bit to the south for the future Garlic Jim’s. Busy fall ahead (and all this amid the repaving project; a pain now, but how lovely it will be when that’s all done)!
After thinking about it for a few hours, we realized this morning’s Alki Avenue crash that killed 2 teenagers reminds us more of the crash that killed 3 teens on the bridge three months ago, than the Alki Ave crash this past spring. We’ve all been that age; we all know how much you don’t want to listen to adult BTDT wisdom when you’re brimming with the impatience of youth … but if only we could make them listen. And if only we could all join together in protecting them. Who sold or gave them the beer that police were photographed hauling out of the water near the wreckage? Were they young enough that they could or should have had curfews, and been home long before the 5 am death plunge? Truly senseless, in every sense … of the word.
-If you need to travel Alki Avenue/Harbor Avenue near the crash zone (see post below), beware — might be closed for a while — we were just down there a bit to the west side of the bend in the road, and yellow tape still stretched across the road, requiring drivers to turn around and head back toward the beach. Didn’t get to check where the shutdown was on the Harbor Ave side. Meantime, more updates are posted now: P-I story, also channel 5, also channel 7, nothing on the Times site as of 11:45 am … Consensus seems to be the SUV was speeding big-time before careening off the road.
-Speaking of traffic, we also cruised past Chief Sealth HS to see how jampacked the parking areas were for the Mars Hill/WS test run. Lots and lots of signs for “church parking,” including over on the Southwest Community Center side. Hope they are paying the city and school district a bundle of bucks for the privilege of tying all that up …
Just heard the news … two people killed early this morning after missing a turn and driving into the bay. Police 911 call log (link’ll only be valid till 11:59 pm tonight) cites 1238 Alki Avenue (map), with the first callout around quarter past 5 am. As the folks on the Yahoo “Alki Beach Community” group point out, the only local-news source with an online mention right now (including a video link) is channel 4. One of the ABC group members also says police are waiting till low tide early this afternoon to tow the car. This comes five months after another crash in the area that killed 2 people.
-The historic Satterlee House on Beach Drive (aka “The Painted Lady”) and its massive front yard are now separate listings, and the “subject to inspection” status of the listing for the “front yard” land would suggest a sale is near. (That’ll leave the house as a $1.2 million “fixer,” $300K more than it sold for in 2000.)
-Sad to see the latest permit granted for yet another teardown-to-buildup, this one at 1350 Alki Avenue, a red-and-white duplex where we recall seeing planters full of brilliant flowers (almost as memorable a display as Cindi Laws’ old place), till it was sold and marked for death. Goodbye, wood and planters, with a little room for the hillside behind it to breathe; hello, another five-story chunk of concrete, glass, and steel.
Maybe the city is a little bit serious about saving trees after all. Walking down a section of Cali Ave between junctions last night, we noticed two trees in the parking strip by a teardown-to-townhome project at Cali & Spokane — each with a plywood fence around its trunk, each with its trunk marked by a big bright green flyer with this admonition — PROTECT TREE! (I’d like to get a sheaf of those flyers and run around tacking them on just about every tree in sight.)
In no particular order, and certainly not all-inclusive, here’s some of what’s going on this weekend around our side of the bay:
WestFest at Holy Rosary (through Saturday) … second and final weekend of the Green Living Expo @ High Point (on Sat. & Sun.) … new art show opens Sunday at ArtsWest … last full weekend of the Elliott Bay Water Taxi … cooking demo on Sunday at West Seattle Farmers’ Market … debut of Mars Hill Church/West Seattle in its temporary home @ Chief Sealth HS … a cross-WS rivalry game of sorts with Cleveland (currently housed @ Boren) vs. WSHS at West Seattle Stadium on Saturday night …
Anything else?
The governor gets the final say on tunnel vs. new viaduct vs. neither. Here’s a link to tell her what you think she should do. And if you are honked off about city leaders deciding we shouldn’t have a direct say in it, here’s how to e-mail Hizzoner; links to city council members’ e-mail addresses can be found here.
As expected, the city council says “Go, tunnel, go.” However, note paragraph number three … can’t wait to see what the council’s definition of “infeasible” is.
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?
Besides loving our side of the bay as it is now and as it will become — we find it cool to discover more about its history. If you share that interest, city pages like this are fun to play with. Don’t let the “unknown” on the main page fool you; click on the “view” link and you’ll probably get at least an infobit (such as, Luna Park Cafe was once “Pat and Ron’s Tavern”) as well as a pic. You can follow the “new search” link and also try one of your own, such as this search by street name with all results along Cali Ave.
Also on the subject of history, we discovered at the Morgan Junction Festival last weekend that you can still get a copy of the incredible, picture-laden “West Side Story” at the Log House Museum (and its gift shop has other “memory books” too).
Somebody pulled out the calculator one more time — and now it seems we can’t afford the only two viaduct options the Powers That Be have been willing to consider. According to the almost-amusing update on The Stranger’s blog, Hizzoner, aka Top Tunnel Pusher, is all atizzy. And the real topline on all this seems to be, uh, never mind about that advisory vote, us council guys will just make the decision, hold our nose, jump in, and hope we’ll hit Mega Millions to raise a few more Big Dig Big Bucks. But why not use this as an excuse to save face and join the folks backing The Third Option after all? We can have a heck of an implosion party, round up some work crews to sweep up the debris, and get back to business.
-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!
Ours is one of the last few counties where you can still vote in person as well as by mail. So if you haven’t voted yet — today’s the day, 7 am-8 pm. Remember that this is not “just” a primary, even though two of our 34th District state legislators don’t even have general-election opponents; some things WILL be settled today, such as a couple of the state Supreme Court races, and Seattle Initiative 88, the first half of the push to get more $ for city schools (the second half apparently is still caught up in court somewhere).
New city update out tonight on the road work in The Junction. Bottom line is that it sounds like every repair project ever undertaken on our little old house … “turns out things were worse than we thought, till we went in.” Hope the businesses aren’t suffering too badly … remember, both sides of the street have a fair amount of rear parking!
Just announced by Seattle Public Schools this morning ... now Roxhill is on the chopping block, and Pathfinder is poised for a move to Cooper. Here's coverage from the P-I, and from the Times.
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.
We almost skipped up the Morgan Junction Community Festival, because if you drive by on California, it looks like almost nothing is happening. Luckily, we drove by again on our way back from the Farmers’ Market, and realized all the booths are set up on the BACK (west) SIDE of the “future monorail memorial park” site (formerly Fauntleroy Auto Repair & Video Vault), almost out of view of those passing by on Cali. And it’s a nice collection of booths: wide variety of community staples from the WS Herald to the Log House Museum to Megawatt (taking advance orders for the 2007 WS Calendar!) to Furry Faces Foundation to the Morgan Community Association (natch), plus local faves such as Bird on a Wire Espresso and Sugar Rush Baking Company, and even the new wireless broadband service that’s been putting up towers around WS, Clearwire (the salesperson who’s there says they’re “live” in many WS spots now and can check your location on her map). On the Cali Ave side, there’s entertainment (the WS Big Band was doing a great job when we dropped by; here’s the rest of the day’s slate). If you see this before 6 pm tonight — go check it out!
If you were hoping for a comeback of the Cat’s Eye Cafe just north of Lincoln Park (as we sort of were), closed since a crash last winter, finally there’s proof it’s just not going to happen. The sign’s not up yet as of tonight (though the permit application for it is in), but a Web site proclaims the building’s rebirth as a yoga/spiritual counseling business, the Four Aims Center. The center’s offerings sound intriguing — but the official demise of the Cat’s Eye leaves us a bit misty, as it’s the site of fond family memories from the latter half of the ’90s, when various major life events left us quite dependent on their morning muffins as well as incredible takeout soups and sandwiches. (We remember hearing that the people who ran it back then are the same ones who opened Circa in the late ’90s, but can’t find proof.)
Wow, how’d I miss this one? (Probably because we stayed home all day doing yard work!) A reader writes to tell us the Pacific Northwest BBQ Championships are under way all weekend at Alki:
There are 31 different groups bbq’ing all night long, even camping in tents. Judging starts tonight at 6 pm, finals are tomorrow. The one booth you can buy food from is reasonably priced and good.
Till this tip, I had no idea of the existence of the Pacific Northwest Barbecue Association — but here’s its site, with some info on the competition. Hope it doesn’t rain on the barbecuers tomorrow till they’ve crowned their winners! (UPDATE from a Saturday night driveby: This is quite a scene on the west end of Alki — including RVs parked along the beach that no doubt belong to some of the camped-out cooking teams.)
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