West Seattle, Washington
30 Wednesday
According to this afternoon’s e-mail update from the city Transportation Department, the paving closures on Admiral aren’t scheduled to start till Thursday night. Click ahead for the full text of that e-mail update (including a warning for neighbors about possible side effects inside their homes):Read More
Following up on the weekend bulletin about a new plan to move the recast Statue of Liberty into the Alki Bathhouse, we checked today with Pamela Kliment, the city Parks Department’s project manager. She says the exact timetable for this interim move depends on what she finds out from the foundry that’s housing the statue; she also says the September 13th public meeting about the statue’s future is still on, because “since that location [the Bathhouse] is temporary, there is more work to do.” We also have heard from the staff of Councilmember Tom Rasmussen (a WS resident), who’s working on helping make this happen, and they too await more information before a date can be set for the statue’s Bathhouse arrival.
-Believe it or not, less than a month till the first day of school (9/5) 
for most local kids. (SPS ’07-’08 calendar here.)
-Congratulations to the Community School of West Seattle, which, after a dinner/auction last month and other fundraising efforts, now has enough money to buy its building (photo at left) at 22nd & Roxbury, which was being eyed by a developer.
-Last reminder about the school board candidates’ forum (free ice cream!) on the lawn at Pathfinder K-8 tonight, all welcome, bring a picnic.
We’ve been watching for this link since seeing it on the late news last night. Now it’s online — videotaped fight at Alki, and worried neighbors.
It’s on the same type of frame as a “for sale” sign, but this sign (right) at the Ercolini Park site on Alaska west of The Junction can be best described as “for info.” Right now, it’s stocked with flyers for a block party alongside the park site during Night Out tomorrow (6-9 pm, along 48th SW between Alaska and Oregon); park organizer Bill Barna says they’ll be accepting donations during the party as they finish up their last round of fundraising following a city matching-funds grant. (Speaking of Night Out, if your neighborhood is having a party and you don’t mind telling us about it in case any neighbors haven’t heard, leave a comment here or e-mail us; city organizers say they can’t give us an area-wide list. Also we’re hoping to post Night Out pix afterward, so even if you don’t tell us about your party in advance, take a pic and send it to us!)
Our Sunday night activity, round trip on the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth ferry. Here’s the view as we pulled into Vashon on the westbound return.
For those of you who were just holding your breath till this whole Seafair thing was over, thanks for indulging us and scrolling past these posts. As for us, well, one more round of photos from the Museum of Flight (today’s pre-takeoff and post-landing), and then it’s off to dream about ’08.
More of what you don’t see if you only watch the airshow over the lake … click ahead:Read More
In case you saw the same police activity at WV Barnes & Noble this morning (we were at the Museum of Flight) — four police cars, people in handcuffs, store briefly closed (or so one would-be customer was told) because of it — here’s what WSB reader Liz later heard from store staff: it started as a shoplifting investigation, then appeared to involve credit-card fraud, and there was concern one suspect was armed. Ended uneventfully with up to 3 arrests.
We’ve been warned: Friday night is the start of the three-week project that will close much of northbound I-5, off and on, round the clock, right where West Seattle drivers roll onto 5, between Spokane Street and I-90. A few more planning tidbits today:
-Remember the suggestion from West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician, to work from home or hang out someplace with wi-fi? Coffeehouses aren’t the only places you can get online; for example, Matthew @ Skylark Cafe wants everyone in WSB-land to know Skylark (north end of Delridge, just south of The Bridge) has wi-fi and welcomes telecommuters – open at 11:30 am Tuesdays-Fridays, 9 am Saturdays & Sundays. He adds, “We have air conditioning and happy hour all day til 7pm … we are also family-friendly until 9 pm when we become 21+.”
-Another e-mail suggested we remind everyone that some bus routes will change during the construction too.
-Last I-90 bridge closure for the Blue Angels is today, 12:45-2:30 pm.
-Admiral Way repaving closures are scheduled to start tomorrow.
-The diver who posted video of a six-gill shark sighting in WS waters back in January is sharing a clip of another one, with a postscript about another chilling discovery in the depths.
-A WSB reader wants to let other moms know that her trainer is starting a “moms’ running class” at noon August 13th @ Hiawatha. We couldn’t find the exact listing on the trainer’s website but here’s her e-mail address.
Story and video clip here. Meantime, this story says suspect Alfred Layton Jr. made a court appearance today, bail set at $250,000. King County Jail Lookup says he is still in jail; state court cases search says he has a record, three criminal “non-traffic” cases in 1999, one “civil harassment” case in 2001.
We’ve mentioned that our favorite place to experience Blue Angels mania during Seafair weekend is on the fence by their parking spot at Museum of Flight/Boeing Field. After bringing the camera along today, we can show you what that’s really like:
That’s the fence crowd by the jets (not to be confused with the fence on the BF runway) around 1 pm, just before the pilots show up. We got there a lot earlier to be on the front line, inspected by the bomb-sniffing dog, whose photo you will see (and more) after the click:Read More
Hot out of the inbox. If you are interested in the free marquee but having trouble reaching Steve, e-mail us and we’ll send you his cell #; just didn’t want to put it out in front of thousands.
Hello from the Admiral Theater,We are currently going through a restoration phase here at the Admiral and coming across items that may be of use to someone out there.The first Item that we have come across is a:12 foot long by 3 foot high double sided lighted marquee sign. It comes with more letter tiles than I care to count.This sign is free to a good home, just come pick it up. I would hate to see it just be dismantled and thrown away.Contact: Steve Garrett at 206-938-0360 (theater)
The folks who help local families through WestSide Baby say they received 50,000 diapers for last weekend’s “Stuff the Bus” drive, more than 10% above last year. You can still help them any time with $ (donate online) or time.
At the computer briefly between Blue Angels and the rest of Saturday afternoon fun — we want to make sure everyone saw the “breaking news” posted by Paul Carr this morning in the comments on this thread (and comments from the leader of the Bring Miss Liberty Home Now group as well): Paul says the city will move the recast statue to the Alki Bathhouse “shortly.” No further info on what “shortly” means, he says; we won’t be able to check with city sources till Monday (unless any of our city-affiliated lurkers care to e-mail us with details).
Noteworthy tidbit in this P-I article about inspectors checking area bridges after the Minneapolis collapse: The Admiral Way bridge is one of five in the city with special electronic detectors that monitor it for signs of trouble. (Side note for historic-photo geeks like us, the city archives have lots of shots of its 1949-50 construction, such as this and this.)
Just spotted on the slope beneath the Sealth/SWAC field, north of Westwood Village, people in protective suits attacking the weediness, Scotch Broom and all … gee, you would think it would have been safer to call in the goats instead.
Every so often, we get a request to ask everybody in WSB-land for suggestions about something. (Recent examples: Toddler-friendly WS coffee shops and tasty WS takeout.) This week, we’ve been awaiting a slow moment to post the latest such request, and that moment is here: Any recommendations you would care to share for best WS-area place to board your cat(s)?
This just arrived in our inbox from a WSB reader:
I wanted to note a scary incident on the 21 Express to West Seattle Friday evening.
A female rider became verbally abusive on the bus when she realized the bus was making the right turn onto the Columbia on-ramp to Highway 99. I’ve dubbed her the ‘scary bus female’ (SBF) because she definitely was not a lady. The bus had already started on the on-ramp so could not let her off. She insisted to the driver that she had been let off before. As the bus progressed, she returned to her seat loudly expressing her displeasure. She was upset and very vocal about it. The entire ride was unnerving for those who sat in the back with her.
Midway on 99, she made the ride much worse making threats to kill a woman and her grandson. Fellow riders, including a gentleman beside me, quickly got up to help control the situation. The grandmother and her grandson and other riders moved away from SBF. Several riders stood creating a human fence to block SBF from the rest of us. F or the rest of the trip on 99, until the first stop at 35th and Avalon, SBF was corraled until it was time for her to get off. The driver alert Metro base and we last saw SPD arrive at the scene but our bus was not detained per the wish of the grandmother as she wanted all of us to get home. I hope they’re okay as this was a horrible experience.
It was admirable what these people did. It made me only think of what happened several years ago when a Metro bus went off the Aurora bridge. Kudos to these riders. They helped prevent something that could have been worse.
Somewhere in Georgetown right now, there’s one whale of a party, at the finish line of a bicycle race that started a few hours ago at Redline (ex-Legends). We didn’t heard about it, or its uniquely named sponsor club, till late this morning, when we read about it at Metroblogging Seattle and added it to the weekly WS Weekend Lineup. We’re nothing if not curious, so a member of Team WSB went over tonight with camera in tow, and was immediately drawn to the St. Nick wanna-bes in the crowd…
More pix after the click:Read More
The “barely a sliver of sun before Sunday” forecast turned out to be SO not true today. Things improved steadily after our arrival on the lakeshore … see the two different views of the sky over Stan Sayres Pits, 11:30 am-ish and 1:30 pm-ish:
The Blue Angels still did their so-called “low show,” no doubt planned hours earlier thanks to the same gloomy forecasts. Fun anyway. More miscellaneous pix and tales, after the click:Read More
Just got home from Seafair Free Friday etc. (more on that later) and thanks to MargL out there in WSBland, didn’t even have to surf the news sites to find out the guy accused of kidnapping and attacking an Arbor Heights woman is now under arrest, caught in Cle Elum, where the victim was found yesterday. P-I article here. 8 PM UPDATE: This story says the suspect’s name is Alfred Layton (although the same story misspells the victim’s name, so take that into consideration). 10:55 PM UPDATE: According to the online King County Jail Inmate Lookup, Layton was booked into the county jail at 9:40 tonight for investigation of kidnapping and burglary.
Two things to tell you about quickly, before we run out to implore the current sunbreak to hold long enough for Blue Angels and hydros and all that:
-The semiweekly city Land Use Info Bulletin revealed a plan for a new 2-story building, described as “restaurant on the ground floor and offices above,” at the site of Pegasus Pizza. A Design Review Board meeting is already set for August 23rd. This would be the first big building project in that part of the Alki business district since the revamp of the former Alki Market (now Cactus and future All the Best Pet Care).
-Many potential WS projects we hadn’t previously heard about are listed on this message board we just discovered (along with many we HAD heard about). No clue what those folks’ sources are but we are trying to find out!
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