month : 01/2007 124 results

Rat on that rut

Or, in other words, report (your favorite) pothole. Here’s how.

Clean sweep

January 31, 2007 5:26 pm
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 |   Transportation | West Seattle weather

West Seattle Blogger Spouse reports street sweepers working Cali Ave much of the day, apparently tackling the sand from Snowpocalypse ’07. Glad to hear it, having recently been caught in clouds of dust kicked up by hill-climbing buses traveling over the street-side sandpiles!

Open space in JuNo

If we can have NoMo and SOA, why not JuNo — north of The Junction? Anyway, an e-mail tip alerted us to empty storefronts we hadn’t previously noted. Emerald City Locksmith is gone, but window postings promise they’ll unlock a new location on Harbor Ave in March; Fringe salon is just plain gone, with FOR LEASE signs outside the space (which has had other names), as well as a land-use alert (townhouses, of course) dating back to last August.

Maybe they should just put us on payroll

January 31, 2007 5:50 am
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 |   Development | West Seattle housing | West Seattle news

One day after the Tempest in a Pizza Box, the P-I’s got another story that appears ripped from the pages of West Seattle Blog (but with a few new details, such as, who’s trying to buy, and build on, that big front yard).

Chopper-buzz update: The police tell all

January 30, 2007 7:20 pm
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 |   Crime | Seen around town

Tonight, thanks to helpful Cindi from MorganJunction.org, we have actual police info about last week’s incident that kept some WSers awake thanks to chopper involvement. A lieutenant from the Southwest Precinct sent her this explanation of (a) the crime and (b) why one inquiring caller couldn’t find anything out:

The call was a burglary with two suspects in the 6900 blk of 37th Ave SW. We were able to catch one of the burglars using the helecopter and K9.

Sometimes we do not staff the precinct clerk due to staffing shortages. A lot of the time, the daytime clerk may not be aware of incidents that occur at night unless it makes the news.

We could always do better in putting out info. We are currently trying to get the IT folks to allow us administrative access to revamp our precinct website in order to put out better info to the public.

Isn’t winter over YET?

If you managed to escape the slick commute early this am, you’re lucky — some of the streets on our end of WS looked almost as iced-over as during the height of the winterfest we “enjoyed” earlier this month. We mention this as an excuse to look ahead; the weather experts say tomorrow could be a rerun. (We need a better ice scraper.)

Slice of silliness

We appreciate Robert Jamieson’s P-I columns sometimes, but clearly he doesn’t know the paradigm is that us blogger types are supposed to run around commenting on the paper, not the other way around. Searching for a column idea in a slow news week, he lands today on our Pagliacci delivery-limits discussion. (Nice the company responded to him but not to us.) Anyway, the same guy who defended Mars Hill’s misogynist main man just a wink of time ago is now defending Pagliacci. Sorry, the “seven-minute rule” doesn’t wash (seven minutes to get from The Junction to any place south of Cali & Morgan? in a horse-drawn cart?). We personally don’t think we’re aced out for economics (our own humble shack is a lone island of affordability among a slew of expensive view homes), just non-business sense (what’s the BS about a “cold, soggy pie,” when other outlets further north can get a hot one to us just fine?) — Mr. Columnist implies that the classism claim is the only complaint here and chides us for it, yet this was included in only TWO comments out of more than 50 on the two posts where we’ve had this discussion (#1 here, #2 here). But at least Pagliacci, in his column, has removed any hope they’ll be delivering to us south WS’ers. Welcome, Garlic Jim’s!

New grand-opening date @ ex-Cat’s Eye Cafe

The folks behind the Four Aims Center, at the site of the ex-Cat’s Eye Cafe just north of Lincoln Park, just sent word their grand-opening party is now set for Feb. 11.

Miscellaneous mysteries

Seems about once a week, someone notices a mysterious, unexplained late-night closure on the West Seattle Bridge. Here’s the latest report (with one response saying, without elaboration, “it was a police training exercise”). Anyone with more definitive dirt, please let us know. Meantime, remember all those recent helicopter buzzings? We have one neighborhood account of what was happening at the time on the ground (after the jump) …Read More

One week from tonight

Just a reminder to mark your calendar for one of those rare don’t-miss meetings: our county councilguy Dow bringing the entire council to the Hall @ Fauntleroy, 7 pm next Monday, to talk about Windstorm ’06 (no NWS name decision yet) and Are We Ready For The Next One? (The advance materials mention utility reps; s’pose anyone from City Light will show?)

Hollywood Video getting ejected

Looks like at least one of the big east-of-Junction mixed-use projects is about to accelerate: Got an e-mail tip that Hollywood Video at Alaska and 41st had announced it would be closing Feb. 11; went over to check it out, and before we could even approach the counter to inquire, we heard the clerk say it loud and clear to three different sets of customers. Apparently they expected more warning, but then suddenly, this weekend, the owner gave them two weeks’ notice — or so went the clerk’s version. This is the project that supposedly will include a QFC, just a few blocks west of the future Whole Foods, practically across the street from Safeway … wonder how soon the wrecking ball will show up?

Speaking of signs

The Huling/Gee sightings below aren’t the only notable sign activity under way. In The Junction, Jak’s Grill seems to be in transition between awnings; if you look really close at where the awning used to be, you’ll see the old KRESS AND CO. name in the masonry (city historic link here). And a bit further north, the Garlic Jim’s sign is up:

garlicsign.jpg

Dot-com dollars on the shore

For those of us who gaze at the waterfront homes on Beach Drive and dream of living in one, the Times’ Pacific Magazine today takes us inside the mansion of Scott Lipsky, the GalleryPlayer chair also described as having “retired” from Amazon (despite his apparently young age). Good to hear that at least one dot-com $$$-holder has enough taste to live on Puget Sound instead of clustering with the others near Gatesland on Lake Washington!

Bridge over troubled … earth

As of a few hours ago, the Thistle/Northrop sinkhole has a bridge over it, which means (a) the stairway down to Lincoln Park is fully usable again, and (b) you can get one heck of a view directly into the sinkhole (most amazing is the sidewalk along the west side of Northrop, just suspended in mid-air, nothing beneath it). We’ll have to go back later for a picture of that, but we did catch the bridge-building SDOT crew there this morning:

sinkholebridge.jpg

Huling? Huling who?

The car lots’ new owners seem to have accelerated their signage program in the past few days … first the electronic signboard at Alaska/Fauntleroy, now these banners:

geewhiz.jpg

The nightlife fight

As computer-glued homebodies, we haven’t followed the simmering fight over the Seattle “nightlife premises ordinance.” But perhaps we should. One WSB reader  forwarded us an urgent e-mail from a club in another part of town and suggests several WS establishments have a lot at stake in this too; check the e-mail out (after the jump), take action if you are interested, and please let us know if there’s another point of view on this to spotlight as well:Read More

Serving up a warning

Along with updates on menu items and special events, the latest e-mail newsletter from West 5 features a warning about being careful where you park behind that block of Junction businesses (excerpted in full after the jump):Read More

Charlestown Cafe/Petco site meeting report

We couldn’t go to last night’s Design Review Board meeting but WSB reader Sage Wilson did and offers this detailed report (thanks, Sage!), after the jump:Read More

After the storm

A friend of ours who grew up in a mountain state told us that you know you’ve REALLY gotten some snow when, days or weeks after it melts, dirty slushy piles of it are still lingering in parking lots and similar places. So, we can now officially declare our Snow-n-Ice-mare ’07 a REAL event, upon discovery today of the official Dirty Slushy Leftover Pile near the southwest edge of Westwood Village:

targetslush.jpg

Coffee, tea, tunes

If you tend to hang around the homefront in the evenings, as we do, you may not be aware that West Seattle’s nightlife goes far beyond, oh, say, “which band’s playing Poggie’s tonight.” For example — after discovering that C and P Coffee, south of The Junction, has just applied for a beer/wine license, we went to the C and P website and realized that makes sense, since the coffeehouse offers live music several nights a week (here’s the calendar).

ANOTHER Junction bakery?

According to a construction permit just issued for the former Bobby’s Hobbies (across from Pagliacci/Clementine), a bakery is taking over the site. The permit lists only a fancy architect as “applicant.” Seems like The Junction is already bakery-laden enough that perhaps a flour wholesaler should be moving in next.

School make-up days

Doesn’t appear to be on the Seattle Public Schools website yet, but the P-I says the dates are set for making up 4 of the 5 days SPS was closed because of bad weather (the district wants the state to waive the fifth): February 2, March 16, June 21-22.

Banner ban

On one of the e-mail lists where we lurk, list members were forwarded a plea from the folks who oversee farmers’ markets citywide. Please get the word out about the West Seattle Winter Farmers’ Markets (10 am-1 pm on Sunday), was the main point. Fine, we’ll do our part. But here’s the startling part of the e-mail:

We have little yard signs out about the community and sandwich boards that we put out on Sundays – but we can no longer put any banners on the Fauntleroy overpass because the City of Seattle forbids it.

So is that what happened to the big yellow banner, clearly well-maintained, and taken down soon after each week’s WSFM? Not even OK for advertising this type of city-condoned event? Seems kind of grinchy, at the very least.