West Seattle, Washington
07 Tuesday
If you drive on 35th near the summit, you might have wondered lately what’s up with Mars Hill Church’s takeover of the ex-Doxa church building (MH-West Seattle has been meeting for 3 months at Chief Sealth HS). A new post on the MH-WS blog seems to mention in passing (toward the end) that they’re now shooting for Feb. 18.
Checking the Weather Service’s “hourly observations” for each hour back through last night, looks like the low was 22 (closest measuring station to us is Boeing Field), 2 am. Up here in the iced-over hilltops of south West Seattle, we’re ready to see it melt. One of us is now laughing riotously about having been excited many years ago, as a child, to see frost on rooftops when the temps dipped unusually low — 40s!!!! — in the warm, sunny hometown. Oh well. Time to go see if we can make it down the hill for a latte without turning into a tv news clip.
The ice-driving-crash-course forced by Winterfest ’07 delayed this roundup a bit, but we also wanted to mention, we’ve morphed the former Holiday Stuff page into a new WS Events page, and that’s where we’re stacking up calendars and links so you can bookmark the page and check what’s up any ol’ time. (Please e-mail us if you’ve got anything coming up!) Meantime, a few of this weekend’s highlights: Kenyon Hall starts a new “Rainy Day Film Series” (how about dubbing it “Icy Day Film Series” for starters) on Saturdays with one movie this afternoon and one tonight … the 8th annual MLK Hip Hop Show, tonight (Saturday) @ Youngstown Arts Center … The second Winter Farmers’ Market in The Junction, 10 am-1 pm Sunday (even if you’re watching the game, drop by at halftime!) …. just a few of many things happening as we all come out of the post-holiday haze.
A few people have written to mention the amazing wind-whipped waves at Alki yesterday afternoon … we couldn’t make it down off our icy hills to see them, but now a kind soul has sent video (QuickTime required) that sounds as wild as it looks!
Viaduct and high bridge still in pretty good shape, but that ramp from 99 to the bridge is still dangerous … Once in WS, where the surface arterials such as Fauntleroy are fine, we checked out 35th today instead of Cali. It’s clearly been plowed (dirty snow stacked up on the center line) and sanded, but there are some danger spots. Still gotta go really slowly uphill. And there are some icy spots around the summit (Myrtle/Holden). Oh, and those side streets, still ice-sheet nightmares. It’s not really warming up for a few more days, either … hey … wait … now there are FLURRIES in the forecast????
OK, enough about the weather. Did you see the comet yesterday? Supposedly we’ll get another chance today. Look west toward Vashon around sunset. We think that’s what was visible from WS Blog World HQ — although we couldn’t see the “tail” — so we wondered if it might have been Venus instead — check out this cool photo from Mischiefblog (be sure to click for the large version).
–Our state rep goes high-profile in a push for equal rights.
-One of West Seattle’s hilliest streets gets the spotlight in a P-I urban-sledding photo. (We can barely dare to drive down that section of Charlestown just west of Cali in dry times, can’t imagine sledding OR driving on it now!)
-Back in September, we discovered that the former Cat’s Eye Cafe north of Lincoln Park would be transformed into the Four Aims Center. One of its owners — who mentions having been an original Cat’s Eye owner — just wrote us to say they’re finally in the home stretch with city signoff and so forth, and planning the grand opening Feb. 4.
-Several people have written to make sure we know about a milestone for something else we caught wind of last year, the new West Seattle microbrewery Schooner Exact (named after the Denny Party’s ship). Its licensing process is just wrapping up and its creations will debut Jan. 20 (a week from this Saturday) at Beveridge Place Pub in Morgan Junction — its founders say everyone’s invited.
Nice snowy Lincoln Park pix (including a beach snowman!) in this post from The Perrys of West Seattle.
As of mid-afternoon: Bridge in good shape (though the ramp from 99 to the bridge has dicey sides). Fauntleroy, “bare and wet” as they describe it when mountain passes are in OK shape this time of year, though that could mean trouble if it’s still wet when the sun goes down (considering this really will be a COOOOOOLD night — 13 degrees????). The Cali hill through Gatewood & Upper Fauntleroy — snowy, sandy, rugged, gonna be hell going down that tomorrow; if you have to go up it today/tonight, just follow the experts’ advice re: snow and ice driving — TAKE IT REAL SLOW — one wrong move and you’ll join the spinout crowd. Oh, and the side streets? Cringe.
The folks @ Divina say they’ve got to call off tonight’s Junction Art Walk, even though they were hoping weather wouldn’t get in its way again (last month, the Art Walk coincided with the 2-inch deluge that preceded The Windstorm To Be Named Later). Not only is the icy weather a problem, today’s power outage got in the way of hors d’oeuvre-making. But, with determined optimism, they’re working on a Youth Art Walk for next month. Dare we hope for calmer weather by then?
According to this Seattle Times update, not only do we have most of the snow woes, we’ve got a power outage. Again.
It’s official … Seattle Public Schools are all closed today. Watch out for those snowballs!
Remember we have the West Seattle-area city and state traffic cams linked from our WS cams page. If you want to see highway conditions around the rest of the metro area, the state’s cameras are linked here; other Seattle city traffic cams can be found here. For weather conditions, forecast, and radar, this is a good page. Be careful out there!
Even more than the snow on the road, the sidewalk, the parked cars … the snow on branches is one of the loveliest sights. (See photo below; Comcast was doing its slowdown thing again, so it took us a while to upload.) If you’re natives of warmer climes, as we are, this is always still so fresh and new — get out and take a walk — who knows what it’ll look like tomorrow! (Speaking of which, as of 10:05 pm, no word from Seattle Public Schools on whether they’ll call a “snow day” for tomorrow; you can keep checking their home page, though if they haven’t decided by now, they might not make the call till after 4 am or so.)
Most snow we’ve seen up here in a few years. The accumulation on fencetops and so forth looks like about two inches. How about where you are? (We know this is serious — just spotted a snowplow south of M-Junction on Cali Ave.)
Alki-based Metroblogging Seattle contributor C Ro posts today that the Casa Feliz Mexican restaurant at the beach appears to have folded. That space has had so much turnover, we can barely remember what was there before — wasn’t there a Cuban restaurant in the space for a while, or was that upstairs?
If you haven’t already heard, Seattle Public Schools are open for business as usual today, says their website.
We don’t talk much about the Fauntleroy ferry terminal here at WSB, but probably should, given that it brings hundreds if not thousands of people into (or at least through) West Seattle each day. There’s news today — some of its users might have to wait a bit longer for the next week or so because its biggest ferry had to be moved to another route, in a domino effect after a problem with one of the ferries on the Bainbridge route. (And we happened onto an unusual first-person account of how that problem happened.)
Once the wind stops and the (allegedly looming) snow melts … here are 2 things to look ahead to, maybe even look forward to, this coming Thursday: First and foremost, the folks at Divina confirm the monthly Junction Art Walk is indeed on for Thursday night; starts at Divina at 6 pm – maps of participating businesses and artists will be provided – wraps at West 5 with complimentary champagne. Also on Thursday night, if you’re not in the artsy mood, how about the Design Review Board meeting on the project proposed for the burned-out Schuck’s site at California/Charlestown? (6:30 pm, Southwest Precinct, just south of Home Depot)
In just about the past 15 minutes, the weather changed from cloudy and mellow to fierce wind and pelting rain. Haven’t we seen this movie before?
We got a note wondering about a huge new FOR LEASE sign right behind Safeway @ Jefferson Square. Still haven’t uncovered exactly what’s for lease but we did get a reply from a rep for the center’s new owners, saying there IS open space and reminding us all that the center does have new owners — we don’t remember much local press about it, but Pan Pacific Properties, which bought Jefferson Square two years ago, was purchased a few months back by Kimco Realty, which runs these types of “grocery-anchored” shopping centers around the country (and outside the U.S. as well). Will this mean some change? Keep an eye out. But don’t forget, the center ownership doesn’t actually include the land under Jefferson Square – that’s leased out by Seattle Public Schools.
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