West Seattle, Washington
09 Friday
Two artful displays on Junction buildings — first, we’ve been meaning to post this for a while in case you haven’t taken a close look — the finished renovations on the Junction Post Office Hi-Yu mural are just gorgeous:
There’s more art just about a block south, as the facade of Shadowland (in the ex-Neilsen Florist building) takes shape (thanks to Christopher Boffoli for these pix):
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We asked Shadowland partner Joe about the artist who worked on those lovely touches along the overhang; he wrote back:
The artist working on the building is named Jaffey. He is a local West Seattle artist. People keep thinking that he did some sort of a print to get that design on there. Amazingly, he hand painted all of it. He has done signage at a lot of places in the neighborhood.
We also asked Joe to elaborate a little more on the plans for Shadowland’s menu. He says it will include some entree-sized dishes as well as the currently popular “small plates,” explaining:
The idea is that if you go out as a couple you would probably get two or three of them and share them with a glass of wine. I have found that I have really enjoyed places that offer that. You get to try more things on the menu and it usually opens up conversation at the table. It should give our chef some flexibility to allow the menu to change with what is available fresh that day and at the same time keep some of the customers’ favorites on the permanent menu.
The Weekly looks behind the doors (beneath the WS Senior Center) of the Skate Church, wondering about the conservative evangelism beneath its alternative surface.
From the inbox (our supplementary research follows the reader’s e-mail):
I live on 45th Ave SW and had a young man dressed well approach the house requesting funds for Omni-Horizons. I told him I’m supportive of helping out community groups but wanted to do some quick research about the company to be sure I approved of the place I’d contribute money to. He said it wouldn’t help him and left.
I contacted the local police, and they said it had to be a crime before they could respond (i.e., because I didn’t give them money, I didn’t have a crime to report). I just want to make folks aware – can you help?
Here’s what we found out about “Omni-Horizons.” Read More
Today’s the day that Seattle Public Schools, and most local private schools, welcome everyone back after a too-short summer (aren’t they always?). Highlights from our online tour of WS public schools:Read More
SIGN SAGA #1 — A medic call to Westwood Village around 6 pm tonight is explained by a reader as follows:
One of the main signs inside of Westwood Village Target fell on a lady’s shoulder earlier tonight. It was one of the main signs that say Bedding or Electronics that hang from the ceiling with two tiny strings. It fell on the lady and shattered on the floor. They called the medics for her. I asked her if she was okay right after it happened and she said I think so.
SIGN SAGA #2 — Yes, it’s illegal to hang banners on the Fauntleroy pedestrian overpass, but it’s a tradition anyway — apparently, a tradition someone is intent on stomping out, as any banner that’s gone up lately hasn’t been up for long, and here’s the latest example: A volunteer for a local nonprofit group desperate to get the word out about an upcoming event told us she went up with a banner today and left a note saying “we’ll be back for this on Thursday; if you need it taken down before then, please call (number).” The banner was up when we drove by at 7 pm tonight; gone at quarter past 9; the banner-hanger tells us no one called. Other prospective banner-hangers, you’ve been warned.
Just in from the office of West Seattle resident City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen: When the recast Statue of Liberty returns home to Alki one week from tonight (as first reported here last month), it will not be going into the Bathhouse, but rather onto the old pedestal, temporarily. The event will happen at 6 pm Tuesday (9/11) and will be hosted by Mayor Nickels and Councilmember Rasmussen. Rasmussen aide Brian Hawksford tells WSB, “The statue will be temporarily placed upon the original pedestal until the new plaza pedestal is constructed in early 2008. There will be an announcement of additional new city money for the new plaza/pedestal project.”
State Senator Erik Poulsen, who represents the 34th District, just announced he’s quitting to become a public-utility lobbyist. He was re-elected last fall to a second term in the Senate, after two terms in the state House.
So asks the city Transportation Department as it pitches its next round of community open houses happening in the next few weeks, including one here in West Seattle (5-8 pm Wednesday 9/19, in the theater at Youngstown Arts Center). The question refers to money from the “Bridging the Gap” levy passed by voters last November. Some projects are already in the hopper; page 2 of this handout mentions a few of WS relevance. The city promises more info @ the 9/19 event.
That’s the game at least two WS apartment-seekers are caught up in — the same ones who first tipped us to the impending condo conversion at a south Morgan Junction complex. After that discovery quashed their hopes of renting there, they thought they had found another place, this time in north WS — until their prospective landlord admitted, when directly questioned, that those apartments have just been sold. (We won’t name the building until and unless we find online records to double-verify this.) Will their third choice be the charm? We’ll wait to hear! Meantime, this blogger caught up in the M-Junction conversion has found a place on Alki.
Now we know what was missing; the (former) Festival of India moved to the Eastside.
Seconds away from shutting down the computer, we checked e-mail one last time, and good thing we did: a note had just come in from Joe (thank you!!!!) with these spectacular photos of the lightning we’ve seen the past few hours. Joe’s full gallery of pix taken from what he described as “the west tip of Alki, facing southwest” can be found here.
Makes sense, given what happened — but it’s eerie just the same to find this on the “permits issued last Friday” city list tonight.
From Admiral Junction to Morgan Junction on foot, much to be seen. Including:
-Dangerous driving at Cali/Genesee and Cali/Fauntleroy. At the former, a car turning right/north onto Cali (by Divina) almost took out a bicyclist that the driver would have seen with a good look south before the turn. The bicyclist shouted indignantly for a while, the driver paused, then both finally continued on. At the latter — a car almost took us out, turning right/west onto Fauntleroy (by the Corner Inn) as we stepped into the crosswalk. We’re not much for shouting so we just glowered.
-Banner up for a new business in the mixed-use building at 5446 Cali: “On the Way Maternity.” According to its city business-license classification, it’ll sell clothing. Doesn’t look too close to opening; various renovations are under way inside.
-In The Junction, the former Hollywood Video etc./future megaproject site along Alaska now has a “coming soon/Office Depot” banner on the fence. (Why not “coming soon/QFC” too?)
(… to paraphrase the line that’s 40 seconds into this cool old song.) In this case, the passing of time to which we refer involves Chuck & Sally’s Tavern north of Morgan Junction. It’s been more than two weeks since a reader first e-mailed us about a hand-lettered sign at C & S saying CLOSED FOR A FEW DAYS/COOLER PROBLEMS; today, that sign is still there. Tried calling; got only a fax tone. E-mailed the property owner; no reply yet. That corner (Cali & Graham) is jumping these days, with future townhouses on the NW corner and a condo conversion on the SE corner (the future “Strata”), so some tavern fans have been wondering about the future of the little blue building The Stranger once fondly called a “TV-laden little dive.”
-Fans of WS-based Schooner Exact Brewing Co. will find some news in the brewers’ first web update in 2 months.
-Starting this Wednesday, Hotwire Coffee launches a monthlong celebration of its 5th anniversary in WS. The Hotwire site promises special deals to celebrate.
-And on the megacorporate side of the coffee fence, the construction-permit filing is in for the impending Jefferson Square Starbucks.
Your trash/recycling collectors are working. Parking enforcers (for anyone going to pay station or meter zones outside WS) are not. Metro buses are on a Sunday schedule (same link notes the Water Taxi is on a Saturday schedule); Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth ferries are on a weekend schedule.
Sunset photo #1 hot out of the inbox, courtesy of WSB reader “K” (thank you!!!!):
Sunset photo #2 is one we shot from Golden Gardens tonight (heresy! we left WS! attempt at relevant linkage, below the pic):
Driving through Ballard on the way to GG, we mused that Ballard and WS really should be “sister neighborhoods” — lots in common, from condoization, to maritime history/ongoing industry, to the status as home to the city’s two most popular public beaches, and much more. As if to put an exclamation point on that thought, a sign caught our eye in a Ballard business window, triggering a not-so-long-ago WS memory: Ben & Jerry’s on Market has just closed. While we’re not sure about that (ex-)shop’s current ownership, we do know the former B&J’s in The Junction was owned by the people who (at least at the time) owned the one in Ballard. One other interesting sighting during our brief invasion of the north end tonight: This lovely charter yacht ($70K/week!) moored at Shilshole.
Sunday afternoons often make us think of … real estate, perhaps because of the “open house” signs flowering on almost every corner, especially on the most famous streets of WS. We all know about Alki Avenue and Beach Drive and their incredible view homes — but if you don’t wander far off the main arterials, you might not know much about the other “streets of (WS) dreams.” In particular, this afternoon we are thinking about Sunset Avenue — a view-drenched blufftop street in north WS that you could consider to be a bit like a WS version of LA’s famous Mulholland Drive.
Sunset Ave parallels Alki Ave for quite a while, but if you look toward it from the shore, it’s hard to see anything but an occasional house from Sunset or other bluffside streets poking over the condo-tops:
Sunset wandered onto our radar screen during a real-estate search, where we encountered three homes for sale there right now: “The Castle” at 1545 Sunset ($1,595,000); a somewhat newer home at 1429 Sunset ($1,590,000); and a chance to buy into this neighborhood for less than a million, at 1532 Sunset ($959,000). Which WS street do you dream of living on?
Rhonda from Beach Drive Blog (who also runs this week’s Citizen Rain “Blog Of The Week,” The Mortgage Porter) reminds us all that today is your last chance to visit the Walker Rock Garden till next year. She has a nice photo gallery from the garden here.
Many big things coming up this month in WS. Here are a few we haven’t mentioned yet …
WEDNESDAY — First day of school for Seattle Public Schools (and many private schools too). Note that Cleveland HS is no longer in the Boren building on Delridge; its own new building is done. However, South Lake HS continues its temporary stay in the old Hughes building; and Fairmount Park Elementary will be empty after closing in June.
THURSDAY — Shoppers go wild! It’s the Fall Fashion Affair in The Junction, 7-10 pm at Sweetie, Edie’s, Clementine, and Carmilia’s.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH — The Northwest Hope & Healing Breast Cancer Half Marathon, with an added 5K Walk/Run if the half-m is a bit much. Sign up now at Capers in The Junction or get the registration form online and send it in.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH — First-ever fundraising breakfast for Southwest Youth & Family Services, 7:30 am @ Salty’s on Alki. Read more at the SWYFS website about all the people their programs help.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND — Annual dinner & auction to raise $ for the Log House Museum, 5 pm @ Alki Masonic Hall in The Junction. Call the LHM for tickets (938-5293).
We promised during WSB Pledge Day that we would keep working to make the site worth your time and trouble (not to mention the $ that many readers were kind enough to invest). We’re working on several upgrades. The first successful one fixes a somewhat secret (but annoying) problem: Until now, comments on WSB were not searchable; if you remembered reading something in a comment and tried to find it with the WSB search box, no dice — “search” would only look at the posts (though comments at least were indexed by Google and other offsite search engines). Now, this is fixed, so whatever you put in the WSB search box, you will get back a page with any posts featuring that text in either the body of the post or its comments. (Test it by searching for the name you use to leave comments!) NEXT UP: We’re working on the oft-requested “open discussion” (forum/bulletin board) feature — thought we had one earlier tonight, but it blew up the site, so we had to cancel it — stand by for eventual triumph!
OK, who can resist a cute pooch pic? Just a few days left to get in on the dog photo contest at Thriftway in Morgan Junction. Deadline to submit a pic is Tuesday; judging is Wednesday.
It’s almost the mid-Cali equivalent of those last few Alki cottages dwarfed by multistory condos — this 95-year-old house at 5232 Cali, between commercial/mixed-use buildings across from the West Seattle Veterinary Hospital/West Seattle Nursery block:
An application is on file to tear down this house and replace it with 3 “live/work” townhouses and 4 “residential” townhouses. The application mentions an architect from Place Architects, as well as Knoll Development, the company also behind the fire-gutted “live-work townhouse” project at 4132 Cali (where, following the rubble removal, only a charred foundation eerily stands).
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