West Seattle holiday-shopping season ’07: And they’re off!
Nobody camping outside West Seattle’s early-opening chain stores when we checked late last night (just the big cart lineup outside Westwood Village Target, shown above). But they’re not the only ones opening early (Target 6 am, Bed Bath Beyond 6 am, Radio Shack 6 am, for example) — some independent retailers are getting creative too, like Friends & Company in The Junction, which is coupling a 5 am opening today with free early-bird eats and a tiered sale, starting at 40% off between 5-6 am. But there’s time to pace yourself — from today through Christmas Eve, 32 shopping days this year, and lots of new choices (as well as existing faves) for keeping your $ here on the peninsula.
You’re feeling thankful – ready to feel helpful?
One week from Saturday, one of West Seattle’s biggest events of the holiday season will start — Hometown Holidays in The Junction. We brought you details in this report last weekend; you can also read the full Hometown Holidays press release at the end of this post. First, here’s your chance to be part of it — we received this from Erica Karlovits, president of JuNO (Junction Neighborhood Association):
For folks living in the Junction and interested in getting involved with JuNO, we have a great opportunity for involvement:
Hometown Holidays is coming . . . The Junction comes to life on the first Saturday in December. Events include the Dickens Carolers, the Annual Tree Lighting, Santa photos for you and for your pet, and great deals in local shops. Plus events at the West Seattle Farmers’ Market!
Volunteers are needed to staff the refreshment and information table during the Hometown Holidays event on December 1 and 2. JuNO has agreed to take on this responsibility and is inviting anyone that is interested in joining to contact wsjuno@yahoo.com – This is a great opportunity to support your community, meet neighbors and take part in a great event.
Please let me know if you are interesting in meeting your JuNO neighbors and volunteering at this event.
Thank you!
Erica Karlovits
Junction Neighborhood Organization
For even more details on Hometown Holidays plans, here’s the West Seattle Junction Association‘s full press release:Read More
Reader Recommendation Request: Roof cleaning/treatment
As a few more folks wander, stuffed, to the computer, we are sharing a WSB Reader Recommendation Request sent in a few days ago by David:
I sure could use some recommendations for roof cleaners and those who treat for moss prevention. … I have a tall house with a steep roof and it seems
difficult to find a company that deals with moss prevention/treatment. Ideally, I need someone to spray a moss inhibitor so that the more severe power-spraying/cleaning won’t be needed every couple years.
Talk about a feast
From WSB contributing photographer Matt Durham: An Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) packs away the berries from a hawthorn tree at Hiawatha Park in preparation for winter. Eastern gray squirrels were first introduced into Washington in 1925.
(Prints of Matt’s WSB photos and his other work are available through his site, MattDurhamPhotography.com.)
What Seattle Police do — and what citizens think about it
WSB reader Patrick e-mailed that photo today with this eyewitness report: “Yesterday about 6 police cars pulled up at Chief Sealth when students were let out; they questioned 2 students for about 15 minutes, looked in the bushes where they were questioned, and let them leave.” We don’t have information on what that was about — but it reminds us, you might not have heard about the survey released just before City Hall shut down for the 4-day holiday weekend: It’s the “biennial survey of attitudes toward police” in the Neighborhood Policing and Crime Survey Report. Here’s the page where you can find a link to the complete report as well as various summaries. We browsed it to look for West Seattle specifics; not many of those to be had, but we were quite interested in page 13 of the report, where traffic offenses and graffiti/vandalism — both discussed extensively, repeatedly, here at WSB — were identified as the crime problems noticed most frequently by citizens. On a related topic, WSB reader LyndaB passed along word that everyone is invited to the Police Chief’s Citywide Advisory Council meeting on December 11th (6:30 pm, West Precinct, which is actually downtown) to get details on the Neighborhood Policing Staffing Plan that the police department will start implementing in January.
West Seattle Thanksgiving ’07
The marquee over Java Bean on Avalon (photographed by Jerry from JetCityOrange; thank you!) says it all. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! We will be here with West Seattle news later in the day but for starters, here are the essential links as your holiday begins:
-West Seattle grocery store holiday hours are here
-West Seattle coffee shop holiday hours are here
-Free community Thanksgiving dinner: noon-3 pm, The Hall @ Fauntleroy (read more here)
-Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth ferry changes (other routes too) are here
-City reminder about parking
-City reminder about trash/recycling
We are thankful for countless blessings including your support of, and participation in, WSB!
Holiday reunion: Bike and owner?
From the inbox, Stephanie writes:
Yesterday I found a bike lying at the corner of Beach Dr and Oregon (right next to Me Kwa Mooks Park) with no one around to claim it. It’s either a mountain bike or a “hybrid”. I thought it might have been stolen, so I thought I’d let you know so you could post it. I’ll be happy to return it to anyone who can give an accurate description of it.
E-mail WSB if you think it’s yours, and we will forward to Stephanie; we’ll be right here keeping watch through the holiday.
Where to get your Thanksgiving morning latte (etc.)
So many years, we have found ourselves driving around in search of someplace to get espresso, early, before we start crafting the homemade stuffing and all that. So in hopes of saving you a similar gas-wasting experience, here’s what we have so far, in alphabetical order, for tomorrow’s West Seattle standalone-coffee-shop hours, from a combination of in-person visits and phone calls:
Alki Bakery, closed
Bakery Nouveau, closed
Bird on a Wire, open 8 am-1 pm
Bubbles on Alki & on Delridge, closed
Caffe Ladro, open till 2 pm
Capers, closed
Coffee to a Tea with Sugar, closed
Cupcake Royale, open 8 am-2 pm
Diva, open till 1
Easy Street, 9 am-1 pm
Freshy’s, open 8 am-1 pm
Hotwire, closed
Java Bean, open 7 am-2 pm
Original Bakery, closed (Friday too)
Red Cup, closed
Revolution, closed
Sleepless (DRIVE-THRU), 7 am-2 pm
Starbucks (all WS locations), open normal start time (drive-thru is earliest @ 4:30 am) thru 4 pm
Tully’s Alki, 7 am-4 pm
Tully’s Morgan Junction, 6:30 am-2 pm
Uptown Delridge, open 6 am-3 pm
Uptown Junction, open 6 am-4 pm
We weren’t able to get through to C & P or Cafe Rozella – anyone who knows, let us know; we’ll have to run by later and see if signs are on the door. 9:30 PM ADDENDUM: No clues to be had on the Rozella doors; a comment on this post says C & P is open in the morning, though. THURSDAY MORNING ADDENDUM: Added Diva; went by to check, they’re open till 1.
Orca alert: Keep an eye out from West Seattle’s west-facing shores
This just in from the Orca Network “sightings” e-mail list (you can sign up here), which usually brings first word of such things, before they turn up on the ON website:
Nov. 21: Orca Network received a call from Amy Carey at 9:45 am, relaying a report from a passenger on the Vashon passenger ferry of a pod of orcas off the north end of Vashon Island heading south at 8:15 am. She found the pod at 9:55 am, between Three Tree Point & Pt. Robinson, Maury Island still heading south. At 10:56 am they were at Pt. Robinson, and she was able to confirm them as J pod. By 11:13 am they had come around Pt. Robinson, moving slowly. A cargo ship, the Greenwich Bridge, blasted right through the pod, after which they did multiple breaches & spy hops. At 11:35 am she said they were still heading south, not quite to Brown’s Pt. At 12:05 pm they were directly off Gold Beach, heading into the Maury Island Reserve.
Fleeting new role for the mayor: Grocery-bagging
We mentioned earlier in the week that Mayor Nickels was going to wander over to his neighborhood supermarket, Metropolitan Market in Admiral, to help promote MM’s new reusable bags. He made good on his promise this morning and helped bag a few groceries – our WSB videographer was there to get the proof:
This also gives us an excuse to mention the West Seattle supermarket hours for Thanksgiving Day again: Metropolitan Market is open till 2 pm, Thriftway till 4 pm, QFC till 6 pm, the Safeways are open regular (24) hours, PCC is closed. ADDED 7:30 PM: Another clip from the Metro Market event, with the mayor joined by Terry Halverson, CEO of the Metropolitan Market chain (which is HQ’ed in West Seattle):Read More
Help West Seattle High School students: Adopt a traveler!
We were lucky to grow up with some opportunities to travel, around the U.S. as well as to a few other countries. Nothing too fancy, but still — as you know if you have been able to travel — it changes your perspective on your own slice of the world, in so many ways, that carry on throughout your life and enhance your ability to “think global/act local,” among other benefits. With that preface, here’s a chance to help some West Seattle teenagers gain that perspective as they prepare for the journey into adulthood: At West Seattle High School, the Travel Club is looking for partners and supporters to help make sure everyone who wants to join a 10-day student trip to Italy and Greece next spring can go. A nicely written press release appeared in the WSB inbox – so we’re sharing that, and the information that follows it about how you can help, including fundraising events that are just a few weeks away:Read More
West Seattle sunrise sight
Driving east on Harbor Ave at sunrise this morning, we spotted this formation in the southeast sky. Could have been anything — deteriorating jet trail? Mount Adams steam? — whatever it was, it caught our eye, and luckily the camera was along for the ride.
B(u)y the books: City budget success story
Two weeks ago, we told you about local library advocates’ call to let city councilmembers know the new budget needed to give libraries a better deal. This morning, two days after councilmembers approved a budget (which we reported here), Sarel Rowe from Friends of Southwest Branch Library, one of those advocates, sends everyone these words of thanks:
The City Council passed a $2 million increase for The Seattle Public Library materials budget in 2008. In addition they passed funding guidance requesting a baseline for future materials budget proposals of $1.5 million more than that included in the proposed 2008 budget. Your readers were instrumental in this progress. Thanks to you we can all celebrate renewed materials vitality at our branch Libraries.
For more info, Sarel points us to the Friends of the Seattle Public Library site. And you can celebrate by checking out any of West Seattle’s four branches: Southwest, Delridge, High Point, and West Seattle (Admiral). (They’ll be closed on Thursday and Friday for the holiday, though.)
Once proposed for a park/pool, 4515 41st is back up for sale
One year ago, we first wrote about the stretch shown above — 4515 41st and environs, on the east edge of The Junction. Neighbors were concerned at the time about a development proposal for a 7-story apartment/condo building on the 4515 41st parcel, and neighboring lots, that at one point even featured a “park & pool” plan. That had changed by the time the project finished going through the Design Review Board process, but neighbors’ concerns over the size of the proposed project remained. Now, WSB contributor Christopher Boffoli (who also took the photo above) reports, the original developers appear to be getting out — 4515 41st is on the market again. Two years ago, county records say, it sold for $925,000; now it’s offered for $1,500,000, with listing pages (such as this one) describing it as a “(f)antastic townhome or multi-unit site right in the heart of the West Seattle Junction.”
Nucor permit application: Time running out to comment
WSB reader Julia called this to our attention. We have not been able to do a lot of research on it but wanted to let you know about it before it’s too late, in case you are interested in having a say: Nucor Steel is upgrading one of its cranes, to boost production, and because that could increase emissions of carbon monoxide and a variety of other components (details in this notice), Nucor has to get permits from the state Ecology Department and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. Both are recommending approval; the deadline for public comment is tomorrow (the notice was apparently posted almost a month ago; as a result of this, we’ve learned about a new place to check for important public notices!), although it appears from the second part of a posting on this site that one piece of the project is open for comment until 12/12. Both these notices say a public hearing will be held only if there is “significant public interest” — contacts to express said interest can be found on the links.
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