West Seattle, Washington
25 Thursday
(Click for larger image)
When Lynn Sweeney Pedersen accepted “Emerging Business of the Year” at last Wednesday’s West Seattle Chamber of Commerce Westsider Awards, for her family’s The Grove/West Seattle Inn (WSB coverage here), she noted its history – opened as the Mar-Lyn Motel 50 years ago for the Seattle World’s Fair. Today, The Grove shared this 50-year-old postcard view of the Mar-Lyn. While the motel’s configuration hasn’t changed much, if you look closely, you’ll see some fun details (phone booth, drink machine, cars)…
A “brush fire” call this past hour at 29th and Cambridge wasn’t major – but it did bring police to Roxhill Park along with two fire engines; officers were looking for witnesses. Here’s the damaged patch:
Nobody was hurt; the fire was called in quickly enough that the fire crews made fast work of it.
It’s no guarantee that the current state-liquor-store locations will turn into private liquor stores, but the auction for rights to liquor licenses at existing store sites is over, and the state has announced the high bids. While many bidders face the prospect of negotiating with the sites’ current landlords – since the auction was just for exclusive license-application rights, NOT for the sites themselves – that’s not the case for one in West Seattle: At Capco Plaza in The Junction, owner Leon Capelouto was the high bidder for the license rights to his building’s almost-new “premier” store location, $225,445 – and also the high bidder for an Issaquah liquor-store location’s license-application rights, $251,000. For the Westwood Village liquor store location’s license-application rights, Ankur Patel was high bidder at $300,100. Kulwinder Pabla was the high bidder for the White Center store, $130,100. There are a variety of deadlines in the process now that bidding is over – for example, a deadline of May 4th for payment (per “terms ande conditions” here), after the state finalizes its announcement of winning bidders a week from today. The state has till June 1st to get out of the liquor business, when privatization, as approved by voters last year, takes full effect. The total amount bid on the license-application rights statewide was almost $31 million, according to the state’s news release.
(Mount Rainier over the 38th/Dakota rooftops, courtesy MG)
Gratuitous shot of The Mountain just to get your attention … it’s REALLY nice out – come home! But first:
From Alki to Arbor Heights, from Genesee to Greenbridge, 160 individual, group/organization, and block sales are now ready to go for the 8th annual West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day on May 12th, and if you are planning to join them on The Map, you have 56 hours till the registration deadline. Once signups end just before midnight this Wednesday night, Team WSB puts on our Team Garage Sale Day hats to get busy map-making and taking care of other details to pave the way for a great day – six hours of person-to-person recycling, as we like to call it, and also a great chance for the rest of the region to come on over and shop (not just the garage sales, but West Seattle stores and restaurants too). Speaking of which, if you have a bulletin board nearby (your workplace? school? favorite coffee shop? store? wherever!) to put up a simple letter-sized Garage Sale Day miniposter, thanks in advance for printing it out (here’s the PDF) and posting it, or sending it around, sharing this update via Facebook (and more) with the ShareThis tool beneath it, etc.! The more shoppers, the merrier. So whether you’re shopping or selling, we’re looking forward to another glorious WSCGSD on May 12th – here’s the signup form if your sale isn’t on the list already!
(Photo by Wendy Hughes-Jelen)
Thanks to Bill and Wendy for word of a crash at 35th/Morgan. Bill says no injuries are reported; Wendy says one car is involved that went “straight into the corner, took out the street tree, and hit two U-Haul vehicles. … Antifreeze or something is hissing from the engine compartment because of the tree damage. Front bumper is on sidewalk behind vehicle now.” Both have shared photos.
(Photo by Bill Bacon)
3:19 PM: Two photos added. No SFD medic unit sent to the scene, which would be confirmation that if there were any injuries, they weren’t major.
3:31 PM UPDATE: Just drove through 35th/Morgan – no traffic impediments on 35th; the westbound lane on Morgan by U-Haul (northwest side of the intersection) should clear soon, since the tow trucks is already there to take away the car that hit the U-Haul vehicles.
Two transit-related notes:
RAPIDRIDE WORK: Work continues along West Seattle’s future RapidRide route – the bus service that starts this fall – and we just noticed while in The Junction that, though the crew has moved off the Twilight/Edie’s/Rose Nails side of SW Alaska west of California, they are now cutting up the concrete on the other side of that stretch, by KeyBank, and that is closing the north entrance to the alley. The parking lot there is still open, but your best bet for getting to it is from 44th SW.
ROUTE 120 MEETING ON TUESDAY: One more advance reminder, tomorrow is your chance to get more information, and get questions answered, about the big changes ahead for Route 120 through eastern West Seattle. Metro’s having a meeting/open house 5:30-7:30 pm tomorrow (Tuesday, April 24) at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center (4408 Delridge Way SW). We first brought you word of this during a briefing at the Delridge Neighborhoods District Council meeting last month (WSB coverage here). Even if you can’t be there tomorrow night, you can take an online survey – deadline is this April – find it on the right side of this Metro webpage (which has more info about the Route 120 changes – not just the buses, but also Delridge “rechannelization” related to the changes).
It seems to be an annual Alki occurrence – looking back a few years into our archives – the morning after the first major sunshine, the beach park has trash trouble. John sent the photo, taken this morning east of Alki Bathhouse, noted, “Obviously the trash wasn’t emptied during the day yesterday … the whole boardwalk area is disgusting!” We checked with Seattle Parks to find out about this year’s maintenance plan, given yet another round of city budget-belt-tightening. Spokesperson Dewey Potter says yes, John is right – trash wasn’t emptied on Sunday, because crews won’t be on the summer schedule for another month: “Our crew, because of budget reductions, is on a Monday through Friday schedule until the summer seasonals start work at the end of May. The crew should be finished cleaning up Alki Beach by now. Not all the cans were full, which means people were just discarding trash. Sad, on Earth Day weekend.”
TUESDAY MORNING: We received some new info from Parks – here – including, they’re adding cans.
Publishing this on SPD Blotter this morning, Seattle Police headlined it “Road Rage Incident on Alki.” Reading the narrative, we’re retitling it “Parking Rage.” Nobody hurt, but one man went to jail:
On April 22nd, just before 7:00 pm, a Southwest Precinct officer working as part of the Alki Emphasis was flagged down by a motorcyclist at Alki Avenue SW and Marine Avenue SW. The complainant stated that just moments earlier a man driving a white Hyundai had intentionally struck his motorcycle as he was attempting to park it in the 2300 Block of Alki. The victim stated that after intentionally striking his motorcycle, the suspect got out of his car and went to the trunk of his car, where he pulled out a backpack. As the victim was asking the suspect why he struck his motorcycle, the suspect pulled a handgun out of the backpack. The victim told officers that he asked the suspect, “Do you really want to go there with your gun?” to which the suspect replied, “Yes, I do.” The victim later told officers he was afraid he or someone else might get hurt, so he got back on his motorcycle and left southbound on Alki, until he saw the officer and reported the incident.
(Photographed at the Seattle Chinese Garden by “old desolate,” shared via the WSB Flickr group pool)
70s again! Today’s calendar highlights:
VIADUCT/99 CLOSURE TONIGHT: Again this week, Monday-Thursday nights, Highway 99/Alaskan Way Viaduct will close overnight SOUTHBOUND between the Battery Street Tunnel and West Seattle Bridge. This week’s closures are scheduled for 9 pm-5 am.
BACK TO SCHOOL: Seattle Public Schools is back in session after spring-break week. That means sports, too!
DANCE, DANCE, DANCE … with Balorico at Kenyon Hall, starting at 6:30 pm. More on the listing page.
FLAT EARTH SOCIETY DJ SESSION AT WEST 5: It’s a Monday night tradition – 9 pm at West 5, turntable time. As they describe it, “Featuring a lineup of some luminous Seattle record junkies spinning the rarest and fairest vinyl from deep within their respective LP collections. Rare soul, garage, dirty-funk, J Pop, jazz and a smattering of world-stage psychedelia will be spinning at the popular lounge in the heart of West Seattle.” Tonight, it’s “Iron Megan” Wilson from West 5 and Easy Street.
LOOK AHEAD! Today/tonight might not have much on the schedule, but you can scroll ahead for days, weeks, months, via the all-grown-up WSB calendar.
3:30 AM: We’re checking out a fire call in the 5900 block of 39th SW (map) – crews originally were dispatched to an address on Fauntleroy Way, but scanner traffic has changed the location. Doesn’t sound big but they are calling for the investigator (Marshal 5). More when we get there.
3:42 AM UPDATE: At the scene, SFD tells us this was a small fire in some building materials behind what appears to be a construction/remodeling project. A neighbor who happened to be awake saw it and called it in to 911, and it was extinguished quickly. No injuries and no damage beyond the “building materials,” we’re told, but the investigator will have to figure out how it started. (Thanks to everybody who texted/e-mailed/tweeted about this!)
9:31 AM UPDATE: Just checked with Lt. Sue Stangl at SFD. Investigators couldn’t figure out exactly what started the fire, so the cause will remain officially “undetermined” – but she added that they found no evidence it was “suspicious.”
(Click image to see it in a larger size)
Sharing that photo (and others) taken during a Puget Soundkeeper trip along the Duwamish River, West Seattle volunteer Tom Foley wondered, “Does anyone out there know who might have numbered the animal and if they would like to know it has shown up here in Elliott Bay?” A bit of online research reveals Steller sea lions – the species we believe this to be – have been widely branded along the North Pacific so that sightings can be tracked; Stellers are on the endangered-species list. Can’t tell from this number, though, who might have placed it there…
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