West Seattle, Washington
10 Thursday
Just got word from Southwest Seattle Historical Society director Clay Eals that the 9/11 luminaria bags shown last night in “The Earth Cried Out” (WSB coverage here) will stay on the Alki Arts walls through Wednesday night – the 12th anniversary of 9/11. The gallery is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, so you can only see the bags through its windows (2820 Alki SW) right now, but on Wednesday it will be open noon-7 pm for viewing. (Additional bags that weren’t on the walls have been returned to storage, but the walls hold hundreds.)
We’re checking to see if police have more information to share, but in the meantime, multiple Holy Rosary School parents have forwarded us a safety alert sent by the school, and we’re sharing it so others can be on the lookout: The school told parents: “Students reported that a man was seen in a parked white vehicle with his door open. He was naked. It seemed to be a white SUV.” The alert added that staffers were out looking around the school (which is at 42nd/Genesee on the north end of The Junction) and had alerted police.
Following up on two items noted in this morning’s daily preview: Seattle City Councilmembers have just voted to approve two bills related to development: A six-month extension of restrictions on small-lot development, and an “emergency” bill setting minimum density requirements for neighborhood-commercial-zoned lots in pedestrian-oriented areas. Councilmember Richard Conlin, the sponsor for both, said it was a coincidence they turned up on the same council agenda, and also noted that the minimum-density rules were not likely to affect the three projects that inspired them, including the 4722 Fauntleroy Way one-story drugstore proposal (first reported here in July), because they were “vested” when they first started the official application/review process. In addition, he said he’s expecting proposed permanent rules for small-lot development to come to the council for review in November.
The WSB West Seattle Event Calendar includes recurring listings for story times at local Seattle Public Library branches – but we just found out there’s a special guest at High Point Library‘s Family Story Time tonight: Seattle Storm player Temeka Johnson, the WNBA’s 2005 Rookie of the Year, will read from her book “Temeka’s Choice.” Autographs too! Story time starts at 6:30 pm; HP Library is at 35th/Raymond.
Thanks to Serena and Holly for the tips about a film/video crew at work in the east Admiral area, near Belvidere and Stevens. They wondered what was up; we went over to check. The crew tells us it’s a commercial for REI – fitting location since the outdoor-merchandise giant was founded in West Seattle, and until recently was led by West Seattleite Sally Jewell, now U.S. Interior Secretary. The setting appears to be lawn bowling (as our photo shows), with a sign noticed by one of our tipsters reading “Seattle Lawn Party.” West Seattle is a fairly frequent setting for commercials, given the peninsula’s great views and varied environments, from beach to forest. P.S. Just for fun, we searched REI’s website for “bowling,” and got back only this not-exactly-lawn-size set involving zombies.
Less than one week to go until the sixth annual West Seattle Car Show in The Junction this Sunday (September 15th), produced by Liberty Bell Print and Design. The show will close California SW in the business district starting early Sunday morning; official hours for the show are 8 am-4 pm. Pre-1980 cars, trucks, motorcycles will be parked on both sides of the street, and it’s free to spectators. Early registration is over for participants but you can enter on show day if there’s room – $25; details on this page of the official website. The West Seattle Farmers’ Market will be on as usual (10 am-2 pm) that day too. For more West Seattle Car Show details, check out the official website and our August 12th preview; WSB is among the co-sponsors, as we’ve been each year since it began.
That spot on the north side of Westwood Village, between Massage Envy (WSB sponsor) and Staples, will be the new home of the Highline Medical (also a WSB sponsor) clinic that’s moving from Roxbury/17th. We confirmed the Westwood clinic plan on Saturday morning, while covering the Admiral Theater event celebrating the winner of Highline’s student “health tips” billboard-art contest, for which we published the call for votes back in June.
That’s the winning artist, Audrey, who goes to school at Holy Rosary. Her billboard is scheduled to go up this week alongside the West Seattle Bridge – here’s her winning art exhorting everyone to exercise:
Audrey’s win also is a win for her school, which gets a $500 health-education grant.
P.S. The Westwood location is scheduled to open in November; Highline clinics also have name changes in the works because they’ve become part of the Franciscan Health System.
(Photo by Kate Hailey, shared via the WSB Flickr group)
First full week of school, and though summery weather is forecast for the next few days, this morning’s fog brings a fall feeling. So does some of the very serious business in today’s roundup:
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL FOR SOME KINDERGARTENERS: As noted here last month, four local schools start kindergarten on a “slow-start” schedule to facilitate meetings with families. So this is the first day for kindergarteners at Concord, Highland Park, Roxhill, Sanislo, and West Seattle Elementary Schools.
CITY COUNCIL VOTES ON DEVELOPMENT RULES: At their 2 pm meeting today, Seattle City Councilmembers will consider two development-related measures of note – extending a moratorium on some development on “undersized single-family-zoned lots” (read the legislation here), and putting “emergency” restrictions into place to prohibit “low-scale development” in pedestrian-oriented mixed-use zoning (read the legislation here). The meeting’s at City Hall downtown.
WEST SEATTLE HI-YU NEEDS YOU: From Regina:
West Seattle Hi-Yu will be having their General Meeting (tonight) at St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, 3050 California SW, at 6:30 pm. We are looking for 2013-2014 board members, volunteers, and participants for the junior court (8-12 years old) and senior court (18-23 years old). If you love parades, people, community service, and fun, come join and share your ideas. All are welcome – be part of a long tradition in West Seattle. Contact westseattlehiyu.com for information.
St. John’s is at California/Hanford, just south of West Seattle High School.
NORTH DELRIDGE NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL: Monthly meeting is at 6:30 pm tonight, Delridge Library. Agenda highlights from co-chair Parie Hines:
We’ll be hearing from the Green Seattle Partnership about the upcoming Green Seattle Day. We will also have representatives from Seattle Public Utilities to hear your concerns about stormwater and drainage issues that need attention. And we will start the discussion about a peninsula-wide West Seattle Transit Coalition to look at what the future without the Viaduct will look like.
The library is just south of Delridge/Brandon.
Be on the lookout for David‘s stolen pickup truck:
Our 2001 Dodge Ram was stolen at 2:30 am today, September 9th, near 39th/Charlestown [map]. We saw the crooks drive off in it when we heard the engine start, but couldn’t catch up. It’s a Ram 1500 with a canopy, golden brown color. It has some historic family photos which, while valueless to anyone, are irreplaceable to us. Bunch of steel and papers on its way to the recycle center in back. Please call 911 if you spot it; the police are also looking.
Checking the police-call map, in the past 24 hours vehicle thefts also were reported at 44th/Alaska (early today) and at Lincoln Park (last night) – no details on those, though, unless, as in the stolen-pickup case, we hear directly from the vehicles’ owners.
(Live view from the east-facing WS Bridge camera; other cameras are on the WSB Traffic page)
Monday begins with fog (on the water, too; we’re hearing foghorns from the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth ferry route off to our west). This will also be a big week of road work:
*SW Orchard eastbound between Sylvan and Delridge, all week as part of the Delridge Way Repaving Project
*42nd/Morgan repaving work, begun last week, is scheduled to continue
*Tomorrow through Friday, road work is scheduled on SW Thistle between 35th and 37th
Also of note this week, particularly if you are a transit rider – two neighborhood groups’ meetings this week will include early discussions of an in-formation West Seattle Transit Coalition: tonight, 6:30 pm at Delridge Library, the North Delridge Neighborhood Council; tomorrow, 6:15 pm at Southwest Library, the Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights Community Council. Public welcome at both.
Their messages ranged from simple, like the one above from children who are now adults, to wrenching, like this one:
At Alki Arts on Sunday night, there was no way to read all the bags on special display, let alone the ones for which there wasn’t enough room on the gallery walls:
But just the concept of their existence – echoes from the nights after 9/11, the bags for luminarias that glowed with anger, love, hope at Alki’s Statue of Liberty – is sobering enough. With the 12th anniversary of 9/11 just a few nights away, the Southwest Seattle Historical Society brought the bags out for a one-night-only display and began it with a lineup of speakers. They included Dean Keppler, who (as recounted here) briefly choked up with emotion as he recalled setting up a table with bags and pens and lights for people to make their luminarias, a “spontaneous and organic experience”:
Also speaking were City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, who observed that the bags’ messages had a “common theme (of) love and justice and patriotism,” and County Executive Dow Constantine, who called 9/11 and its aftermath “a shared experience we never wanted to share.” We have it all on video, starting with the introduction by SWSHS executive director Clay Eals:
To evoke some of the 2001 experience, battery-powered tea lights lined the bottom of the walls holding hundreds of bags, and outside the gallery, some bags ringed a tree:
The bags were donated to SWSHS earlier this year.
From the crowded party inside the Alki Bathhouse, to the ribbon-cutting for Georgia Gerber‘s bronze sculpture “Sentinels of the Sound” outside the bathhouse:
… to the hundreds who watched and applauded …
… Seal Sitters‘ Harbor Seal Day celebration made a big splash on this sunny Sunday, celebrating the volunteers who watch over visiting pups, and the marine mammals themselves, all as the highlight of the group’s Year of the Seal outreach project. The outdoor event that kicked it off included Seal Sitters’ Robin Lindsey and Brenda Peterson, Duwamish Tribe member Ken Workman greeting everyone in Lushootseed, artist Gerber, young Seal Sitters, Bernie Matsuno from the city Department of Neighborhoods reading Mayor McGinn‘s proclamation and State Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon reading Governor Inslee‘s proclamation.
See it all in our video:
More photos ahead!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ever wish for advance alert of an upcoming meteor shower/eclipse/etc. – and/or wonder “What’s that bright ‘star’ up there?” Here you go! It’s our monthly feature by West Seattle’s own Solar System Ambassador Alice Enevoldsen, famous for her solstice/equinox sunset watches among other things.
(Moon and Venus at dusk tonight; photo shared by Greg, over Weather Watch Park)
By Alice Enevoldsen
Special to West Seattle Blog
Welcome to fall! Fall is packed: Rocket launches to the Moon and Mars (both unmanned spacecraft); Comet ISON, which is being bid as the Comet of the Century—maybe, lots of very bright stars, and a sunset watch. Whew. Read on.
Hey! What’s That?
In the W just after sunset: Venus or Saturn
Following up on a volunteer cleanup we previewed here before the weekend, Barry White from Friends of Morgan Junction Park shares this report and photos:
20 volunteers from Peace Lutheran Church joined Friends of Morgan Junction Park to complete the first phase of a restoration to the triangle park next to Thriftway in the Morgan Junction. In a little under three hours, the group weeded and cleared brush to open the interior of the park and applied three cubic yards of mulch.
The second phase of restoration will include new plantings to be installed next spring. Friends of Morgan Junction Parks wishes to thank the wonderful volunteers for their enthusiasm and hard work today.
Keep up to date on Friends of MJP’s activities via the group’s Facebook page, here.
Along with the breaking/major stories we’ve reported on this weekend, four reader reports have come in over the past few days:
Big item stolen from Zephyr‘s back yard in Highland Park on Friday:
Just thought I’d let the blog know my Silver Snug Top Canopy (for Toyota Tacoma 2000’s model years) was taken from our back yard sometime today (while I was at work). Who knows, maybe it’ll surface somewhere…
Frank is hoping to catch a hit-run driver:
Can you ask your readers if anyone witnessed a hit and run (Friday night) around 9:45-10 pm near Delridge Playfield (with the turf and lights)? A white car of unknown make and model hit my blue Scion TC on the southbound lane of Delridge Way just south of Oregon St. (I know it was a white car because of the white paint scratches) Any info would be helpful.
West Seattle resident Gina is hoping to get her car back – stolen downtown, but you never know where it might turn up:
My car was stolen (Saturday) from 8th and Madison in downtown Seattle, has the Upper Alki sticker on rear bumper. Nothing in car of value, only a 15-year-old beach towel from J.F. Henry used to cover steering wheel on hot days. And a roll of toilet paper in the trunk. Purple 1994 Acura Integra, 4-door, WA plate ANC4454.
Terry has a scam alert – we know these are common, but the more warnings, the better!
My mother received a letter (recently) in the mail from what looked to be from Publishers Clearing House with a check for over $4,000. The ‘check’ was on Wells Fargo bank. In the letter she was asked to call a man named Peter Goodman @ phone # 647-784-6400 to claim with an authorization code. This is a complete scam! We reported it to police. Also went to the bank to verify it was a scam and to give them a copy of the ‘check.’ Please alert your readers.
And now, a chance to make a difference helping crime victims. The open house is downtown but the victims you help might be right here on the peninsula. From Sarah:
Volunteer with the Seattle Police Department’s Victim Support Team! Volunteers assist victims of domestic violence during the weekend hours. Help to stop the cycle of violence in your community.
Attend a VST Open House!
*Tuesday, September 10th, from 12:00pm-1:00pm *MUST RSVP WITH SARAH SORENSEN
*Location: Seattle Police Headquarters
*610 5th Ave [downtown]RSVP by completing the following online registration form: surveymonkey.com/s/LF7VSKS – Questions? Please call the VST Recruitment Line @ 206-615-0892
Find out even more about the VST in the second half of our story about February’s West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meeting, at which Sorensen was a speaker.
Three days before the 12th anniversary of 9/11, tonight is your one-night-only chance to visit Alki Arts and see the Southwest Seattle Historical Society-presented exhibit “The Earth Cried Out.” Volunteers and staffers have spent many long hours preparing the luminaria bags saved after the post-9/11 expressions of mourning and hope at Alki Statue of Liberty, including the work shown in our photo, setting them up at the gallery this afternoon – and tonight, starting with short speeches at 6:30 and continuing past 8 pm, they’ll be on display, along with other mementos.
Full details are here; the backstory is here. See you there.
We’re outside Alki Bathhouse, where chairs and a mini-stage are set up in advance of the 1:30 pm dedication ceremony for the “Sentinels of the Sound” sculpture by Georgia Gerber – a highlight of Seal Sitters‘ Harbor Seal Day festivities, under way here until 4 pm. If you’re not here yet, get yourself to the beach! Even if you don’t make it for the ceremony, there’s plenty more to see and do. Here’s the order of events for the rest of the day:
2 pm ribbon cutting (following speeches)
2:15-2:45 pm jazz quintet on the east side of the Bathhouse
2:15-3:45 pm face-painting with Lashanna on the east side of the Bathhouse
2:30 pm cake/refreshments inside the Bathhouse
3:45 pm raffle winners drawn/announced (don’t have to be here to win)
4 pm festivities conclude
The organizations inside the Bathhouse there to meet you, answer questions, etc., include not just the Seal Sitters, but also The Whale Trail, Killer Whale Tales, NOAA, Puget SoundKeeper Alliance, PAWS, Tox-Ick, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
2:15 PM UPDATE: The ceremony and speeches just ended; fun continues inside and outside the Bathhouse. We have it all on video and will publish that later.
3:27 PM UPDATE: The event photos and video will be in a separate report, but we’ve added one image here – Seal Sitters kids who joined founder Brenda Peterson onstage to tell their stories, after she told three – the story of Spud, the pup who inspired the creation of Seal Sitters; Leopard and Silkie, who became the subject of a book by Peterson and SS’s first responder (and much more) Robin Lindsey; and Sandy, the pup who was rehabilitated, then tracked, then died because of abandoned fishing gear. You’ll hear it all on our forthcoming video. The event’s on till 4; really big crowd!
Fall is peak season for nonprofits’ fundraising galas – and we have one to add to your calendar: The West Seattle Helpline has announced November 15th as the date for theirs. It’ll be 6-9 pm that night (a Friday) at the Duwamish Longhouse in West Seattle, with a catered sit-down dinner. Other details to come; keep an eye on wshelpline.org. (Not familiar with what Helpline does? It’s explained here.)
P.S. Helpline also will be the beneficiary of an October 3rd event at Talarico’s in The Junction – details here.
UPDATED 11:25 AM: Delayed because of site work, here’s our full event list for the day (previously published in brief on our backup site earlier this morning):
NOW UNTIL NOON – West Seattle Junior Football/Cheer pancake breakfast at Alki Masonic Center in The Junction. (40th/Edmunds)
NOW UNTIL 2 PM: West Seattle Farmers’ Market. (44th/Alaska)
NOW UNTIL 6 PM: Seattle’s first-ever San Gennaro Festival on South Angelo in Georgetown (first-ever Seattle version, presented by West Seattle’s Mascio family). Here’s our Saturday update. (Map to S. Angelo St.)
HAPPENING NOW: Friends of Morgan Junction Park cleanup at the small triangle park north of West Seattle Thriftway (WSB sponsor). All welcome. (Fauntleroy/42nd/Morgan)
HAPPENING NOW: “The Kitchen Pantry Cookbook” book signing at CAPERS in The Junction with Chef Erin Coopey.
NOON-7 PM: Final day this year to swim at Colman Pool on the shore at Lincoln Park; here’s the schedule.
1-4 PM: Harbor Seal Day events presented by Seal Sitters at Alki Bathhouse, including sculpture dedication at 1:30 pm. (60th/Alki)
1-5 PM: DIY Bikes bike repair at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. Details here. (4408 Delridge Way SW)
2 PM: “Adventures of Owl and Pussycat” presented by theaterSIMPLE at Westcrest Park. Details here. (9000 8th SW)
3 PM: West Seattle Cooking Club at Beveridge Place Pub. (6451 California SW)
6:30 PM-8:30 PM: “The Earth Cried Out” viewing of 9/11 (and afterward) luminaria bags from Alki Statue of Liberty, one night only, presented by the Southwest Seattle Historical Society at Alki Arts. (2820 Alki SW)
8 PM: Mark Pickerel, Christy McWilson and Blackie perform at A.A.R.F. benefit @ Feedback Lounge (WSB sponsor). Details here. (6451 California SW)
That’s a frame from surveillance video that’s now in police’s hands, showing burglars that stole thousands of dollars in merchandise from West Seattle Runner (WSB sponsor), and doing costly damage in the meantime – note the boarded-up window:
A WSB reader and WSR customer tipped us on this; we contacted proprietors Tim and Lori McConnell, who tell the story here:
We were burglarized Friday morning around 3:30. Two men broke into our locked downstairs door by prying it open and defeating the lock. They then broke our exterior window to gain access to the store. They were in the store for about 8 minutes and took a duffel bag out with them. They returned about 45 minutes later; the first (burglar) took a small bag with him and the second one had our cash drawer, which contained no cash. He dropped it, climbing out the window, and it popped open. When he noticed no cash, he left it. He also got his bag stuck while climbing out, spilling the contents in the upper hallway. The second (burglar) also took a few pairs of shoes with him, mens size 12.5, Saucony, Nike Pegasus and Asics Kayanos. Both suspect were fairly tall, and we believe one of them had been in earlier during business hours with his girlfriend.
They stole all of our GPS watches and heart-rate monitors, including the non-working displays. They also stole all of our Tifosi sunglasses, and some random items including running headlamps and flashing clip-on lights. They did not get our register cash, as we keep that in another location, but they did break into our small lockbox where we keep extra one-dollar bills and change, taking all the ones (about $80). All told it was about $5,000 worth of items, not including the cost of the window and the new cash drawer.
We have video of both of them, which is how we know what time they broke in. They moved the camera that faces the entry door to Anytime Fitness, but I assume they were not aware about the other cameras that we got most of the video from. The video has been given to SPD Burglary Division. We also have witnesses that called 911, but SPD didn’t get there in time. We ask that anyone that is approached to buy any items from Polar, Garmin or Timex, or random Tifosi sunglasses without the case, contact SPD. Or if you see them for sale on Craigslist or EBay, please let us know. It’s just merchandise, and its not like having your personal items stolen (that happened to us last month in Vancouver), but it still feels like a violation. Especially when we watched the videos of them carrying away all of our merchandise that we make a living from. We do have insurance, but like all insurance, we have a deductible, so we will be out at least $1000 plus whatever items we don’t know were stolen.
We hate to see this and want to let all other small businesses know this happened. We really thought we were safe from this type of crime. Maybe not immune, but definitely not on crooks’ radar. Who would rob a running store? Well, apparently the two guys who did this would.
We want our friends, runners, customers and neighbors to know we still love West Seattle, we still live here and this will not deter us from continuing to operate in, and support all, of West Seattle.
Thanks, Tim and Lori
Again, contact police if you know anything about the burglary – or the stolen items. If and when we get clearer surveillance images and suspect descriptions, we’ll publish a followup.
(Players with head coach Jeff Scott)
The final score’s just in from our crew at West Seattle Stadium: Seattle Lutheran High School wins its first game of the year, beating Evergreen Lutheran, 23-14.
ADDED: Two photos – in the one above this paragraph, #5 for the Saints is Grant Doerr; he got the team off to a big start with two interceptions in the first quarter. The first half’s big overall defensive performance by SLHS held off ELHS scoring until the fourth quarter. Next weekend, the Saints host Lake Roosevelt, 1:30 pm Saturday (September 14th).
Big Sunday ahead in West Seattle – particularly on Alki, where two major events are happening in the afternoon and evening, and we have details tonight on how both will unfold:
Harbor Seal Day – as proclaimed by the mayor and governor, as part of Seal Sitters‘ “Year of the Seal” – is happening in and around Alki Bathhouse 1-4 pm Sunday. In addition to what you see on the poster, we have the program, courtesy of Seal Sitters’ David Hutchinson – see it here as a PDF, highlighted by the sculpture dedication at 1:30 pm. And check out the Seal Sitters’ Blubberblog for previews, including Alki establishments that are donating part of their proceeds tomorrow (along with the still-available Seal Sitters-benefit mocha at Hotwire Online Coffeehouse [WSB sponsor] in The Junction).
On Sunday night, don’t miss “The Earth Cried Out” – the Southwest Seattle Historical Society‘s early 9/11 anniversary commemoration, with a chance to revisit history, looking at many of the decorated bags that held luminarias at the Alki Statue of Liberty on and after 9/11. It’s happening 6:30-9 pm Sunday at Alki Arts (2820 For the past few days, volunteers have been preparing the bags at the Log House Museum – SWSHS executive director Clay Eals sent this work-in-progress photo today:
And he shared an update at afternoon’s end:
We have finished processing the 9/11 bags — in other words, emptying out sand and folding them. The total number of bags that were given to us in February is 1,580. Along with 112 bags we already had in our collection from 9/11, the grand total is 1,692 bags.
This is far more than the 1,000 we had estimated would be on display tomorrow. For tomorrow’s event, we will display as many of the bags as possible. The two walls that Diane Venti is making available for the bags probably will hold a total of 800 or so bags. We also probably will line the gallery floor and sidewalk with bags anchored by rocks or beach glass to simulate the luminary effect. We also plan to bring bins that will hold remaining, undisplayed bags so that those attending can flip through them and see them.
Read the story behind the luminarias and the bags here. The exhibit is for one night only, starting with speakers at 6:30 pm, then viewing around 7 until at least 8 pm, maybe later, says Eals, “depending on the interest shown by those present. I have been advising people to come a little earlier than 6:30, perhaps around 6, so that they can get a good spot for the program, as we are expecting quite a crowd. We will have a sound system and a mike so that everyone can hear the speeches.” Alki Arts is at 2820 Alki SW, just south of 63rd SW.
Bright sunshine and a bright smile from West Seattleite Angela Mascio when we stopped by for a few photos at Seattle’s first-ever San Gennaro Festival, which she and her family are presenting through 10 pm tonight and again 6 am-6 pm tomorrow in Georgetown. Yes, there’s food:
… and music!
… and as you can tell from the photos, all with an Italian theme. See our original story for more background; here’s the entertainment schedule; here’s the map to South Angelo Street, the little Georgetown street that’s closed to traffic for the festival.
| Comments Off on 9/11 luminaria-bags exhibit extended at Alki Arts