West Seattle, Washington
05 Saturday
Pandemic updates, as February’s first week concludes:
KING COUNTY’S NEWEST NUMBERS: Tonight’s numbers from the King County daily-summary dashboard appear to have balanced out last night’s two-digit case count and five-digit testing count:
*78,686 people have tested positive, 537 more than yesterday’s total
*1,299 people have died, unchanged from yesterday’s total
*4,902 people have been hospitalized, 12 more than yesterday’s total
*855,745 people have been tested, 692 more than yesterday’s total
You might recall the county had no update last Sunday – so we’ll just note that two weeks ago, the King County totals were 74,562/1,215/4,725/813,111.
STATEWIDE NUMBERS: See them here.
WORLDWIDE NUMBERS: 106.1 million cases and 2,317,000+ deaths, 463,000+ of them in the U.S. – see the nation-by-nation breakdown here.
VAX FACTS: Two City County committees will dive into the state of the vaccination situation on Tuesday – the Public Safety and Human Services Committee at 9:30 am, Governance and Education at 2 pm. Find the agendas – which include information on how to watch/comment – here.
NEED FOOD? 3-5 pm Friday (February 12th), Highland Park Elementary (1012 SW Trenton) will be the site of a drive-up event to hand out food “snack packs” – they’ll contain milk, cheese, yogurt, 2 kinds of meat, sour cream, and onions
GOT SOMETHING TO REPORT? westseattleblog@gmail.com or 206-293-6302, text/voice – thank you!
What’s up around our area? The District 1 Community Network met this past week to talk about it.
Updates from various community-group and agency reps are at the heart of this West Seattle/South Park coalition’s monthly meetings, as well as discussion of current issues
From the Department of Neighborhoods, Ed Pottharst had these reminders:
*Highland Park Home Zone survey open until February 15th
*West Marginal Way open house set for February 18th, mailers going out
*Neighborhood Matching Fund applications opening – online workshops to help would-be applicants are set for 10 am February 20th and March 4th and 7 pm March 17th
The Delridge/Oregon pedestrian overpass has reopened. That’s part of this week’s update on the Delridge road work that’s paving the way for the RapidRide H Line conversion. The project team notes these key points:
Intermittent side-street restrictions may occur along 22nd Ave SW and SW Trenton St as crews work in the area. These streets will remain open, but drivers may experience short delays as construction activities take place.
Sidewalk and curb ramp upgrades on the west side of Delridge Way SW between SW Oregon St and SW Alaska St to begin this week.
Night work and water service impacts as part of the SW Juneau St watermain upgrades coming soon. SPU will begin notifying impacted properties this week.
Roadway paving nearly complete in Zone B. Once completed, traffic will flip from the east side of the roadway to the west. New reflective road markers will be placed to help designate this shift.
Demolition on the east side of Delridge Way SW for electrical and bus stop upgrades between SW Thistle St and SW Cloverdale St continue. This work will require driveways to be rebuilt. Residents who will be impacted will be notified in advance.
Speaking of Thistle, we asked how much longer that street will be closed east of Delridge. The reply: “While we don’t have a specific completion date scheduled for this work, you can expect this closure to last for several more weeks.” For the entire project zone, here’s the full update for the week ahead.
In honor of Super Bowl Sunday, here’s a super lineup of contributed bird photos. Above – something to watch for – a hummingbird nest, photographed by Kersti Muul of Salish Wildlife Watch. Kersti also shared this photo of a Red-winged Blackbird:
From Jerry Simmons, a Spotted Towhee:
Another orange-and-black bird you might see around, the Varied Thrush, photographed by Mark MacDonald:
Also from Mark, a Golden-crowned Kinglet:
Steve photographed this Great Blue Heron hanging out in a tree:
One more seabird view – WSB’s Patrick Sand saw these while we were checking out the wind and waves at Constellation Park on Sunday:
We don’t have an ID on those, nor on these photographed by Jessica Benson:
Meantime, we end where we began – with hummingbirds. Gentle McGaughey shared the feeder view:
(It’s best to have your feeders out of service right now, though.) And Theresa Arbow-O’Connor got the colorful closeup:
Big thanks, again, to everyone who shares photos, from birds to breaking news – westseattleblog@gmail.com!
If you’ve lived in West Seattle for more than a few minutes, you’ve probably heard about the short-lived early-20th-century amusement park Luna Park at the peninsula’s northern tip, likely even seen a few photos. But you probably haven’t heard or seen most of what West Seattle resident Paul Moyes shows you in the video above – Luna Park inside and out. Paul told WSB via email, “It is a detailed breakdown of the layout, location, and attractions of the amusement park. It proved a lot of fun researching where all the buildings and rides were located, and also discovering the names and a bit of backstory on the performers that entertained the throngs there.” Paul is not a historian – he told us he moved here in the ’90s (from Michigan) to study oceanography at UW – but has “enjoyed photography for a while (instagram.com/paulmoyes)” and this is his first video. “I’m considering learning more about videography and doing more vids in the future. I had such a great time on this one I think I caught the bug.”
Here’s an invitation for creative youth, from West Seattle-based nonprofit literary press Pleasure Boat Studio:
A local WS press is putting out a small magazine of kids art, comics, poetry, writing for elementary and middle-school ages.
Honoring and appreciating children’s creativity and expression, with the main impetus behind the project being that I imagine kids would really enjoy seeing each other’s art, comics, stories, and poems… Hence, a little zine, for kids, by kids!
Deadline 2.21.21
Kids can send in anything they’ve done that they like, or make something new. It will be in full color. This may be a one-time thing or I may put one out yearly depending.
Please send high-res JPEGS or PDFs to:
—
Lauren Grosskopf, Publisher/Designer
Lauren@pleasureboatstudio.com
10:48 AM: Congratulations to the school nutrition team at Denny International Middle School and Chief Sealth International High School, which have continued feeding students throughout the pandemic! The announcement is from Denny principal Jeff Clark:
Guess how many meals were given out to our community, thanks to all of the efforts being run out the Denny/Sealth kitchen last month.
If you guessed 23,733, you are correct! This number makes us the largest food distribution site in the entire state of Washington!
A very large number of meals go out thanks to our partnership with Amazon and their delivery drivers. A couple of months ago, a production crew came to Denny to film. It is possible that we might see Ms. Doree and our fabulous team during an Amazon Super Bowl commercial (they won’t tell us ahead of time).
Super Bowl commercial or no Super Bowl commercial, our amazing kitchen team and all of our partners deserve a massive shout-out of appreciation on behalf of our staff and entire community! Go Dolphins!
(We checked and so far, the only Amazon commercial previewed is the one for Alexa – but many commercials don’t get previewed, so be on the lookout!)
ADDED 7:11 PM: Legendary “lunch lady” Doree says this is the commercial:
(Note that’s West Seattle’s own Don Armeni Boat Ramp at the end, too.)
Besides Super Bowl Sunday, here’s what else is happening:
TODAY’S ONLINE CHURCH SERVICES: Every week we update our list of more than 20 local churches’ Sunday online services (a few also offer in-person options), with the latest links; find them here.
WEST SEATTLE FARMERS’ MARKET: 10 am-2 pm in The Junction, the market’s open. Scroll down the page at this link to find the vendor list and map for this week. (Enter at California/Alaska; pickups for online orders are at California/Oregon)
SCHOOL FUNDRAISER @ MISSION CANTINA: Get food/drink from Mission Cantina (WSB sponsor) today, takeout or dine-in (outdoor seating available), 11 am-8 pm, and help the Fairmount Park Elementary PTA. Details in our calendar listing. (2325 California sW)
WEST SEATTLE TOOL LIBRARY: Open 11 am-4 pm – need a tool to fix or improve something? (4408 Delridge Way SW)
CAMP SECOND CHANCE COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Monthly online meeting at 2 pm for updates on and questions about the tiny-house encampment in southeast West Seattle. All welcome. Video participation link:
us02web.zoom.us/j/85855234269?pwd=aG1yeDkzTWtmS0MyVENLUzRsYXNBQT09 – If needed: Meeting ID: 858 5523 4269, Password: 9701. Same codes apply if you dial in – 253-215-8782
FREE TO-GO DINNER: White Center Community Dinner Church will serve to-go meals at 5 pm, outside, near the Bartell Drugs parking lot in White Center. (9600 15th Ave SW)
Got something for our calendar? westseattleblog@gmail.com – thank you!
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