What a New Year’s Day along the West Seattle shore. First the Polar Bear Swim (see below), then the Seattle HOG (Harley Owners’ Group) taking off from Don Armeni on their annual “Chilly Buns Run” to Federal Way:
WSB dropped in for a quick soundbite as the retirement celebration began this morning for Lien Animal Clinic‘s Dr. Larry King. We asked what he’s going to do now:
-Back to the matter of New Year’s — we’ve added more businesses’ holiday hours to the WSB Holidays page (and more to come). Perhaps most notably, in case you were wondering, both state liquor stores on California (Morgan and Alaska Junctions) are open till 7 pm New Year’s Eve.
-And yes, the West Seattle Farmers’ Market is still going strong each and every Sunday — after tomorrow, though, it switches to 11 am-2 pm hours for January and February. Here’s this week’s “fresh sheet” provided by citywide Farmers’ Market organizers:Read More
It’s just not late December without a slew of reviews of the year that’s about to end. So we’ll join the parade again this year — in three daily installments, starting today with our picks for Top 7 West Seattle video moments of ’07. Since the WSB video era only began on 9/11/07 (thanks to the generosity of Pledge Day donors), we only have 3 1/2 months of video clips from which to choose, but it’s been a busy fall, so this is a decent list. The links in the headline/date go to the WSB posts containing the video clips, not straight to the clips themselves, so you’ll get the full context if you missed any of these original reports. Now the countdown:
#6 — WEST WATER SPOTLIGHTS, 11/14/07: West Seattle’s most hyper-marketed condo conversion didn’t stop at billboards, bus boards, sandwich boards, or broadcast commercials — it even sent spotlights into the WS sky for a few noteworthy nights.
#5 — BABY SEAL MANIA AT ALKI, 9/17/07: Throughout late summer and fall, the Seal Sitters kept watch as baby harbor seals hauled out along the West Seattle shore. Their watch spanned both joy and tragedy. WSB videotaped one of the crowd-pleasing pups.
#4 — MARS HILL IMMERSION BAPTISMS AT ALKI, 9/14/07: Hallelujahpalooza, we and others dubbed it. The only megachurch with a West Seattle branch brought a band as well as members from around the city to cheer (and pray for) those baptized in the chilly water of Puget Sound.
More than 50 people attended a cozy fundraiser upstairs at Duke’s on Alki tonight for the Seattle (Alki) Statue of Liberty Plaza Project. It marked the start of one more big push for the $57,000 that SSLPP leaders Libby and Paul Carr say they still need to pay for their group’s full vision of a plaza to surround the recast statue and its future new pedestal. They’ve already raised more than $100,000, including $50,000 from the city and other donations including this one announced by Walter Reese from Delridge’s Nucor steel mill (introduced by Libby Carr) at tonight’s event:
Here’s part of the opening remarks by KIRO Radio talk-show host Dave Ross, who emceed the evening, telling a story about appreciating the US – and its icons such as the Statue of Liberty and replicas like the one on Alki – after a trip in Eastern Europe long ago:
Other dignitaries who attended (but didn’t make speeches) included West Seattle-dwelling Seattle City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, his newly elected fellow Councilmembers Bruce Harrell and Tim Burgess, new city Parks Superintendent Timothy Gallagher, and West Seattle’s County Councilmember Dow Constantine. Here’s one more clip, as Paul Carr explains the state of the SSLPP finances:Read More
As a few flakes fly outside (forecast says maybe more later!), here’s an encore appearance for three WSB holiday video highlights from the past few weeks – first, the Christmas Ship off Alki on Dec. 8th (Canterbury Belles singing):Read More
From WSB contributing photographer Christopher Boffoli, three photos of tonight’s amazing car mishap on 47th south of Wildwood, between the ferry dock and the Fauntleroy business district:
The woman driving the car was taken to the hospital. ADDED 8:15 PM: Here’s WSB video of a tow crew pulling the car off the cable:.
Today and next Monday are great days to get holiday-dinner food donations to the West Seattle Food Bank (here’s the list we originally published). On Thursday, WSFB got a big boost from Nucor, which showed up with more than $9,000 in cash and gift cards along with thousands of pounds of food – here’s one of the truckloads they unloaded:
We also talked to the Nucor managers who were there to help with the delivery; Nucor’s been doing this at holiday time since 1996!
Experimenting with yet another video host – let us know how/if this one works for you – we’ve also uploaded the same clip to YouTube in case you’d rather watch it there (click for that version). Here, we captured the first moments of the backhoe biting into the building (click the pic to play the clip):
We also ran by a little while ago for this photo of the progress made in the past few hours – the facade’s all gone:
If you missed earlier coverage of what’s planned for this spot — per the city project page, it’s a two-story commercial building with retail, a restaurant (TBA as far as we know), and “medical-services offices.”
Three West Seattle stops down, one to go (Don Armeni, tomorrow night @ 7:10) for the Christmas Ship. We are just back from the Alki visit, quite a party with live music, free treats, and even Santa Claus — on a motorcycle:
We’re still testing out the various video-uploading options; tell us how that one worked for you. Meanwhile, two more clips:Read More
Under brilliant sunshine, in the face of biting cold wind, about 20 people just took the climate-change-awareness Alki plunge we mentioned yesterday. We’ve got the video to prove it (ADDED 3:40 PM; trying YouTube’s player again for the folks who say MySpaceTV isn’t working so well for them):
Along 35th, across the street from the highest point in the city, Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrated its annual Christmas tree lighting tonight. Here’s Father Jack Walmesley with the countdown:
And here’s the crowd singing “Jingle Bells,” jingling car keys in lieu of bells:
In case you missed it last weekend, here’s our video from the lighting of the West Seattle Community Christmas Tree in The Junction. (And we’ll be posting a wider photo of the OLG tree shortly as our Christmas lights pic of the night.)
We featured the famous Beach Drive Christmas house with a photo on 11/28 … then this week, the Menashe family graciously allowed us to stop by and get a narrated tour, including answers to some of the questions everybody asks (such as, “how many lights?” — the big tree alone has 100,000!). The display’s on 4:30-11:30 pm every night through New Year’s, and its location is one of many on our special West Seattle Christmas lights map (you’ll find it on our new WSB Holidays page). First clip: Josh Menashe shows us what’s new, and talks about what it takes to put this together:
Here are 3 more clips, starting with a longer walk-through:Read More
We linked yesterday to a photo of the water buildup in the 41st/42nd/Alaska megaproject construction … today, WSB contributing photographer Christopher Boffoli went by for some video of what’s being done about it:
Activities at Hometown Holidays in The Junction continue through 5 pm (full schedule here), including free photos until 2 pm with Santa Claus. (Those pix, taken by Erik Clineschmidt, are all online here.) We asked Santa if West Seattle’s been naughty or nice in ’07:
Santa also accompanied our video crew on a visit to kids making ornaments yesterday:
Back to today’s WS activities — tons of other stuff going on, all over town – it’s all listed in the latest West Seattle Weekend Lineup, including an artists’ show/sale this afternoon-evening at Ginomai (SW corner of 42nd/Genesee) and then tonight, right across the street at West Seattle Christian Church (just east of The Junction), a free concert (doors open @ 6:30) by the African Children’s Choir (donations will be accepted to help fight AIDS in Africa).
As we mentioned below — great turnout, big crowd despite the slush/sleet/cold. We’ve broken our coverage into four video clips; first, the big moment — Jack Miller from Husky Deli and family members lighting the tree; you see a little bit of the Endolyne Children’s Choir at the end, more from them in one of the clips added below.
Next, the local radio star (and West Seattle resident) who MC’d the event, plus the Endolyne kids (and more):Read More
The WSB video camera dropped by the Husky Deli 75th anniversary Open House tonight. The 1st clip includes a cameo of the spectacular cake created by nearby Bakery Nouveau; the 2nd one checks out the food & drink offered at the big event. Husky’s website, by the way, has been undergoing some renovations and now includes photos from Husky’s past. May the Miller family and staff enjoy 75 more! (at least)
The Fauntleroy Community Association website has posted a short video clip from the recent Fauntleroy Creek coho return – follow the link from the fauntleroy.net home page. And there’s new information beyond what’s posted with that video — we visited the fish-ladder overlook (across the street and up the bluffside staircase from the ferry dock) over the weekend and saw a note headlined “IT’S A WRAP,” indicating creek-watchers believe this year’s return is over — but they did count more than 90 fish during the week-long return, compared to none last year and 46 in ’05. Next step, according to that note – watching for fry in February.
Now you know the holiday season is really here — West Seattle’s most famous nonprofit Christmas tree lot just opened at noon today, in the parking lot south of Admiral Safeway as usual. We stopped by for video as the volunteers were finishing final preparations late this morning — first clip, some of those volunteers hard at work pre-opening:
Here’s Scott Willhite talking about some of what’s new at the lot this year, plus where the tree $ goes:
The Holy Rosary lot has its own website with more info. (By next weekend, by the way, we’ll be surveying all WS tree-sellers for our annual price-check.)
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
Yes, we know the West Water condo-conversion marketers are likely laughing all the way to the bank, while observers grumble and gripe and gnash teeth over the unprecedented overkill of their over-the-top campaign. Nonetheless … it’s the gaudiest thing to hit this side of West Seattle in a long time, so we’re all over it. Earlier today, we discussed the spotlights that are the latest bling in this blitz. After dark, we couldn’t resist heading down the hill with our video camera:
In today’s earlier post, and its comments, readers shared info about how to complain about aspects of this condo campaign that appear to break city rules, such as the sandwich-board signs along roads and highways. One more to add — this one from Jill:
Please add the Seattle Dept of Planning and Development number 206-615-0808, so that citizens can complain. Or file one online at seattle.gov/dpd/enforcement/code_compliance/filing_a_complaint
The marketers have laughed off the city’s attempts to assess 500-dollar/day fines. Apparently that’s less than the cost of renting throw pillows. Maybe a lawsuit over light pollution, the windsail signs, or a traffic accident in front of Ladro will be needed to do the trick.
So we’ll join the parade again this year — in three daily installments, starting today with our picks for Top 7 West Seattle video moments of ’07. Since the WSB video era only began on 9/11/07 (thanks to the generosity of 
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