West Seattle, Washington
27 Saturday
We’ve mentioned the Seattle city online photo archives before. Many of these photos were taken for relatively mundane motives, say, documenting big public-works projects. (If you want to look at the Myrtle Street reservoir/tower construction from every angle, for example, this collection could put you over the moon. And check out this view of what preceded the Fairmount Park field along Fauntleroy.) But tucked into the archives are a few surprises, such as this pic that can be regarded as a reminder of the kaleidoscope of differences between wartime then and wartime now.
The site for Clementine is up. (That link goes to the shop’s “about us” page, which is more refreshingly real than most such pages are.)
How could we have missed John Moe? Heard a lot about his new book on the radio while driving around the past few days. The site for his “day job” mentions he lives on this side of the bay; his blog archive mentions some writing sessions at “the West Seattle Uptown Espresso.” (Which one?)
If you haven’t recently checked out our tab (above) with that title, you might want to consider taking another look. Almost every day, our searching (and e-mail-reading) turns up yet another blogger who lives here in West Seattle, and some of the finds are true gems, like Mona’s site, whose work induced a reaction truly deserving of the now-antique online acronym ROFLMAO.
Besides loving our side of the bay as it is now and as it will become — we find it cool to discover more about its history. If you share that interest, city pages like this are fun to play with. Don’t let the “unknown” on the main page fool you; click on the “view” link and you’ll probably get at least an infobit (such as, Luna Park Cafe was once “Pat and Ron’s Tavern”) as well as a pic. You can follow the “new search” link and also try one of your own, such as this search by street name with all results along Cali Ave.
Also on the subject of history, we discovered at the Morgan Junction Festival last weekend that you can still get a copy of the incredible, picture-laden “West Side Story” at the Log House Museum (and its gift shop has other “memory books” too).
In honor of the impending new school year … a shoutout to Arbor Heights Elementary teacher Mark Ahlness. I bumped into his “edtechblog” just now, after a few hops from the Arbor Heights PTSA blog, which I (in turn) happened onto while continuing the search for West Seattle-based blogs to link to. But I’d “heard” about him before — discovering some years back that because of him, Arbor Heights was something of a Web pioneer. (I’ve got a soft spot for 1994 too … that’s when West Seattle Blog World HQ got online, with a good old fashioned 14.4-if-you-were-lucky dial-up account that used the Lynx text browser to “surf” the early Web … oh, stop me before I get geekier.)
A bit more information about something we noted last month, the prevalence of land-use aps around West Seattle for a new wireless-Internet service called Clearwire (headquartered in Kirkland). Info on availability was scarce then, but while walking through The Junction the other night, we noticed a big Clearwire banner in the window at Quidnunc, so we e-mailed to see what’s up. Here’s what Quidnunc boss Bill wrote back:
I can’t give you specific dates yet. I’ve been told ‘this fall.’ I know that some towers will be up and running before the end of August but the full rollout for King, Pierce and Snohomish counties will likely be October or later (but we’re hoping earlier). Coverage will be totally dependent on the ability to receive the signal (like a cell phone). All of West Seattle will be covered, but it is likely that some areas will have stronger signals that others.
OK, this might be the most mundane WS cam yet, but nonetheless, it’s a WS cam. Purportedly out the window of a house near Alki. Just added to our cams page. If you know of any local webcams (family-safe, please) that I’m missing, please advise!
Nearing our six-month “anniversary” (yes, I know, “anniversary” really shouldn’t be applied to anything but increments of one year, so I put it in quotes), we’re thinking it’s high time to start putting together a page of other West Seattle-based bloggers. If you’d like to nominate someone, please e-mail me. Google Blog Search is helpful enough for pointing out who mentions WS in their blog, but it’s a little tougher to sort out who is truly BASED here (like this guy who popped up on GBS for the first time; I love his phrase “all-day dad”). So suggestions are more than welcome.
Or at least, it’s a tactic I haven’t seen before: new blog real estate listing here in WS.
It’s been more than a week since I first noticed AlkiNews.com had this link to an (at the time, alleged) Alki live cam. Each day and night, I’d try it to see if it was worth adding to this site … but it wasn’t working … till now! Hope it stays up; of all the WS spots in need of a live cam, Alki would be top of my list. (And remember I’ve got a cam page on this site; if you know of any suitable-for-family-viewing WS live cams to add to the list, please send me the link!)
Noticed recently that a lot of land-use applications in West Seattle these days — these addresses in Gatewood, Delridge, north end of Delridge, Admiral, Morgan Junction — are for wireless antennas for something called Clearwire. Thought maybe that was just a front company for the various wireless companies, but have since learned otherwise. And today, driving along Cali Ave, we noticed another Clearwire application sign up in front of the block of apartments/stores just south of the Junction 7-11. The Clearwire Web site does not mention how soon the company expects to launch West Seattle service; separate from the controversy over too many antennas going up too close for comfort, I’m interested in the possibility of an alternate broadband provider. Service from the Comcast monopoly is not really that Comcastic for us, and Qwest DSL doesn’t seem to be an option in our neighborhood. So we’ll keep an eye on this one too …
Not sure exactly how new it is, but it’s certainly a new addition to our West Seattle Cams page … an in-store cam at Quidnunc in the Junction.
(If you know of ANY WS live cam that’s not on our page — nothing adult, OK? — please send it our way … we’ve tried every search combination we can think of to unearth whatever’s out there, and this is all we’ve got. So far.)
–The latest edition of the Alki News Beacon just went up a few days ago.
–On the other end of the peninsula, the Fauntleroy Community Association’s spring newsletter is now posted.
–Found an excellent tale of community crime-fighting at the “Fairmount Springs” site.
–The West Seattle Junction site has been bannered “New Site Coming Soon” for months. I know redesigns are tough, but I’ve seen entire skyscrapers go up faster than this.
–Just one week till Colman Pool opens for the summer. If you have never been to this Sound-front city pool, you are missing something spectacular. Excellent swimming bargain, too, since its public swims run up to three hours, three times the maximum swim time for the same price at Southwest Pool and most other indoor facilities.
–Want to re-experience the joy of discovering West Seattle? Check out this blog entry from a new arrival.
Discovered two bloglets that seem to have something to do with the Junction successor to Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s (remember, you read it here first). Cupcakes ‘n’ coffee, trumpets the ad art featured on this page. If you want to be the first to know when they’ll open, you can sign up for their e-mail list here. And if you want to be intimately familiar with the signage and fixtures they’re looking at, have yourself a party here.
Ever wonder about the crime rate in your neighborhood?
Here’s a handy way to check. (To figure out which “census tract” you’re in, look here first.)
Hard to tell if this is anything more than an abandoned site, given the 2002 copyright and no evidence of absolutely recent activity … but it’s amusing (and heartening) just the same. (March 21 update: the link’s dead now … bummer.)
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