West Seattle, Washington
03 Wednesday
Thanks to David Hutchinson for new photos including that fisheye view of the in-progress Alki Statue of Liberty Plaza — which is scheduled to be done in less than two weeks, with the all-day dedication celebration scheduled for Saturday, 9/6. (More details on the celebration are now posted on the Statue of Liberty Plaza Project website, by the way.) Another big milestone in the past week – installation of thousands of pavers:
David says, “By Saturday almost all, including the 1503 with inscriptions, were in place.”
All WSB coverage of the Alki Statue of Liberty is archived here.
First — Luckie sends three pix from the Arts-in-Nature Festival‘s second and final day at Camp Long today, before the deluge:
Luckie was up on Schurman Rock to get that photo of the dome set up as part of the Nature Consortium‘s annual extravaganza. Next, kids working on, well, art in nature:
Final pic – an unwelcome guest at the festival – Luckie says a Camp Long naturalist found it in one of the park ponds and told her that “it’s a non-native species that is partly responsible for driving out the native frogs. Nobody knows how it got there—possibly, someone slipped it into the pond. The naturalist noted that releasing a non-native species such as this one opens a Pandora’s box of possibilities, which are seldom good”:
The Nature Consortium does a lot more than put on this festival; restoring the West Duwamish Greenbelt is its main mission, and you can join the effort in a work party almost every weekend (watch the West Seattle Weekend Lineup and greenseattle.org). Second Camp Long-related note tonight: We just got a news release about what sounds like a HUGE volunteer effort at Camp Long on September 20th – up to 500 volunteers fanning out to work in the park. Here’s the full announcement:Read More
Marco kindly shared that photo from the final hour of the first day of the Nature Consortium’s Arts-in-Nature Festival at Camp Long — that’s Pyrosutra (you won’t be surprised to hear they’re now heading off to Burning Man), accompanied by the Yellow Hat Band (and note Schurman Rock in the background). The festival continues today, 11 am-6 pm, with another rich array of art and, well, nature – here’s today’s schedule. $5 donation requested for admission.
It’s been three months since we took that photo on the first ’08 day of operations at Colman Pool in Lincoln Park … and now, a note from Alison wisely advises us it’s time to remind you that Colman Pool is going into its last full week of the summer. Monday 9/1 (Labor Day) is its last weekday of the year; after that, it’ll be open for one “post-season” weekend 9/6-9/7, and then the plexiglass gets boarded up again till May 2009. So soon! Remember, this also means about two months with no city-run swimming facilities open in West Seattle, since Southwest Pool‘s renovations are now expected to last into late October, with 11/1 the target reopening date (latest WSB update here). (The West Seattle YMCA [WSB sponsor] and Allstar Fitness both have pools, however.) One more Seattle Parks and Recreation-related note — if you can’t resist thinking holidays already, the fall “combined brochure” for all West Seattle community centers (plus South Park) is online and it’s even got the dates for the Christmas ship (12/13-12/14).
FANNA, the group proposing a “play area” and/or expanded “beautification” in the area of California Place, the Admiral District mini-park shown above, just got word of city grant approval – here’s how it was announced on the official mailing list:
We’ve just received word from the Department of Neighborhoods that our application for funds to plan improvements at California Place Park has been approved! We’ve been awarded $15K to hire a landscape architect to help take us through the planning process. Along with our letter was a personally written note from Mayor Greg Nickels who said, “As a neighbor, I’m looking forward to seeing your project!”
Next steps are to align with our Project Manager at the Dept of Neighborhoods and our representative at the Parks Department to define scope and refine our work plan.
That’s the second West Seattle park/play project in less than 15 hours to get word of a $15K grant — we told you last night about the approval for the Cottage Grove Park “tot lot.”
News tonight from the North Delridge Neighborhood Council e-mail list: The project to add play equipment for small children to Cottage Grove Park (map), creating a “tot lot,” has won a $15,000 matching-funds city grant, according to Betsy Hoffmeister. (This is the project we’ve told you about several times in the past few months, including this springtime request for input on three play-equipment options, and the architect search earlier this summer.) Organizers promise info soon on what happens next.
Tension last night as the Admiral residents proposing a “play area” for the California Place mini-park faced vocal opponents who live nearby. Project organizers, meantime, stress that it’s extremely early in the process, while revealing a new possibility has emerged — “beautification” beyond the park. More on that, and last night’s meeting, just ahead:Read More
We last checked in July 24 on the volunteers organizing to create some type of “play area” at or near the North Admiral mini-park shown at left, California Place (northwest corner of California/Hill, just east of Admiral Congregational Church; here’s a map). One of the organizers, Manolita Slye, just wrote to say they’re meeting again tonight (as we mentioned in last month’s story, they’re meeting twice monthly as the effort gets off the ground) — 7 pm at West Seattle (Admiral) Library. She mentioned something we’d also been told in a recent note from someone else — apparently opponents are starting to organize — so she is hoping that more of the families who have expressed support for the potential play area will show up tonight.
If you’re interested in classes/courses/lessons offered at local parks, community centers, Camp Long Environmental Learning Center, and/or Southwest Pool (after it reopens Nov. 1) — you should know, signups start at noon today. You can do it online (and browse what’s available) here.
(Providence, RI, Park(ing) Day photo by Laurencia Strauss and Kate Field)
In our coverage of the last Alki Community Council meeting, we mentioned that a Feet First rep had previewed the upcoming Park(ing) Day, which the Seattle Parks Foundation describes on this webpage as “a one-day, global event to highlight the need for more urban open space, rethink the way green space can happen, and improve the quality of urban human habitat.” Specifically, regular old parking spaces – like the one in the photo above – are turned into temporary parks for a day; this year, that day is Friday, 9/19. We’ve been waiting to hear about a specific West Seattle plan; looks like one’s in the formative stages now, and reaching out to you – here’s what we hear from Todd Burley at SPF:
… we are working with the West Seattle Junction Association to create a “park” at the Alaska Junction because of our partnership with them to create Junction Plaza Park. We’d love to raise awareness about
this opportunity for folks in West Seattle and see if anyone is interested in creating other “parks” at the Junction …
Right now, Burley says, SPF will team with WSJA to convert one parking space, but: “If we can do more, we just might. Ideally we’d like to get multiple groups from W. Seattle together to create many parks at the Alaska Junction under one street-use permit (which makes it cheaper).” If you want to get involved, this page at the SPF site explains how; a training session is coming up next week for interested participants, but the SPF would love to hear from you sooner.
august 13th
Just got a note about the citywide “Healthy Parks, Healthy You” launch, which is happening 8/23 at Green Lake — and until we read it through twice, we almost missed this very cool related program briefly mentioned in the same announcement: “Try It for $2” is a city initiative to offer various classes and activities at community centers citywide in September/October, for only two bucks. This city webpage lists specific activities and times offered for the $2 sampler fee (scroll all the way down to $2 Trial Activities and look for “South Locations” to see what’s on tap at the community centers in West Seattle), from yoga to cooking to art to martial arts, and more.
As reported here over the weekend, West Seattle’s only city-run indoor swimming pool, Southwest Pool — currently closed for extensive renovations and maintenance — has just changed its planned reopening date to November 1st, a month later than first expected. Project manager Garrett Farrell called us this morning to explain what happened, and how things are going overall. Bottom line: The Parks Department had to publicly bid the project; the original low bidder turned out to not have the proper qualifications, and re-evaluating, then awarding the work to the second-lowest bidder, cost three weeks. Why wasn’t the bidding done sooner, we asked? Because, as reported in our preview story about the project, the scope of the work had to change — and a quarter-million dollars extra had to be found — when it was discovered relatively late in the game that a big electrical vault hidden in a planter in front of the community center was complicating matters – here’s a Parks photo (this is where the raised planter was, on the northeast side of the building):
The old vault had to be taken out, a new, larger one installed, and that’s upgraded electrical service to the building; Farrell says the project is now on target to wrap up in late October; Parks has set November 1st as the new reopening time in hopes that gives a little bit of wiggle room – progress so far includes not only completion of the electrical work but also other demolition work and some water piping to adjacent Southwest Community Center. Farrell adds, “The roof has been removed from the boiler room and we are waiting on the delivery of two large mechanical units. The first will go in the basement, and then we can put the building back together. Roofing work will start in early August and continue for six to eight weeks.” (You can see the inner workings, pre-project, in the video we included in our preview story.) He says the construction company, TCM, is doing “a fantastic job” and also has kudos for the SWCC staff being “superflexible as we tear up their house and put it back together.” Note that the community center IS OPEN – you just have to enter through the back (south) side while the pool work has the front entrance blocked off.
We spotted that person fishing just offshore at Lincoln Park at sunset tonight – sparkling end to a beautiful day. On West Seattle’s “other” big beach, low-tide-walking and volleyball started the day (both shown in this clip):
The Alki Volleyball Association had qualifying going on all weekend for next month’s US Open in Huntington Beach, California; another big volleyball event on Alki is just two weeks away – the EVP Pro Volleyball Tour is visiting in two weeks (here’s our coverage of last year’s stop). Also at Alki today, the Festival of Indian Culture (back at the beach after a detour to the Eastside last year) – these photos are courtesy David Hutchinson:
And in the early afternoon, we caught some of the first people to use the Delridge wading pool on its first Sunday of the season – added after community concerns were called to the Parks Department‘s attention (WSB coverage here and here):
Later in the day, we’re told, the pool drew quite a crowd. Meantime, now that all the really big festivals are past – it’s time to just relax and enjoy simple pleasures like wading pools, Colman Pool, beaches, parks, forested trails … we’ll be spotlighting some of those options this week.
Thanks to Jenny Simonds for sending us photos from Saturday’s monthly Friends of Lincoln Park work party. Second photo above shows Sharon Baker, the volunteer forest steward who always sends us advance word of these events – we include them in the WSB Events calendar, as well as in the West Seattle Weekend Lineup – every weekend there are anywhere from two to five opportunities around West Seattle for you to help protect and restore our beautiful greenspaces. If you’ve ever walked in Lincoln Park, you know how many invasive plants are in need of clearing; on Saturday, Jenny says, “We were pulling English ivy & holly from just south of the North ballparks.” Also at work in Lincoln Park this time around, Margey Thoresen:
And Jim Frazzine:
Jenny tells us there also were dozens of Friends of the Earth volunteers working elsewhere in the park. If you’d like to join in the next Friends of Lincoln Park work party, click here for Sharon Baker’s e-mail address. Besides watching the aforementioned WSB pages, you can also track upcoming work parties in parks/greenspaces around West Seattle and elsewhere at greenseattle.org.
As reported here last Wednesday, eastern West Seattle now have a city-run wading pool to use on remaining sunny summer Sundays — almost a month after Delridge residents first pointed out that the only wading pools in the area open on Sundays were on the west side of the peninsula (original WSB report, with map, here), the city agreed to change the schedule for the pool north of Delridge Community Center (shown above). The hours are noon-6 pm, and this means that, weather permitting, the Delridge wading pool will be open 7 days a week through the end of the month. Here’s where to find info on all city-run wading pools.
Just saw that sign as we headed west on Thistle – per the sign and also the Southwest Pool webpage, the major renovation/maintenance work on West Seattle’s only city-run indoor pool will last a month longer than first expected. Just before construction started in June, we met with the project manager — for this indepth preview of the work they’re doing — and at that time it was still expected the pool would reopen in late September, as the sign showed at the time:
We’ll be checking with the Parks Department to find out why the pool reopening’s been moved back so far, and we’ll let you know what we find out. (Re-reading that story we published in June, we’re reminded that project manager Garrett Farrell warned at the time that the original 3 1/2 months was “a pretty tight time schedule.”)
If the opinions voiced tonight at the first community meeting about the Delridge skatepark-to-be hold sway, that’s the spot where you’ll see skateboarders in the next year or two – the northeast corner of the park, at Delridge and Genesee, immediately north of the parking lot and wading pool (which made news earlier today). Less than two months after the sudden Parks Department decision to place a skatepark in Delridge, rather than High Point (briefly under consideration) or Myrtle Reservoir (not so briefly, but highly controversially, under consideration), the process is moving along with high hopes and seemingly abundant goodwill. Ahead, what tonight’s meeting was for, how much the skatepark project is expected to cost, and what happens next:Read More
Three weeks ago, we told you about Delridge residents’ concern that none of eastern West Seattle’s city-run wading pools are open on Sundays, including the one in their neighborhood (shown above on a sunny Sunday earlier this month); read the original WSB article here. They had talked with the city, and we followed up with the Parks Department as well, but it seemed no reconsideration would be in order until the schedule for next year was drawn up, and the concerned wading-pool users were in the process of planning their next steps. Now – we have just received word of a breakthrough. Parks Board commissioner and Alki resident Jackie Ramels just told WSB moments ago that the city is about to announce that the Delridge wading pool WILL open on Sundays after all, for the rest of this season, five more Sundays starting this week. Delridge Neighborhood Services Coordinator Ron Angeles had also been working on this issue; a note to him from parks deputy superintendent Christopher Williams says in part, “Next year we will re-examine the wading pool operating schedule across the system in order to plan for the best overall distribution and access to wading pools in our system.” (Our original report included a map of which wading pools around the city were open on Sundays and which were not; in West Seattle, Lincoln Park and Hiawatha had been the only ones open on Sundays.)
Starting with “beyond” — offshore, in this case:
ELLIOTT BAY: The Seafair fleet is expected to arrive in the bay around 1 pm, parading past Pier 66, docking at Pier 90, so there should be West Seattle viewing opportunities. More info here on Thursday-Sunday touring opportunities. According to the Coast Guard Local Notice for Mariners, the vessels expected include USS Princeton, USS Germantown, USCGC Steadfast, and three Canadian ships – HMCS Yellowknife, HMCS Saskatoon, and HMCS Raven.
ALKI: As previously mentioned, we’ll be there this morning for the mayor’s announcement of upcoming Car-Free Days, including one for Alki (you heard it here first last Friday; 9/7 is the expected day). We’ll send out first word of the official announcement as it happens via Twitter (check the aqua box halfway down the sidebar on all WSB pages).
DELRIDGE: First community meeting for the skatepark (which as reported here will be designed by a West Seattle firm), Delridge Community Center, 7:30 pm.
JUNCTION: Ginomai (SW corner of 42nd/Genesee) is the scene of the next “Project Runway” party to cheer for Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor) barista Blayne, doors open 8 pm, show on the big-screen TV at 9, bring a nonalcoholic beverage and small dessert to share.
Dozens more West Seattle events, from today on into 2009, all listed here.
The photos came with this e-mail from Libbe:
I just had a rehearsal dinner for my wedding this past Friday at Lincoln Park right on the water (closest to the Vashon ferry, shelter #3) .
A close family member of mine believes she has lost the most precious objects she owns there. It’s a gold Medic Alert bracelet. Her son passed away in 2001, and she had his bracelet saved and remade for her. She has worn it for the past 7 years day and night. She’s convinced that it has fallen off at the park during this dinner. We have looked in the area and have been unsuccessful. It’s a very unique piece and had some custom engraving on it (In memory of you, Josh 10-19-79 to 5-31-01). I’ve attached pictures that approximates what it looks like. We plan on going to local pawn shops to inquire about it as well. Just thought it may be worth it to check with any WSB readers.
If you have any idea where it is, please e-mail or call us (all the options are on our Contact page) and we will put you in touch with Libbe and her relative. We usually invite people with lost/found items to post in the WSB Forum (except for pets, for whom we have a separate page) but this one’s a special case; hope someone in WSB-land can help.
Just out of the WSB inbox from Nancy Folsom:
Kelly Davidson, Project Manager for Seattle Parks and Recreation, just sent
me the news that Grindline (http://grindline.com/cgi-bin/view.pl) has been
selected as the DCC skate park designer.It’s great news. I was fortunate to be on the interview board last Tuesday
along with Matt Johnston–SeattleSkateParks.Org, Susan Golub–Seattle Parks
Projects & Planning, and Kelly. All the candidates were strong, but I felt
Grindline was the strongest. The company is local to West Seattle and is
passionately committed both to the sport and to the Delridge neighborhood.I hope the community brings their most positive ideas Wednesday night for
the first public design meeting. This development has the potential to be a
stellar community resource. As neighbor, I want this to be a fantastic
project, and it will take all of us working together.The meeting is Wednesday from 7:30 – 9 p.m. at Delridge
Community Center, 4501 Delridge Way SW.
Our previous reports on the Admiral group proposing a kids’ play area for the tiny park shown above — California Place, at California/Hill next to Admiral UCC church (map) — have been greeted by some comments suggesting the space might be better left undeveloped. Nobody showed up at the group’s first community meeting last night to express that opinion in person, but those who feel that way will likely be interested to hear that the proposal isn’t what you might suspect — they’re not seeking to turn it into a playground, but rather, per a phrase offered by a Parks Department staffer who attended the meeting to observe, a “play space.” Here’s the explanation:Read More
In addition to the next edition of West Seattle Movies on the Wall in the courtyard next to Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor) — “The Goonies,” this Saturday night @ dusk (last Saturday the showing started around 9:20 pm, so definitely don’t be any later than 9, full info and entire season lineup here) — High Point Community Center has an outdoor movie this week too: “Peter Pan,” part of the next Thursday Night Family Fun event at HPCC (6-9 pm; if you want to check on an exact movie start time, call the center at 684-7422).
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