West Seattle, Washington
18 Wednesday
(WSB photo from May 2009)
At noon tomorrow, you are invited to Dignity Memorial/Forest Lawn, just east of High Point, for the annual Seattle Police Officers’ Memorial ceremony. Here’s our coverage from last year; since then, SPD has lost an officer in the line of duty – one with West Seattle ties – WSHS graduate Officer Tim Brenton, murdered on Halloween night. He and others who’ve given their lives will be remembered during tomorrow’s event. 2:22 PM NOTE: Mayor McGinn is expected to attend the memorial tomorrow.
Almost three weeks ago, more than 200 people voiced their opinion in the comment section when we reported that the vegetarian restaurant Chaco Canyon Café is considering a West Seattle expansion in the Link project now going up – fast! – along 38th SW in The Triangle. We invited Chris from Chaco Canyon to provide an update on what happens next – click ahead to read the update, which includes a few more questions if you are interested in informally assisting their research:Read More
(Scroll down for the newest info/photos)
(WSB photo added 9:15 am, trees across 48th SW)
ORIGINAL 7:35 AM REPORT: First report of notable weather-related trouble; Metro just sent an alert that the 37 and 53 bus lines are rerouted because of “an incident” at 48th SW/SW Eddy. Checked with Seattle Police – they have word of trees down on 48th SW at SW Holly, which is also affecting car traffic – not sure yet exactly where the detours are, but avoid that area. Here’s the reroute alert from Metro:
Routes 37 & 53 are rerouted due to an incident on 48th SW near SW Eddy St. Use the stop north of SW Graham St or the stop north of Atlas Pl SW.
This is between Seaview and Lowman Beach; here’s a map. 9:25 AM UPDATE: From the scene – 48th SW is closed from SW Eddy at the top of the hill, to the bottom where it meets Lincoln Park Way and Beach Drive. We also received this photo with another perspective on the blocked road, as a school bus (they had to reroute too) faced the mess:
We also got a note about the wind tearing away more of the plastic sheeting around the scaffolding on the 35th/Myrtle water tower that’s been getting painted. Here’s how it looked as of a few minutes ago:
10:05 AM UPDATE: Just checked with SDOT – Marybeth Turner tells us the urban-forestry crew estimates 48th will be cleared/reopened no later than 11:30 am. 1:21 PM: Kris notes in comments that the road has reopened; also, Metro has confirmed Routes 37 and 53 are now back to normal. 2:04 PM: Jody adds this via Facebook: “”A good section of the sidewalk on the east side of the street is closed though for anyone walking in that area.””
(Friday photo taken at Alki by Chas Redmond)
The weather of course is the biggest thing so far today – with the wind advisory continuing in effect till 7 pm. If things aren’t too crazy, you might check out the last minus tide we’ll see for a few weeks, -0.6 just before 3 pm today – not as low as the photo above from Friday afternoon, but low enough for tidewalking. Otherwise, no major public meetings tonight – West Seattle Hi-Yu members meet at 6:30 pm, St. John the Baptist Church, just as festival/parade season starts to kick into high gear; you can check the WSB West Seattle Events calendar for regular Monday night happenings, including bingo at Alki UCC Church. (Are we missing something of note? Add a comment – thanks!)
(Photo courtesy Westside Symphonette)
In the mood for music? Tomorrow (Tuesday) night, the Westside Symphonette community orchestra’s spring concert will fill The Hall at Fauntleroy‘s Vashon Room with “Classical Elegance.” The Symphonette Strings and Junior Orchestra play at 6:30 pm, the Senior Orchestra at 7:30 pm. Program highlights listed by Westside Symphonette’s Toni Reineke include:
Strings: Fancy Fiddles, Hotaru Koi
Junior Orchestra: Egmont Overture, Grand March from Aida
Community Orchestra: Finlandia, Intermezzo from Hary Janos, Emperor Waltz, Bugler’s Holiday (with a twist!)
All welcome; admission $5 adults, $1 students (extra donations welcome!). The Hall is at 9131 California SW (here’s a map).
The National Weather Service has a wind advisory in effect for our area, 11 tonight through 7 tomorrow night. See it here. We could get gusts as high as 50 mph. (Coincidentally, the NWS website notes that today is the start of Severe Weather Awareness Week.)
Time’s running out to get in on a new Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle program – here are the details from Community Harvest’s Aviva:
Gardeners: Here is a great opportunity to improve your skills in growing vegetables, and help people grow affordable, healthy food!
Garden Helpers: Connecting new gardeners with community mentors
Community Harvest of Southwest and Seattle Tilth are excited to offer a new program to train community members to mentor new gardeners in West Seattle and White Center.
If you would like to help others grow their own food, then consider becoming a Garden Helper! Training will consist of a free 5-week, 30-hour course on organic gardening and teaching adults, Thursday evenings (7 – 9 PM) and Sundays (9:30 AM – 2 PM) from May 20 through June 13. Mentors will then volunteer 30 hours (or more!) and help novice gardeners grow their own food. Volunteers should have some vegetable gardening experience, a desire to work with others, and an encouraging attitude.
We’re also looking for people who want help growing their own food! Mentors will provide free, in-person assistance to help budding gardeners get started in backyard, P-patch, or container gardens.
Community Harvest’s website has more information, applications, and even Frequently Asked Questions, or contact us at info@gleanit.org or 206-762-0604.
This program is funded by a Small and Simple grant from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.
Three Crime Watch reports to share this afternoon – after the jump:Read More
That’s Terri Glaberson of CoolMom, caught during a moment between meeting and greeting visitors at the Bike Swap they’re sponsoring right now at Cycle University (WSB sponsor) in The Triangle, 4550 Fauntleroy Way SW. We were there about an hour after it started, and Cycle U’s Brad Loetel told us they’d already sold 10 bikes:
Part of the proceeds benefit the Major Taylor Project (explained here). You’ll also find activities and clinics (like “learn to ride” for kids) – it’s all under way till 3 pm; here’s the flyer.
(Photo courtesy Kelly from Muttley Crew Cuts)
Also right now, as Brittany reminded us in a comment earlier, a fundraiser in Admiral to help Maddie the rescue dog:
Animals First Foundation is having a fundraiser for one of their rescue dogs- Please help Maddie walk again!! Join us this Sunday, May 2nd from 11am-4pm at the corner of 42nd and Admiral, CrossFit parking lot in West Seattle for a Car Wash & BBQ. All donations go directly to Maddie’s CCL surgery and recovery. For info or to donate: 206.932.6888. Maddie was rescued off the streets by a Good Samaritan. She may have fallen out of a two-story window, or may have been pushed….unfortunately she can’t tell us. She was not able to walk at all and needed surgery on both back legs. Please help us raise the $1600 for her surgery and recovery.
ADDED 3:11 PM: Also got a car-wash photo from Meredith, including Maddie herself up front:
We’ve been talking about it for months – and now, it’s almost here – the next major closure affecting West Seattle drivers as part of the Spokane Street Viaduct Widening Project. Two weeks from tomorrow, on May 17, the 1st Avenue South onramp to the westbound West Seattle Bridge will close for good; a new one, with a different configuration, will be built as part of the project, but it won’t be open till late 2011 at the soonest. If you’ve got questions for SDOT, this Wednesday morning’s meeting of the Kiwanis Club of West Seattle is your chance to get answers in person. They’re hosting Paul Elliott from SDOT community relations, 7 am, Be’s Restaurant in The Junction (4509 California SW), public welcome. Meantime, you can check out our archive of project coverage here, and detour maps/project updates are available in this area of the SDOT website. (Side note re: the Kiwanians: They were expected back at today’s Farmers’ Market, collecting eyeglasses, cell phone and ink-cartridge donations, KeyBank side, like last week.)
(“Pointed” cloud photographed by Dan E. last Thursday)
Even if blue skies don’t grace us today, there’s plenty to do, indoors as well as out. Two bicycle-geared events: At Cycle University (WSB sponsor), you can shop the Bike Swap, 9 am-3 pm, with part of the proceeds benefiting the Major Taylor Project, and activities including “learn to ride” clinics for kids. At 10 am, supporters of transportation bicycling are invited to join the first West Seattle Spokespeople ride, leaving Alki Bike and Board in the Admiral District (full details here). 10 am is also the start time for the West Seattle Farmers’ Market; here’s today’s fresh list. There’s also a special family activity: Spring planting, including seed-planting for kids. And 10 is when doors open at the Masonic Hall (40th/Edmunds) for the second and final day for the West Seattle Rock and Gem Show, free, continuing till 5 pm, presented by the West Seattle Rock Club (WSB sponsor), with amazing displays as well as prize drawings and activities. One more Junction note: This is the first Sunday for “Tell Me on a Sunday,” the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical now on stage at ArtsWest (WSB sponsor) – 3 pm matinee; tickets are available online here.
Editor’s note: West Seattle writer Jen Boyer covered the “Deadliest Catch“ fan convention in Seattle this weekend; we’re publishing her coverage for interested fans.
Story and photos by Jen Boyer
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
They wanted their crab captains and they wanted them now.
More than 1,000 superfans of Discovery Channel’s crab-fishing reality show “Deadliest Catch” attended the sold-out-in-advance second annual CatchCon on Saturday at Pier 66, some coming as far as Scotland and the Netherlands to get up close and personal with everything Deadliest Catch.
One week from today, it’s the sixth annual West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day – this year, 200 sales big and small, all over the peninsula. We promised we’d have the map available by now, and we’re making good on that – you can see the Google Map version, with all 200 sites, by going here. In our experience, the Google Map has never printed too well, though, so we always make a printable version, with a segmented map, and the individual sale “ads” organized #1-#200 – that’s not ready yet, but we’ll link it here when it’s done, as well as on the West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day website and Facebook page. Meantime, you can see each full “ad” by clicking each sale’s number icon on the Google Map. We’ve made the list and more than checked it twice, to borrow a phrase, but if you are a seller and you can’t find your sale, please let us know as soon as possible (garagesale@westseattleblog.com) so we can check into it. Again, this is just a sneak peek – the sales don’t start till 9 am next Saturday (May 8). P.S. Feel free to share this link with friends and relatives all over the region – with 200 sales (including multi-family, block, organization, school, nonprofit BIG sales), there’s plenty of shopping for folks beyond the peninsula to come join “local” shoppers that day too.
From partner site White Center Now: A public pool closed last fall because of King County Parks’ budget crunch reopened today as the beneficiary of a private-public partnership, and King County Executive Dow Constantine was there to help cut the ribbon, along with other elected officials and a big contingent of pool users, including the young swimmers heard cheering in the clip. The former Evergreen Pool is now the Evergreen Community Aquatic Center, operated by the WhiteWater Aquatics swimming organization. More video in the story published earlier today at WCN; the pool has public swims six days a week, and you can see its schedule here.
(Photo by John Smersh)
Something different for your Saturday night – a jewelry trunk show and artist reception. It’s just getting under way at longtime WSB sponsor Click! Design That Fits in the Admiral District – above, that’s Click! co-owner Frances Smersh, a jewelry designer herself, with Dawn Benedetto of poppi jewelry, in the spotlight tonight. Benedetto describes her creations as “a line of jewelry that doesn’t take life too seriously.” She’s come all the way from the East Coast to meet West Seattle jewelry fans – she’ll be at Click! till 8 tonight (more about the event on their website).
Two events happening now till 5 pm in The Junction: First, the West Seattle Rock Club (WSB sponsor) is in the midst of its popular annual Rock and Gem Show. Admiring rock/gem/mineral samples is just a small part of the FREE fun – there are demonstrations (like the one in our photo above), and vendors with unique jewelry:
Prize drawings too. And if you absolutely can’t get there today – or if you’ve been, and want to go back! – the West Seattle Rock and Gem Show continues tomorrow too, 10 am-5 pm, Masonic Hall at 40th and Edmunds. Meantime, a few blocks northwest in The Junction, happening right now:
Flowers await young May Basket-makers at CAPERS, which also is hosting a trunk show of Alizah Olivas‘ jewelry till 5 pm. CAPERS’ Lisa Myers shared the flower photo. (That’s the first of two jewelry trunk shows in West Seattle today/tonight – stand by for news of the next one, coming up!)
We stopped by West Seattle Montessori School (WSB sponsor) to check out the plant sale, continuing till 2 pm, and wound up with a photo of the bake sale! (Added later – a peek inside their greenhouse:)
Also just picked up another event we didn’t know about till it turned up on Twitter – today is Free Comic Book Day nationwide, and Arcane Comics in West Seattle is among the participants.
First (if you haven’t already seen the mention on our FB page), happy anniversary to Zippy’s Giant Burgers in Highland Park. Zippy’s posted a note in the WSB Forums to commemorate the fact they opened their doors two years ago today, to an enthusiastic reception that we hear continues to this day. Second – Michele at West Seattle Thriftway says bacon cheeseburgers are on the menu for another benefit barbecue today, out in front of the store (and hey! the sun just came out!) – starting at 11 am, $7 for burger/chips/soda to benefit the breast-cancer-fighting Susan G. Komen Foundation.
Today’s highlights start with the 44th Annual Rock and Gem Show, “Gems in Bloom,” presented by the West Seattle Rock Club (WSB sponsor), 10 am-5 pm (tomorrow too) at the Masonic Hall, 40th/Edmunds. While rocks, mineral specimens, fossils, gemstones, crystals and more will be on display, it’s an active show too, with demonstrations, a chance for kids to make a “gem tree,” and items for sale. Best part: FREE. … As usual, many local parks/greenspaces have work parties (listed on the Green Seattle Partnership website), but the biggest work party today will be the Pigeon Point Neighborhood Council membership and neighbors in action for their Spring Clean, including the staircase from Charlestown/19th to East Marginal Way (as well as what you see on Jim Sander‘s creation at left), starting 9 am (volunteers welcome!) … Peak season starts today for Washington State Ferries, which means a price change on some routes … Two more WSB sponsors have big events today: West Seattle Montessori School has a fundraising Plant Sale for the first time this year, with a Master Gardener on hand to answer questions and a lot more, all detailed on the school’s website, 9 am-2 pm … And it’s Trunk Show day at Click! Design That Fits, for poppi jewelry, including a 5-8 pm artist reception with poppi’s Dawn Benedetto – full details on the Click! site – Facebook invite here … Several yard/garage (and other) sales are posted in the WSB Forums‘ Freebies/Deals/Sales/Etc. section, where it’s free to list sales of all types (including businesses’ special events and deals) – find them here … In White Center, Evergreen Aquatic Center is rededicated at 10:30 followed by a free community swim till 1 … More on the WSB Events calendar!
The Hall at Fauntleroy was filled with hundreds of West Seattle Food Bank supporters Friday night, for the food bank’s annual benefit “Instruments of Change.” Among those we saw – Pablo Lambinicio (left) from the Delridge Neighborhoods District Council and Ron Angeles from the Delridge District Neighborhood Services Center:
Besides enjoying a catered banquet by Tuxedos and Tennis Shoes Catering and inspiration from speaker Robert V. Taylor, the crowd heard world music by the Miho and Diego Duo:
WSB is proud to have been among the sponsors of the event – the full list is here, along with other event details from “Instruments of Change.” You can find out how to help the West Seattle Food Bank and the thousands it serves by going here.
Editor’s note: West Seattle writer Jen Boyer, who publishes Heligirl.com (one of the 100+ sites whose latest links are on the WSB Blogs page), is covering today’s “Deadliest Catch“ fan convention; we’re publishing her coverage for interested fans. First: The Friday night memorial for “Captain Phil” Harris, who died last February (and had visited West Seattle to promote his coffee brand back in 2008).
(Captain Phil’s son Jake, preparing to throw a flower into the water in memory of his dad)
Story and photos by Jen Boyer
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Hundreds of fans, fellow fishermen, friends and family of “Deadliest Catch” Captain Phil Harris came together Friday night at Pier 91 to pay tribute to the salty crab captain that Discovery Producer Paul Gasek called “a teddy bear with that ink thing going on.”
This is it – the end of Disaster Preparedness Month. All but one night this month, we brought you tips, links, recommendations about making sure you and your loved ones are better prepared just in case of the unthinkable. 
HUGE thanks to the West Seattle preparedness-volunteer crew – including Karen Berge, Deb Greer, Cindi Barker, Ron Zuber, and everyone who works on the Emergency Communication Hubs in neighborhoods around the peninsula. And thanks to you for taking a few minutes to read. These haven’t sparked massive discussions online but they weren’t meant to – they were meant to get you thinking and hopefully preparing, and if at least a few West Seattleites added something to their kit, memorized their nearest Hub, signed up for 3 to Get Ready (left) – that’s what it’s all about. Here are the recap and regular links one more time:
*Archive of all Disaster Preparedness Month stories on WSB, newest to oldest
*West Seattle Be Prepared website – resource-rich, full of links and maps and information, WS-specific
*West Seattle Be Prepared Facebook group – join!
*3 to Get Ready, the city’s preparedness campaign (sponsoring WSB to get the word out), continuing 1 more week
And as noted in the first week of DP Month, the city has two classes in June in West Seattle – an earthquake-retrofitting class in Admiral on June 1, a SNAP (Seattle Neighborhoods Actively Prepare) class in Delridge June 8. Disaster Preparedness Month may be ending, but any day can be Preparedness Day.
Four West Seattle Crime Watch reports ahead – including an intruder caught on surveillance camera, pricey shoes pilfered from a car trunk, more car break-ins, and a puzzling porch theft – read on to see the reports (with a few photos):Read More
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