Last year was an eventful one for Queen Anne and Magnolia. The happenings included everything from grocery wars to several deaths at Fishermen's Terminal to the dropping of plans for a People's Lodge in Discovery Park.
Here's a look at some of what happened:
JANUARY
Speaking in Seattle at one of 163 "out of Iraq" meetings nationwide, U.S. Rep. and Queen Anne resident Jim McDermott was highly critical of Pres. George Bush and his neocon advisors for the Iraq war. McDermott blasted the Whitehouse for the spin it has put on the war and for its secret wiretaps of the American people.
Numerous conservatives in Magnolia complained about the paper's coverage of the story.
A new park in Magnolia was named the Ella Bailey Park. The park replaced a playground behind the long-closed Magnolia Elementary School on 28th Avenue West. A teacher for 30 years, Bailey originally sold the playground property to the Seattle School District.
Fisherman John McDonald raised the alarm over safety issues at Fishermen's Terminal following the discovery in the nearby waters of fellow fisherman Kip Gilmartin's body.
He'd been missing for three weeks, and McDonald, along with a couple dozen other fishermen at the terminal, charged that the Port of Seattle was to blame because the docks are slippery in the rain and cold weather.
A planned neo-Nazi demonstration at the foot of the Space Needle drew around 100 protesters but no white supremacists.
FEBRUARY
The Magnolia Chamber of Commerce named the Porcelain Gallery's Bert Lundh as business person of the year. The store first opened in 1973 and has developed a customer base that now spans the world. Lundh was the obvious choice for the award, said chamber president Glenn Harrington.
Seahawks fans were badly disappointed at Super Bowl Sunday gatherings at the Boxcar Alehouse in Magnolia and Floyd's Place in Lower Queen Anne.
It was the first time the Seahawks had made it to the Super Bowl, and while hopes were high for a home-team win, the Pittsburgh Steelers pulled off a controversial victory. However, the win was great news for a huge crowd of Steelers' fans at Floyd's, which had been listed on the Internet as the place in Seattle for fans of the Pittsburgh team.
Seattle Center director Virginia Anderson stunned her staff and surprised Seattle with news that she was leaving the job she'd held for 18 years.
The Queen Anne resident left a legacy that included approximately $700 million in public and private investments made at the iconic Seattle attraction. Anderson said she was thinking of taking up rock climbing, among other things, but planned on getting a new job fairly quickly.
Plans were quietly dropped for a $48 million, three-building People's Lodge complex on Discovery Park land leased to the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation.
Long a dream of UIATF founder, the late Bernie Whitebear, the project was the subject of years of wrangling between the Indians and Magnolians who thought the original one-building project was too large and also inappropriate for a park setting.
An agreement was eventually forged that cleared the way for the new design, but a lack of money eventually scuttled the plan, according to newly hired UIATF CEO, Phil Lane Jr.
Lane-who was extremely tight-lipped about the issue-asserted that the Indian's leased land itself was the embodiment of the spirit of People's Lodge.
The Port of Seattle announced that cruise ships would start docking at Terminal 91. The change was necessary because Terminal 30, where the cruise ships have been located, was going to be turned into a cargo-handling facility.
MARCH
A man and a woman drowned at Fishermen's Terminal. The man, Michael Wayne Grady, was living aboard a fishing boat moored at the beginning of the docks just below Chinooks restaurant and the woman, Linda Sue Clark, had been visiting him.
General consensus at the Terminal was that Clark fell into the water while leaving the boat and that Grady jumped in to save her. The issue of slick docks was raised again, but there was no proof they died because of unsafe conditions, according to the Port.
Real-estate developer and former Magnolia Business Person of the Year Art Van der Wel ran into trouble with the city when he bought and converted a single-family home on Condon Way West into a duplex.
Responding to complaints, the Department of Planning and Development ruled that the conversion resulted in the addition of an illegal mother-in-law apartment in the house.
Van der Wel said the original plan was to live part-time in one of the units while his daughter lived in the other, an arrangement that would have made the mother-in-law unit legal.
His daughter, however, decided to stay where she lives in Texas, so Van der Wel had to eliminate the extra apartment by, among other steps, taking out a kitchen he spent big bucks putting in.
SDOT announced that it was choosing an alternative that would replace the Magnolia Bridge with a new one just to the south of the existing one.
But still under consideration at the time was another alternative that would have saved $32 million in rights-of-way costs for the $196 million project. What wasn't made clear was that the money-saving alternative involved replacing the bridge at its existing location.
Community members were outraged, charging that the new alternative was slipped in at the last moment and that it would have substantially increased the time motorists would have spent using alternate routes getting into and out of Magnolia. The proposal was dropped.
King County released the last $5.3 million in mitigation money over the upgrade of the West Point sewer plant to secondary treatment.
Releasing the money was contingent on the county not being able to remove several large digesters on the beach to the north of the plant and replace them with alternative technology. The new technology didn't pan out, and the mitigation money was earmarked for, among other uses, demolishing Discovery Park's Chapel on the Hill for $50,000, along with $1 million toward the cost of demolishing the Nike command bunker.
APRIL
Biotech giant Amgen, formerly Immunex, announced plans for a major expansion of its campus north of the grain terminal and near the shores of Elliott Bay.
The original Immunex plan for a research-and-development facility, revealed several years ago, was highly controversial, but no one seemed to care about the latest expansion news.
The Mr. Lucky bar across First Avenue North from KeyArena was the scene of a shooting that wounded three people during a night of hip-hop music.
It wasn't the first shooting at the nightclub. A bouncer trying to break up a fight in the parking lot was shot in the leg the year before, and in 2004 a Queen Anne man walking home with his girlfriend was hit and paralyzed by a stray shot during a gun battle outside the club.
City officials expressed great concern initially, and Mayor Greg Nickels later called on the state's Liquor Control Board to yank Mr. Lucky's liquor license, which was subsequently suspended for six months.
The West Point sewer plant celebrated its 40th anniversary. The plant was built because sewer pollution had gotten out of hand in the waters in and around Seattle.
Jim Ellis-known by most as "the father of Metro," the multi-jurisdictional agency that tackled the wastewater problem-downplayed his part in the accomplishment. But he said he and hundreds of others faced an uphill battle in creating a sewage-treatment system prior to the existence of the Environmental Protection Agency.
MAY
SDOT backed off a plan to rebuild the new Magnolia Bridge in the same location as the one currently in place, and returned to the alternative that would see a new span built just to the south of the existing one.
Traditionally smoky joints like the Gim Wah in Magnolia Village and the Mecca in Lower Queen Anne saw a steep drop in business after the smoking ban went into effect for all restaurants and bars in Seattle six months earlier.
Bartender Nena Tyson said business was down 30 to 35 percent at the Gim Wah, while over at the Mecca, bar manager Karan Hanke said the drop forced her to cut wages for the staff as well as herself. Other bars, such as Magnolia's Boxcar Ale House and Queen Anne's Paragon saw little difference in business because of the ban.
The Magnolia Farmers Market announced plans to increase the amount and number of products it would offer during the summer.
The number of eggs for sale was to double, there would be more cheese and a wider variety of fresh produce. Also new was the addition of confectioner Urban Chocolates.
The Mayor's Taskforce for Seattle Center Sustainability identified a number of failings at the worldwide attraction in Lower Queen Anne.
Central to the problems, according to the task force, was a lack of money due to KeyArena running in the red since the turn of the century.
Without identifying funding sources or an estimated cost, the task force had a number of recommendations that included a major remodel of the Center House.
The group was also highly critical of the Fun Forest, which had fallen behind in lease payments and lacked "relevance and currency."
A slim majority of Seattle City Council members sided with opponents of a plan to demolish three single-family homes to make room for a new Fire Station 20 on the west side of Queen Anne Hill. The station services Magnolia as well as Queen Anne.
According to a letter council members sent to the mayor, the council promised not to pass legislation for the project until they were convinced that a good case had been made for choosing that particular site. They were asking for an alternate location to be considered.
JUNE
Labor and Industries fined the Port of Seattle $2,200 and cited the agency for several safety violations at Fishermen's Terminal. The action followed an investigation of the drowning deaths a month before of a man and woman at the marina.
With one exception, all the safety violations-such as power stations and electrical breakers being in bad shape-were addressed at the time they were identified, according to the Port. The exception was for inadequate lighting on several docks.
Queen Anne author Jack Hammon wrote a book about the rioting and the lynching of an Italian prisoner of war in Magnolia's Fort Lawton in the waning days of World War II.
Twenty-eight African-American service members were convicted of the crimes, but "On American Soil" took another look at the case and pointed to withheld evidence that might have cleared the men. It sparked an immediate reaction from U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Seattle), who proposed legislation to reopen the case when the book first came out the year before.
The Seattle Center hosted its first Gay Pride event, attracting around 200,000 participants. It was just like any other festival, and gays and lesbians were welcome just like anyone else, a center spokesman said of the event that for years had centered on Capitol Hill.
The Greater Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce got one complaint about the Gay Pride gathering from a man who wanted to know what the chamber was going to do about it. He hung up when he was told the chamber was promoting the event.
The mayor's office announced it wanted the city to become the local reuse authority when the Fort Lawton Army Reserve Center at the eastern edge of Discovery Park becomes surplus in 2009.
Part of the Base Closure Community Redevelopment and Homeless Assistance Act of 1994, the local reuse authority takes the lead in identifying and choosing new users of the property.
As the act's name implies, services for the homeless get first dibs, but education, law enforcement, historic preservation and park-and-recreation uses are also possibilities.
JULY
Seven potential locations for off-leash-dog areas in Magnolia and Queen Anne were panned by local residents at meetings Seattle Parks and Recreation held in each neighborhood.
The goal was to set up one or two locations on park property in the two neighborhoods, but some objected to the very idea.
Seattle Public Utilities dropped Interbay as a potential site for a truck-to-rail intermodal garbage facility. Choosing an intermodal location is part of the agencies $160 million plan to improve the disposal method of an estimated 450,000 tons of trash a year.
SPU was leaning toward a location south of Georgetown for the facility.
Trees were vandalized in Queen Anne, and a stand of evergreens was topped off in Magnolia. Multiple trunks on two cypress trees were girdled in the 1400 block of Eighth Ave. W. in Queen Anne. Girdling, which involved cutting a ring around the trunks, will eventually kill the trees, the city arborist noted.
The tree vandals in Queen Anne haven't been identified, but local residents suspect the trees were probably damaged to improve someone's up-slope view.
The Magnolia evergreens were topped at the corner of West Fulton Street and 28th Avenue West by a local resident who rented a cherry picker for the purpose.
The work sparked a complaint to police, who made the local resident stop, but he later told the News that he had talked to all his nearby neighbors and no one objected.
There was also another issue: The Magnolia trees were on a city right of way, but the city didn't plant them. That means, the city said, that any complaints would have to be made by the abutting property owner, someone the tree trimmer said he had already gotten permission from to do the work.
Seattle Weekly founder and former publisher David Brewster came up with a plan to fix up the Seattle Center. His solution is to get rid of all the buildings like the Center House in the middle of the Seattle Center and turn the land into green space.
Brewster has a small band of supporters who call themselves Friends of Green, or FROG, but so far the idea isn't getting much traction.
AUGUST
The homeowner finally noticed that a stately beech tree near the vandalized cypress trees on Eighth Avenue West had also been vandalized in her family's front yard.
Someone drove nails and copper spikes into the tree in an effort to kill it, but it turns out the method of using copper to kill trees is just an urban legend.
The Seattle City Council voted 5-4 not to condemn three single-family homes to make room for an expanded Fire Station 20 on Queen Anne Hill. The mayor and Fire Department were upset, but neighbors near the station were pleased.
The Magnolia Church of Christ on West McGraw Street ran afoul of zoning restrictions because the church has been home to the Magnolia Cooperative Preschool for the last 50 years and because the Magnolia Theater School of Drama had been using the church for a year.
The city action followed a complaint from a nearby resident, and the issue was a lack of permits for the two uses.
A Queen Anne man was shot and wounded outside the north entrance of Dick's in Lower Queen Anne by someone in a crowd of people who first started a fight with the victim, his cousin and some friends inside the fast-food restaurant. No suspects were identified.
A week later, a man was stabbed in the back of the knee just before he walked through the south entrance to Dick's. A suspect in the case, a drunken Renton man who had been arguing across the street with his girlfriend, was arrested.
The alleged attack was apparently sparked when the stabbing victim and a Magnolia woman with him asked if the suspect's girlfriend needed any help. She said no, and the victim and the Magnolia resident were heading into the fast-food restaurant when he was stabbed.
Former Mariners pitcher and Magnolia resident Jamie Moyer announced that he and his wife were going to keep their home and the Moyer Foundation headquarters in Magnolia after he was traded near the end of the baseball season to the Philadelphia Phillies.
SEPTEMBER
Seattle Public Utilities reversed itself and put the Interbay area back on the table as a potential location for a truck-to-rail intermodal garbage facility.
The decision followed objections to plans to locate the facility south of Georgetown, and the Queen Anne Community was "absolutely opposed" to the idea. So was the Magnolia Community Club, said MCC president Vic Barry, whose organization had started using "Don't dump on Magnolia" as a slogan in its efforts to fight the proposal, he said.
The Vera Project symbolically broke ground in the Snoqualmie Room at the Seattle Center. The $1.5 million project will provide a venue for young musicians to practice their chops and perform in front of their peers.
The Village Pub announced plans to move to new, larger digs across the street in Magnolia Village. The plans include a kitchen larger than the one in the present location, along with a rooftop deck.
Residents in a nearby condominium objected to the plan because of noise, traffic and parking issues, but Pub owners have since dropped plans for the rooftop deck.
OCTOBER
SDOT firmed up plans to extend the paved bike path along the Ship Canal in Queen Anne all the way to Magnolia. It's a big deal that has been decades in the making, and the 3/4-mile extension will allow pedestrians and bicyclists to leave Magnolia and make their ways to the Burke-Gilman Trail by crossing the Fremont Bridge.
The project will cost between $1.5 million and $2 million, and involves an at-grade rail crossing designed by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. Some sections of railroad track and utilities along the Ship Canal will have to be moved, and work is expected to start sometime this year.
Kyriakos Kyrkos, owner of the Mr. Lucky bar, wants to have the club's liquor license renewed so he can open up a sports bar or sell the business.
The license was up for renewal on Oct. 31, but everyone from the mayor to the Liquor Control Board want to see the license permanently revoked.
If the liquor license is revoked for good, Kyrkos told the Greater Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce, he might try to turn the problem-plagued nightspot into a strip club, which wouldn't need the license because the city prohibits the sale of alcohol in such establishments.
The Gates Foundation unveiled its plans for the philanthropic organization's world headquarters next to the Seattle Center. The design calls for three v-shaped buildings and a predominantly below-grade garage with room for 1,000 vehicles. Work should be completed by 2010.
NOVEMBER
The Mr. Lucky bar was granted a 60-day temporary liquor license while the owner fights the permanent license revocation in court.
In one of the more bizarre vandalism cases in anyone's memory, a man who had been hired to paint a bedroom and install tiles in the bathroom allegedly caused an estimated $200,000 in damage to a $1.5-million home on Perkins Lane in Magnolia.
He did that, according to police, by spray-painting much of the home's interior black, and the handyman allegedly went so far as to paint landscaping rocks on the waterfront property black as well. The suspect wasn't talking when police arrested him, and nobody can figure out what motivated the man to do such a thing.
Speaking in an interview with the Magnolia News, U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott was obviously pleased as punch that Democrats trounced Republicans in so many national races.
McDermott said he saw it as a national repudiation of policies coming out of the Bush White House. But while the Iraq War was the main point of contention for Americans, there were other reasons the Republicans lost control of both the House and the Senate, according to McDermott.
The botched response to Hurricane Katrina was one, and the gutting of environmental regulations was another, he said. McDermott said he expects the Democratic majority in the other Washington will also uncover what's really been happening with health care and the banking industry-not to mention the rampant corruption in Iraq.
DECEMBER
The city opened a temporary overflow homeless shelter in one the Seattle Center's Northwest Rooms during a recent cold snap in the city.
There was room for 80, but 103 people showed up to use the shelter the second night it was open. Teams of police also contacted 130 homeless people on the streets and told them about the available shelter; only 20 took them up on the offer.
Organizers of the Seattle International Film Festival inked a deal with the Seattle Center to screen films in the Nesholm Family Lecture Hall in McCaw Hall. Taxpayers are picking up $150,000 of the half-million-dollar project, which will include a top-of-the-line projection and sound system.
False rumors of child abuse drove the operator of the Village Kidz Daycare and her husband out of Magnolia, and the couple sold the home Renée Harpe had lived in since she was 4-years old.
Child Protective Services investigated and cleared the couple of any wrongdoing this fall, but by then it was too late.
Queen Anne and Magnolia were battered by a torrential downpour followed by gale-force winds. The storm left many in the two neighborhoods without power, and the West Point sewer plant was knocked out of commission for a time during the height of the foul weather.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at 461-1309.[[In-content Ad]]
