It seems like everybody's jumping on the cancer bandwagon these days. Since Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow announced the return of their respective cancers, television, newspaper and magazine writers all over the country have been describing their own battles with the disease. I guess now it's my turn. I had been thinking about it for a couple of months but kept putting off writing about it. Perhaps it was my own form of denial. If you read it in the newspaper it must be true, right? I had been bleeding internally on and off for the last four years. Even though I'd been scoped, poked and prodded all over the place, doctors on two coasts could never pinpoint the cause
So what do you think of the development planned for the 500 block of East Pine Street?It's hardly a rhetorical question. As just about everyone knows, a huge, mixed-use project is slated for the block where the Cha Cha Lounge, Bimbo's Bitchin' Burrito Kitchen, Manray, Kincora's, the Bus Stop, as well as a clothing store and a small grocery store, call home. In a neighborhood known for its night life as well as for small, independent businesses, the block serves as a kind of ground zero. At the very least provides a convergence of activity and energy that serves to help define the neighborhood.But not for long.
Roosevelt residents were out in full force with their yellow trashbags on Sunday, April 22, as they marked Earth Day in the Roosevelt neighborhood. About 50 residents volunteered their time to pick up garbage, paint over graffiti and perform other Earth-cleansing tasks.
The increasingly degenerate road conditions of Linden Avenue North was the focus of a meeting of the city's Economic Development and Neighborhoods Committee, held at the Bitter Lake Community Center last Thursday, April 19.mong the presentations was a proposed $5.5 million renovation to the 0.8-mile-long section of Linden Avenue North between North 130th and 145th streets. The proposition, which previously has been denied approval by the Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Public Utilities and the Department of Neighborhoods because of its high price tag, continued to be pushed by local activists.
Five days a week, Rose Chang, 82, travels by bus from Capitol Hill, making two transfers on her way to B.F. Day Elementary School . She volunteers about six hours a day at the Fremont school."Grandma Rose," as everyone at the school calls her, has been volunteering for three years. She helps out with reading and art projects. "I like to keep busy; I don't like to sleep or sit around," Chang said.
Photographed on Friday, April 20, from the cabin of a passenger plane flying north from Boeing Field, the fresh canopy of leaves covering Beacon Hill around the emerald lawns of the Jefferson Park Golf Course sitting below cumulus clouds and patches of blue sky shouts spring. The close, gray skies of late fall, winter and early spring is giving way to another legendary season of temperate weather in the Pacific Northwest.
Marchers rally in the streets against developers that are proposing the construction of a shopping mall at the Goodwill site located at the intersection of Rainier Avenue South and South Dearborn Street. The protest was held on Saturday, April 21, and left from 12th Avenue South and East Yesler Way toward the Goodwill site where a rally was held. The development will be two-third the size of Northgate Mall. Plans call for 650,000 square feet of retail, more than 80 percent dedicated to large, national chains. The development calls for 2,300 parking spaces, a move which organizers say will double traffic volumes on Rainier Avenue South. A coalition of neigborhood groups, Little Saigon businesses and environmentalist groups has been trying to influence this development toward a project that fits the character and scale of the area with a less auto-oriented design utilizing green building principles.
Grace and Daniel Preyapongpisan bring their trashy spoils to a drop off spot on Hillman City during the neighborhood's spring cleanup event on Saturday, April 21. Organized by the Hillman City Business Association, the cleanup focused on washing down and replanting the business district's planters, picking up litter, weeding the tree wells along Rainier Avenue South and maintaining the plants in the residential traffic calming circles.
COLUMBIA CITY - In twelve years, BeatWalk hasn't skipped a beat. At times, tempos rushed and dragged, but never since its inception in 1995 has the Columbia City monthly-music gathering lost its stride.Darryl Smith imagined a happening Columbia City on a Friday night. He imagined residents escaping the confines of their houses and filling the three-block radius of Rainier Avenue South with feet. A local realtor and community leader, Smith, 44, dreamt of a Pioneer Square-like atmosphere in Columbia City, embracing the wide amount of diversity that the area is well branded for. "The response was huge that first year," said Smith, who recalled over 200 pairs of legs wandering the area on BeatWalk's inaugural evening. "It had a different vibe than Pioneer Square under a similar format
COLUMBIA CITY - On May 3, 1907, after 14 years as an independent town, Columbia City officially became part of the City of Seattle. The community marked the occasion by having the men and boys conduct "a grand clean-up of streets, alleys, and back yards," after which they were "given a supper by the women of Columbia in the town hall." A century later, the neighborhood will celebrate its annexation centennial with music, historical programs, and the dedication of a Centennial Tree by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. It may not seem remarkable these days to think of Columbia City as part of Seattle. It wasn't a controversial decision back in 1907 either - the vote was 109 to 3 in favor of annexation.
I never got around to making a New Year's resolution this year; I got cancer instead. Well, "got" is probably not the correct medical term - "was diagnosed with" would be more accurate. It seems as if everybody's jumping on the cancer bandwagon these days. Since Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow announced the return of their respective cancers, television, newspaper and magazine writers all over the country have been describing their own battles with the disease. I guess now it's my turn. I had been thinking about it for a couple of months, but kept putting off writing about it. Perhaps it was my own form of denial. If you read it in the newspaper, it must be true, right? I had been bleeding internally on and off for the past four years. Even though I'd been scoped, poked and prodded all over the place, doctors on two coasts could never pinpoint the cause.
Recent events on the Virginia Tech campus - where an "isolated, scary loner," according to the dailies, ran amok and killed 33 folks (if you count his own worthless hide) - allow the mass-media pundits with more subdued corporate flash than intelligence or real concern once again allow to weigh in for two or three days about the "tragedy."The thing pundits like best is to ask a really stupid question over and over. In cases like this it is always "Why?" closely followed by "How could this happen?"
The city was supposed to present a draft plan for future uses of the Fort Lawton Army Reserve base last week at a community meeting in Magnolia.But there was no draft plan, announced Linda Cannon, deputy director of the city's Office of Intergovernmental Relations.The problem, she explained, is that shortly after the April 19 meeting notices went out, the Army called the city expressing concerns about not being able to sell off as much of the property as possible to private developers. "Until we're clear on that, we're just going to pause on starting the reuse plan," Cannon said. The city has had two initial conversations with the Army, and there will be more, she added.
The Magnolia Cooperative Preschool marked a milestone April 20 when it celebrated its golden anniversary in the United Church of Christ. "I think we're even older than that," said Adele Anderson, a former Queen Anne resident and lead teacher at the preschool. The co-op started out in private homes and was located in another church for a time, she explained.Her own children went to the preschool, and she's been a teacher for more than 27 years in a setting where the parents help out one day a week as assistant teachers, Anderson said. The parents typically pay tuition once a month, she added. "We also have lots and lots of families here on scholarships."
Can't live with 'em, etc.-Curly (Zach Dammel) and Jud (Parker Gross) chat about women and such in Magnolia Theater's current production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic cowpoke musical, "Oklahoma," which open 4 p.m. Thursday, April 26, at the United Church of Christ. Split into two cast, the first batch of actors also will play April 27-28 at 7 p.m. both nights. Cast two takes over May 10 and runs through May 12. Tickets are available at the box office May 8 between the hours of 4 and 5:30 p.m.; you can also buy tickets 30 minutes before the curtain. United Chruch of Christ is at 3555 W. McGraw. For further information, call 356-1342 or visit www.magnoliatheater.com. Photo by Eric Stern