Safety considerations and land-use policies handed the Port of Seattle two setbacks recently - one small, one large.The small one is about lighting, or lack of it, on the docks at Fishermen's Terminal. The issue came up following one of the drownings a year or so ago at the terminal. A safety division of Labor and Industries recommended several changes, which the Port followed up on, said Port spokesman David Schaefer.The big issue, and one that has broad implications for the city, is the Port plan to develop its North Bay property above Terminals 90 and 91.North Bay is in the city's Ballard Interbay Northend Manufacturing and Industrial zone, an area the city's Comprehensive Plan mandates should be preserved as it is to protect industrial, family-wage jobs. However, the Port has been hard pressed in recent years to find new industrial and manufacturing tenants for North Bay. So the Port has looked elsewhere, considering at one point adding residential development to the area.
Magnolia Garden Center's Pot Recycling event Aug. 11 and 12 saved more than 1,000 plastic containers from local landfills, to the manifest satisfaction of garden center co-owner Chuck Flaherty. Even gardening guru Ciscoe Morris contributed. A local grower will sanitize and reuse the pots. Magnolia Garden Center is at 3213 W. Smith St. in Magnolia Village.
Western Washington University in Bellingham has released the names of Magnolia and Queen Anne students who earned a place on the spring quarter honor roll or graduated from the university this summer.
The Queen Anne Community Council Transportation Committee will meet next Wednesday, Aug. 29, at 7 p.m. Recommendations summarize the consensus of 40 community and business leaders from both neighborhoods on topics including transit, streets, housing mix, building design, education, public services and public amenities.
Maybe it's nostalgia, but the kinds of homes built during the so-called modern architectural movement in the 1940s, '50s and '60s are making a comeback, according to Magnolian Heidi Ward, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent who specializes in "Mid-Century Modern" homes. "It has a huge following," she said.Also known as Classic Modern or Northwest Regionalism, the style is characterized by a minimalist approach that includes: large, exposed wooden beams, tall ceilings, big rooms with lots of windows, an obvious connection between the inside and outside of the homes, and a simplicity of design that extends to plumbing fixtures and cabinetry.Some of the homes still exist, but Ward and her husband-builder, Rick Ward, have taken a different approach. They buy fixer-uppers and convert them to the old modern style.
The Ravenna Gardens store at Queen Anne Avenue and Boston Street is calling it quits after 10 years in the neighborhood, and it will be replaced by a Peet's Coffee & Tea shop across the street from a Starbucks, catercorner from a Tully's and two doors up from Caffè Ladro."Our lease was up," explained Gillian Mathews, one of the owners of Ravenna Gardens. The move wasn't forced on the longtime neighborhood business because of a massive jump in rent, she stressed. "It was our decision."
Diversity now means having people who are far richer than the preceding residents. Gone are the days of having well-to-do living next door to less well-to-do but very dignified people of color. I seldom see the neat, older folks with their clouded eyes and well-worked hands, walking slowly on the sidewalks of the Beacon Hill, Montlake or Madison areas. Does anyone care where they were forced to go to?A South End gentrification... or ethnic cleansing?Has anyone noticed the rapid pace with which Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley and Madison areas have been gentrified?
More than 70 kids have brought back Motown music, and brought it back respectfully, in "Cinderella - A Love Story with the Sound of Motown" at Seattle Repertory Theatre.The Sunday, Aug. 19, afternoon dress rehearsal put on by Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center surprised and entertained an audience of family members and friends. From the ultimate '60s outfits - shiny white, knee-high leather boots included - to the voices that emanated from the youth in the play, the show goes beyond unique to become enchanting for the audience."It's a really different experience," said Jordon Bolden, who plays the character Buttons, best friend to Cinders, the Motown Cinderella.
Thousands of South End residents filled the Columbia City streets to watch the annual Rainier Valley Heritage Parade on Saturday, Aug. 18. Young fairies make their way down the parade route Click PHOTO GALLERY for all of the pictures.A vote was held by organizers to determine the top community groups participating in the parade. Here's how it worked out for this year:
RAINIER BEACH - One hundred years after Rainier Valley was annexed as part of Seattle, the community is celebrating its unique diversity and reminding itself of what Rainier Beach has to offer with the the Rainier Beach Merchants Summerfest on Saturday, Aug. 25. The event began with Rainier Beach resident and business owner Jean Veldyke's idea to renew the neighborhood's intrigue and appeal to Rainier Beach residents."This festival came about as a result of concerns for the community not really showing up and supporting itself," said Veldyk. "We didn't have too much trouble finding people to work as leaders for this project because everybody is pretty cognizant that Rainier Beach needs to pick up itself up by its bootstraps and be more visible and coordinated."
Thousands of South End residents filled the Columbia City streets to watch the annual Rainier Valley Heritage Parade on Saturday, Aug. 18. Young fairies make their way down the parade route Click PHOTO GALLERY for all of the pictures.A vote was held by organizers to determine the top community groups participating in the parade. Here's how it worked out for this year:
GEORGETOWN - Vines creep across his lower calf, blurred squiggles tracing the uncertain patterns of his veins. He just went for it."I kind of fell into tattooing backwards. It sort of landed in my lap. Back when I was partying a lot, when I was a lot younger, my friend had a homemade machine, and I stumbled across it one night and decided to tattoo myself," said Georgetown tattoo artist Joby Dorr about his impetuous first stab at the ancient art form, and as he etched in his skin the branch-like patterns on his leg he found a different line to follow. "Something just clicked where you just know that's what you want to do."Now, years after that night, Dorr spoke about working at Georgetown's ArtCore Studios with fellow tattooists and what the artistry of tattooing really means.
Geniuses and organizations like to generalize about people. Jung had his system, dividing people into extroverts and introverts, among other things. Freud had his categories, too. And my favorite of the early shrinks, Karen Horney, even divided neurotics into those who moved away from people, toward people, in a dependent posture or against people.And it wasn't just godless (not necessarily unspiritual) docs who tended to categorize.The Catholics who raised me had saints and sinners. Pat Robertson and his ilk have God, themselves and sinners (everybody else). Middle Eastern fanatics have God and themselves on one hand, infidels on the other.I'm less regimented than the great shrinks (some might say quite a bit less intelligent, too). And although death scares me, I am less terrified of hell and damnation than most religious folk I know. Yet I, too, look to the past. To Aesop, who I believe was the author of the ant-and-the-grasshopper fable.
RICHARD I intended to. Issue? I haven't investigated it as much as I should. I know it's about Parks money, right? So, I have to do more investigation.
It seems like everything we really love about Seattle is slipping away - the social and economic diversity, the older buildings that give our neighborhoods their distinctive character, the trees and the green spaces. Those big buildings sprouting up everywhere embody the forces at work. Whether it's gargantuan single-family homes squeezed between one-story bungalows, or three-story townhomes with garages downstairs and paved-over yards, these new buildings with their stratospheric prices have displaced working-class families, immigrants and renters in the Section 8 program along with others living below the median income.