It's the sort of bureaucratic note that is easy to miss. The notices from the Department of Planning and Development for land use meetings, pertinent examples of which appear in this paper, don't typically make for fascinating reading.But this one more than just caught my eye. The notice is for an early design guidance meeting for 523 Broadway East. That's the former QFC location, empty and gloomy since the grocery store relocated to the Broadway Market nearly two years ago. The question as to what would happen to the property has been floating around for years. Rumors included a Whole Foods Market, for one, as well any number of mixed-use configurations. So now we know a little. The stated proposal is, according to the notice, "develop a six-story, mixed-use building with below-grade parking. The project includes approximately 350 residential units, 25,000 square feet of retail use and approximately 400 parking stalls." No small project this. (See meeting details below.)When taken together with the similar mixed-use project at the old Safeway site one block to the north, the prospect exists for a major transformation of the north end of Broadway. Given the old QFC's blank wall on its Broadway side, and the isolating effect of having two large, empty warehouse-like buildings in such close proximity, the northern tip of Broadway is effectively severed from the rest of the street. While it is certainly true that many businesses north of the Broadway Market are doing well, it is self-evident that filling two unused properties with both businesses and residents makes for a better economic climate. Not to mention the potential aesthetic improvement and the greater sense of vitality that could come from hundreds of new people living on Broadway. It's not a guarantee. But it's not an impossible set of expectations, either. This project becomes the latest to take advantage of last year's Seattle City Council decision to increase the zoning on Broadway.
Thirteen-year-old Akhona Thiso is one of six musically talented South African students, from Khayelitsha near Cape Town, visiting Seattle on a cultural exchange program associated with the Amy Biehl Foundation. It would appear that he is having the time of his life! I watched him wrestle and roll on the grass with his host family, the Foy brothers David and Tommy - head locks and friendly punches galore.There was a comfort level between them that couldn't be faked. Akhona admits that he was very surprised "because I was not expecting a nice family like this!" He was also relieved when he found that urban Seattle did not look like New York City, his preconceived idea of America. The Mount Baker family has not hosted a foreign student before and the brothers confessed that at first they were not at all enthusiastic. The idea of sharing bedrooms, bathrooms and having to look out for a stranger sounded like too much work.
There's been a bit of talk in the neighborhood about the times lately. Letters to the editor go unanswered, citizens are outraged, elected officials and bureaucrats act coy. Of course, I am not talking about this paper, but The Seattle Times - the South End keeps a knocking.I was surprised at Nicole Brodeur's mistake of a column about placing a big dump on Georgetown, not for her subsequent silence, but because she went for a ride, on a dog and a pony.A dog?A pony?Imagine yourself an iron age fellow, an ironic femme fatale or some medieval European rube being treated to a traveling show. The barker takes your money and the next thing you know, you're the audience in a dog and pony show. What do you get?Lipstick on a pig.You can't get your money back, and the next batch of suckers is shoving its way through the door. You go on to other subjects, like the monkey boy or bearded lady, but that dog and pony just won't let go.
With an $87 million renovation of Garfield High School scheduled for later this month, a local organization hopes to rescue the school's auditorium, named after the legendary Quincy Jones, from being torn down. The group known as United to Save the Garfield Quincy Jones Auditorium started after community members and Garfield alumni felt as though their voices weren't being heard. "It is important that the new students know the history of the school," said David Barfield, campaign manager and a 1968 Garfield alumnus. "There is a wealth of history right in that auditorium. I had suggested that the auditorium be saved before the renovations plans were made, but they never listened."Needing to collect 18,000 signatures to get the issue on the fall ballot, United to Save the Garfield Quincy Jones Auditorium is hoping to gather twice that total to force a vote this summer."A lot of people don't even know that they are going to tear it down," said Shellise Montgomery, 1986 alumnus and group treasurer. "That's what happens - everyone finds out about it when it's too late. We would have loved to have gotten involved at the beginning."If the bill succeeds, it would force the Seattle City Council to pressure the school district into preserving the historic site. While the school itself, at 400 23rd Ave., stands as a city landmark, renovations in the 1970s to the auditorium took away any protection to the building.
The first time Jerrie Ruks drove up the Alcan Highway, in 1948, it was in a "brand spankin' new," robin's-egg-blue Hudson convertible. She and her first husband, married just over a year, were moving from West Virginia to Alaska."We had to carry extra gasoline on that awful, awful road," Ruks says. Hazards included potholes, bumps, poor shoulders, gravel breaks and wildlife crossings, but they experienced no mishaps and the scenery was spectacular.She and her husband had married shortly after meeting. Near the end of World War II, right out of high school, Jerrie got a job as a dispatcher for the United States Army in Norfolk, Va. She copied and distributed manifests, or lists of cargo, for the so-called liberty ships going to Europe.Cargo on the ships included food, equipment, medical supplies and even shiploads of condoms. Sometimes Ruks had to deliver manifests to Newport News across Chesapeake Bay. She crossed the bay on a ferry, which was often a yacht conscripted for that purpose.Over Memorial Day weekend, she and a friend took a brief vacation to West Virginia. At a holiday gathering, Jerrie met Alex Fuller, who was just out of the Navy. Three days later he proposed, and less than two weeks later, on June 16, 1946, they were married in a small Baptist church.They lived the first year together in Bergoo, W. Va., where Alex was an electrician for a coal mining company. Then they bought that Hudson convertible and, leaving the Lower 48 behind, drove all the way to Palmer, Alaska, where Alex worked as an electrician for another coal mining company.
Hossein Soleymani, a HomeStreet Bank assistant vice-president and the branch manager of HomeState's Queen Anne location (1835 Queen Anne Ave. N.), is fun to talk to.Reporters spend a lot of time, notepad clenched tightly below a sweatily squeezed pencil, trying not to frown as we write down the self-interested blatherings of allegedly interesting people.But every once in a while our jobs allow us to meet people who are downright interesting, charming and witty.Soleymani fits that bill perfectly.The 47-year-old Iranian, who came to the United States, and Seattle, 27 years ago-with less than $2,000 in his pockets and very little English in his vocabulary-is a good old-fashioned American success story.He is also, like many immigrants, a devout lover of this country as well as his chosen neighborhood in which he does business, Queen Anne.
In the food realm, they are the good guys, protecting the body against dreaded free radicals and giving cancer cells the boot.These "super foods," as they are known, are powerful allies for any body, particularly one that's fighting cancer, because they boost strength and immunity and help rid the body of toxins. Or so say three naturopathic physicians at Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center.Mark Gignac, Heidi Lucas and Paul Reilly work side-by-side with oncologists at the Capitol Hill clinic, the only cancer center in the Northwest to integrate medical oncology and complementary cancer therapies under one roof.Here are their super heroes:
Today I'm feeling a bit like Andy Rooney, the legendary curmudgeon whose televised bits close out 60 Minutes, so I've decided to vent. Here is my current gripe list, one that changes over time.-Leaf blowers: What knucklehead came up with this idea? They sound like a hydroplane and are likely a leading cause of global warming. Why are we trying to rearrange the earth with an air machine?-Driver's doors thrown wide open to traffic: Do driving school instructors ever mention that throwing your door open into a traffic lane is a dangerously idiotic thing to do?I drive down narrow streets in Magnolia, where one or more doors on the traffic side of the car are fanned out like a charging elephant's ear, and there isn't a soul to be seen. Unless you're as big as a defensive end, you don't have to throw the door wide open to get in or out of the car.And before I forget, that shiny bulbous thing on the outside of the door is a rearview mirror. Check that before flipping your door open, and you'll be able to see the car that's going to take off your door, and possibly your arm. (See SDOT Section 11.58.050, re: opening and closing vehicle doors.)
If you go out in the woods todayYou're sure of a big surprise.If you go out in the woods todayYou'd better go in disguise.There was a news story in early May about a bear wandering through the neighborhoods of Issaquah.That didn't really seem all that earthshaking; after all, Issaquah is located right up next to the Cascades, which would seem to be prime bear habitat.Anyone who has driven through the pass recently can readily testify that, as time has gone by, Issaquah has been growing, and housing is now pushing into what was once forested land.What used to be a trip that took a couple of hours driving down a two-lane road through the countryside is now a half-hour of speeding down the four-lane each-way freeway, watching out the side window as urban sprawl crawls toward the mountains.The poor little bear wandering through Issaquah was identified as an American black bear, Ursus americanus, that had probably just woken up from a winter of hibernation and was looking for something to eat.Or maybe he was looking for something else: the mating season for black bears usually lasts from late May to early July.
Before Saturday afternoon, I had never seriously considered or even briefly entertained the thought of attending a Seattle Pride Festival. So on June 24, as I walked onto the grounds of the Seattle Center-the first year the event has been held there-I had almost no clue what to expect, what I would see or how I would entertain myself for the ensuing hours.But above all else, I decided prior to entering the festival grounds that I would put aside all assumptions and premonitions and just take in the event as it was-nothing more, nothing less.When I finally set sight on the festival, my first thought was: "Wait, isn't this Folklife?" The setup was very similar to the Memorial Day gathering, with booths erected around the area, music blaring and the fountain spraying in the middle of it all. Except for the small number of people present, it was very difficult to tell the two events apart. Walking around the different booths, I finally started to notice some subtle differences. Familiar organizations such as The Seattle Times and Washington Mutual popped into view, surrounded by lesser-known names (to me, at least) such as the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. Animal rights and protection groups occupied more than a few of the many stalls.But in general, most aspects of the event were very similar to any other public festival in Seattle. I was bombarded by petitioners every third step-OK, every fourth. Political candidates occupied booths and corners, seeking voter support and a chance to explain their issues.One evangelist approached me with a flyer; another man stood on the grass and shouted out a Christian message. I saw tons of different ethnicities and age groups, all walking around and enjoying the beautiful weather.Although the music definitely had a pro-homosexual focus, there were mainstream tunes, too. The smell of greasy, carnival-like food permeated the air as crowds lined up to fill their stomachs. There were also the usual colorful clothing styles among the attendees.
JAY BUSCH"Being able to walk to everything - parks and restaurants. I love it!"SANDY FARMER"All of the people and families. It feels really homey up here, not stuffy."
Owners of the Metropolitan Market property on Upper Queen Anne Hill have dropped plans to include a second floor of retail space above a new QFC. Instead, 55 apartments on two floors above the grocery will replace what opponents of the controversial project had derided as a "strip mall," according to Christina Cox, one of the property owners. Parking above the QFC on Queen Anne Avenue North will be included for the apartments, while below-grade parking will be reserved for the grocery store, she said. And the change to a mixed-use project "responds to what we heard loud and clear from the community," according to a Queen Anne Place press release.Queen Anne Neighbors for Responsible Growth, which gathered more than 1,600 signatures on petitions opposing the original, all-retail project, thinks it's a positive development that the property owners responded to public concerns, said Queen Anne Neighbors' spokesman, Scott Smith.
Magnolia's Bookstore holds many best-selling novels on its numerous shelves. The names of the hottest authors confront readers the moment they walk in the door.But buried among the large stacks are a few books that some readers may not recognize so easily. Within the store are the works of a local treasure: Cameron Dokey.A resident of Magnolia, Dokey has written around 30 books, and some of her recent ones have become quite popular. Members of the community may recognize her as an employee of the store, where she's worked the past four years.Dokey grew up in Stockton, Calif., where she attended high school before embarking on an unorthodox college career. After initially thinking about becoming an archaeology major, she accepted an offer to join the acting company at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.Four years later, she decided to move to Seattle, where she earned an English degree from the University of Washington.Dokey said she's been interested in writing from a very young age.
There's no money to build them yet, but three public meetings and an open house last weekend at the Ballard Commons Park have been held to get people's ideas of where new skateboard parks should be located in Seattle, said Susanne Friedman from Seattle Parks and Recreation."And now we're going to spend the rest of the summer culling through suggestions people gave us," she said. There were hundreds of them, but none of the suggestions had anything to do with replacing the Seattle Center skateboard park that will have to make room for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation complex, Friedman said. "Parks is not taking the lead on that."Instead, she said, a consultant hired by the city to scope out possible new locations at the Seattle Center has presented a report to the Seattle City Council for review. The status of that review was unknown at press deadline, but an earlier proposal for a replacement next to the CSO project on Elliott Avenue West had been put on hold in the meantime.Still, a goal of the Skatepark Advisory Task Force was to have new skateboard parks in park districts in the northeast, northwest, central-east, central-west, southeast and southwest parts of Seattle, Friedman said. "We are looking citywide." That includes Magnolia and Queen Anne, she said.
Drivers on Northeast 65th Street will need to put up with a bumpy ride for a few more weeks while a Seattle Department of Transportation contractor prepares for paving a new asphalt roadway surface.On Wednesday, June 21, crews began work on more than 1 1/2 miles of roadway along 65th, starting at 35th Avenue Northeast and ending at Sixth Avenue Northeast just west of Interstate 5. Work hours will be from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. If weather cooperates, the contractor expects to complete this work by mid- to late July. At least one lane will remain open in each direction. Drivers are encouraged to use alternate routes around the area, such as Northeast 75th Street or Sand Point Way Northeast. Access to businesses will be maintained, but curb-side parking on 65th will be restricted in the construction area.