As many north Capitol Hill residents may already know, Tent City 3, the roving camp for homeless men and women, is back at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral. The camp, which varies from 70 to 90 residents, is tucked into the cathedral's lower parking lot at 1245 10th Ave. E. Tent City 3, and its eastside sibling, Tent City 4, is a program of SHARE/WHEEL in response to the problem of homelessness in King County. SHARE (Seattle Housing And Resource Effort) is a community of homeless men and women whose goal is to provide a safe environment for homeless adults. Tent City's current stay will be the eighth time the camp has resided at St. Mark's.Indoor shelters provide emergency protection for roughly 2,500 of the estimated 8,000 homeless men and women in King County. Tent Cities 3 and 4 provide an alternative for more than 150 people who would otherwise be forced to sleep "in the woods," as one resident put it. In general, about half the residents are employed, about 10 percent are women and many are couples. "I feel safe here," said Tent City resident Dan S. For many, Tent City's strict code of zero drug and alcohol tolerance, the 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. quiet time, the privacy of tents for couples and security of self-policing make the roving camp a desirable choice among less hospitable alternative. In most indoor shelters, couples are separated, there is no privacy and personal belongings are vulnerable to theft. The camps are almost entirely self-sufficient. But given the lack of indoor plumbing - the camp uses portable toilets - Tent City welcomes neighborly assistance. Donations are welcome. Desired supplies included high-protein foods that can be eaten cold or heated in a microwave, fresh fruit and veggies, coffee, sanitary wipes, duct tape, warm socks, batteries and wooden palettes. As always there is a need for tents and tarps. In an effort to make connections with the neighborhood, Tent City 3 residents, along with volunteers from St. Mark's, invite Capitol Hill residents to a home-cooked dinner on Sunday evenings through April. The meal begins at 5:30 p.m. The charge is a free-will donation that will help support Tent City 3. The buffet-style dinners give Capitol Hill residents a chance to meet their Tent City neighbors. Tent City residents also host tours of the camp at 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. after regular church services on Sundays. Donations may be dropped off at the entry tent or in yellow bins placed outside the front doors of St. Mark's cathedral. For information about the Sunday dinners and tours, call Becky Crook, associate for St. Mark's Church in the World Ministries, 323-0300, ext 253. For information about SHARE/WHEEL, call 448-7889.
The white, Art Deco tower of St. Joseph Catholic Church rises nearly 225 feet from the leafy precincts of north Capitol Hill, a steady neighborhood presence through the changing decades since 1930. Built at 732 18th Ave. E. in the teeth of Depression, the church immediately won accolades from the architectural community.The original, wood-framed church on the same spot, dedicated in 1907, was no less remarkable - its interior was decorated with legendarily beautiful murals from the hand of Italian-born Brother Joseph Carignano, S.JBut as St. Joseph parishioners kick off centennial celebrations this month in honor of their original church, the festivities will celebrate much more than the history of two structures.
Capitol Hill is a lot safer than many parts of the city, according to crime statistics. The one glaring exception is rape, which was down 9 percent in 2006 from 2005 for the city. Capitol Hill saw a 50 percent jump from 10 rapes to 15 in the same time period.Robberies were up 2 percent on the Hill, compared with 4 percent for the city, while aggravated assaults in the neighborhood were down 15 percent, compared with a citywide decline of just 1 percent
Staff photographer Bradley Enghaus went out March 24 to memorialize the Queen Anne water towers near Galer and ThirdNorth while they were still there to be memorialized. Their long-awaited dismantling finally got underway April 3. Reader John Smith volunteered a handsome photos.
The Queen Anne Community Council at its April 4 board meeting voted unanimously to support plans for a Queen Anne farmers market next to the community center and McClure Middle School. The support included a letter to Seattle Parks and Recreation urging the agency to approve the application for a permit, said George Counts, a council board member and chairman of the Queen Anne Farmers Market Association. "And we're very pleased with that," he said.<br
Queen Anne artist Gretchen Bat-cheller likes the way light plays over Seattle, and her popular, luminous oil paintings of cityscapes show it. "The quality of light here is so blue," she said. Batcheller also finds the contrast attractive when blue shifts to orange and red at the end of the day in the Emerald City, she added.An instructional assistant who works with autistic children at John Hay Elementary SchoolBatcheller stopped painting when she got back to Seattle because of a lack of studio space. Finally, someone offered her some free studio space, and she mounted her first show on Capitol Hill around two years after she returned from Europe. These days, Batcheller uses a second bedroom as studio space in the Queen Anne home where she lives with her husband, Gus Peterson.
The Port of Seattle has joined other area ports, governmental agencies, the ferry system, Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, cruise lines and the American Lung Association to form the Puget Sound Maritime Air Forum.The forum's goals are to take an inventory of air-pollution sources and to develop ways to reduce them as much as possible - a goal that will include Terminal 91 when the cruise-ship terminal is relocated there in 2009. The forum is doing something "really unique and unprecedented and voluntary," said Puget Sound Clean Air Agency's David Kircher at a media briefing last week."Diesel emissions are a real concern for us," he stressed. That's significant because diesel engines are used by the Port of Seattle, Washington State Ferries, cargo vessels, container-hauling trucks, the railroad and cruise ships.
Former King County Executive, two-term Seattle City Council member and Magnolia resident Randy Revelle will be honored April 26 with a civic award from the Municipal League of King County.He's getting the James R. Ellis Regional Leadership Award, which closes a circle of influence in a way. "He [Ellis] was a mentor of mine," Revelle said of his time as county executive and member of the city council.Magnolian Bruce Carter, Muni League chairman, was tight-lipped about why Revelle was tapped for an award named after the so-called "Father of Metro." Individual and business members of the league submit nominations, and the league's board of directors makes the decision on the winners, Carter said.
It has been reported that Jeanne Kohl-Welles, state senator from the 36th Legislative District in Seattle, is supporting the bill in the state legislature to use King County tax revenues to build a new arena for the Sonics in Renton. This despite a recent election in Seattle which showed that 74 percent of Seattle voters are opposed to tax subsidies for professional sports.
I am a parishioner at Sacred Heart Parish, and I am appalled at the article you published regarding Father Ivan Dawson ("Sacred Heart priest ousted over money," April 4). Father Dawson worked tirelessly as the only full-time priest at Sacred Heart, and I have nothing but admiration for his efforts. I cannot believe you would take a baseless allegation from an "anonymous parishioner" and claim it as fact. The reporter shows a total lack of credibility!!!
Winter's over. Thank God.To someone like me, now it's all about spring, all of the time. I hold to the very sound of the word. When I say it, I see a lighter me dancing on a sunny patio, string of red-chili lights twin-kling its rails, my closest friends with party dresses on.And just as that image buds, every limb of me utterly in love with Seattle again, it occurs to me that there is still May & June to contend with, when the light broadens but the wind still jabs you in the back, a give and take that proves just how long time can take.Over the last months, I've spent many a dark-by-5 evening lounging in sweat pants in front of the TV. Sweat pants that, if held up to the light, a clear view of my living room can be seen through the seat of them. The worst part: watching our president make a nightmare of things.
We live in a commerce-driven culture.It wasn't always thus.My father considered himself a "working class" man. In his day, in our German-Irish neigh-borhood, that was not an insult. He also considered himself an American of German descent. Both sides of his identity were important to him. Most importantly, he considered himself a citizen of these United States. He would have laughed if you called him a consumer, and pitied you if you identified yourself as such.
Last week I was actually invited to a house party for Barack Obama. Twenty freakin' months before the election.Out of curiosity and loyalty to the friends who were hosting it, I went. It was a great discussion. But amidst all the earnest expressions of Seattle liberalism, one topic remained completely, curiously absent.Before Barack or anyone else matters, we've got an election here, this year.You would never know it from either the headlines or the local political chatter, much of which already seems obsessed with next year's presidential race. But we have five city council seats, plus four seats on county council, two Port of Seattle commissioners, four Seattle School Board members, lots of suburban positions and a host of ballot measures, including some critical transportation votes, coming up this summer and fall.
The shooting death on the University of Washington campus April 2 of UW employee Rebecca Griego at the hands of her renegade ex-boyfriend Jonathan Rowan, who then turned the gun fatally on himself, has sparked intense debate about the immediate and lasting dangers of domestic violence.The fact that Griego received numerous threats, including death threats, from the obsessively persistent Rowan - and had consequently tried and failed to have a restraining order imposed on her stalker - has aroused among us a sense of rage, frustration, fear and a sickened kind of futility. In the aftermath of this shocking murder-suicide, there is a subterranean feeling that Griego's death was not possible but imminent.
A large crowd of young children and their parents gathered at the Maplewood Playfield, 4801 Corson Ave. S., on April 7 for the annual Jefferson Community Center Spring Egg Hunt. The Seattle Parks and Recreation Department hosted several egg hunts throughout the city on the same day. The hunts were well attended, despite steady drizzle and cool temperatures.