Want to glimpse the future of South Lake Union, Seattle's evolving rust belt that stands between downtown and the water? You can check it out at Vulcan's South Lake Union Discovery Center at Westlake and Denny. I did last week, along with 100 or so other curious folks who showed up for a Greater Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce tour. In case you'd forgotten, two Seattle Commons votes in the 1990s spared the district from becoming a condo-lined, Champs Elysee of yuppiedom.It's happening anyway, without the green acres. Money will overcome. And the language of money - "lifestyle" - would colonize our minds as well as our streets. Treasure your own, private thoughts and your own way of being at your own risk.
The GoodSeattle was named the "most livable city" in the nation by the United States Conference of Mayors. The BadThe state Democratic Party has been fined $187,500 for not adequately reporting donations and debits during the 2004 campaign.The UglyA vast majority of the participants in the World Naked Bike Ride in Seattle.
It's easy for a worthy book to fall through the cracks. Jerome Richard has written a worthy book, "The Kiss of the Prison Dancer," published in 2004. The author did public readings last year at Queen Anne Books and Elliott Bay Books, and that was pretty much it."Prison Dancer" fell through the cracks. Not even runner-up status for the 2005 Hemingway/Pen Award will be enough to pull it back from the remainder tables.The 74-year-old Richard, a first-time novelist and resident of Queen Anne, set his story in the San Francisco of the 1970s. Max Friedman, a concentration-camp survivor, happens upon a young man spilling out of the bushes in Golden Gate Park. The next day he learns that a young woman was raped and murdered in the park the night before.A neo-Nazi is arrested for the crime. He's not the same person Max saw coming out of the bushes in the park.Max has a moral dilemma on his hands: The wrong man might be executed for the crime.And yet, so what: The wrong man is a neo-Nazi.
Tom Peyer walks into Uptown Espresso on Queen Anne Avenue on an 85-degree afternoon and orders a steaming cup of drip coffee. In a sky-blue T-shirt and sweat pants, he holds a Simpsons comic book in one hand and his own cup of smoldering-heat cure in the other."I heard an old wives' tale that hot liquid on a hot day is supposed to cool you off," Peyer says.At age 51, Peyer is working his childhood dream job. Instead of being held in a briefcase or displayed in some sophisticated report, his professional work can be seen on the shelves of the local comic-book store.His name adorns the covers of such illustrious and long-running comics as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men and Justice League of America. As a child, he frequently read the storylines he now sustains as an adult."It's a dream job - it's fun to spend your adult life thinking about space aliens and monsters," Peyer says with a laugh.
What famous cartoon character lives in Discovery Park?Well, not exactly. But the character Woody Woodpecker was "modeled" after one of our resident birds, the pileated woodpecker. The popular cartoon character with the trademark stuttering cackle, created in 1940, closely resembles the pileated woodpecker with its brilliant red crest. However, it's not only the red crest that makes the pileated woodpecker so easily recognizable. It also is the largest woodpecker in North America (with the exception of the recently "rediscovered" ivory-billed woodpecker). The pileated measures nearly one-foot long with a wing span of almost two feet. It's striking black-and-white feathers, along with its long neck, seem almost prehistoric. The visual presence of this bird fits perfectly with its loud, resonant drumming, its ringing and its wild, "kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk" call (quite similar to the more familiar Northern flicker).So, you say you've been to Discovery Park and wonder how you could have missed this amazing bird? The pileated woodpecker lives year-round in the park and is typically seen in the interior of the forest. It is here where the forest provides the large snags and large, decaying live trees that are a necessity for nesting, roosting and foraging.
Jim Mar has a distinct take on things. He is a pragmatist and, as he nears 91 years of age, he has a sense of perspective that only time can bring. Then there is his worldview. During World War II, he served in North Africa and Europe, so he has seen other lands. But Seattle's Chinatown is the realm he knows best.Jim was born on July 11, 1914, at Seattle's Providence Hospital. He is the fourth of eight children born to Mar Fook Hing and Lee Shee. Both his parents were born outside Canton, China, and immigrated to the United States separately in 1906. They met after they'd arrived in the West.Once here, his father renamed himself Henry, though his mother kept her Chinese name. When Jim was born, he was given the Occidental name James, as well as the traditional name Mar Gim Toon.Like all his siblings (and, eventually, his children), Jim attended Garfield High School. He lettered in basketball and baseball, and graduated in 1933.
To hear Vulcan real estate marketing manager Alison Jeffries tell it, Paul Allen's ambitious plan to transform South Lake Union is the best thing to happen to Seattle since, well... just about anything. Speaking at a larger-than-normal Greater Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce luncheon held at the project's so-called South Lake Union Discovery Center last week, she noted that Vulcan's primary focus is making money. "Then we look at what is the positive impact we can create for this community," Jeffries said of an area that has seen better days. But there was a spill-over of positive impact when a Vulcan representative handed Uptown Alliance president John Coney a $5,000 check to be used for construction of Lower Queen Anne's newest park at the corner of Roy Street and Queen Anne Avenue.
Preserving history and getting the best bang for the real-estate buck seem to be going head-to-head on an architectural battleground in Queen Anne.But while old housing isn't always making room for new construction, the redevelopment option is taking the lead, according to three recent examples.For instance, four luxury "residences" are going in at 222 W. Highland Dr., where the J.C. Black mansion once stood. The historic Gable House at Highland and Queen Anne Avenue is being marketed as a $8.75 million tear-down, and a couple who live at 120 Prospect St. held a belated 100th birthday party for their restored home just last weekend.
With warm, unusually spring-like days in winter bringing early bloom and growth, it seems certain the blackberries will arrive early.I don't speak of the big, seedy blackberries of late summer, luring pickers with their bountiful charms and easy picking. My words tell of the rare, small blackberries of early July shyly hiding their treasures, stingily surrendering them as a precious gift to those courageous enough to seek them.This is the blackberry of my early growing up years on Magnolia Bluff.In those early days, Magnolia Boulevard was a pot-holed, asphalted, two-lane road winding its way from the new Garfield Street Bridge to Fort Lawton's southern border.A dirt path along its edge served walkers on the bluff side overlooking Puget Sound. Huge logs formed a guardrail, remnants of which can still be seen in places.Along the Boulevard, houses were here and there along with numerous vacant lots. Native madrona, dogwood and big-leaf maple rose above shrubby ocean spray, mock orange, wild currant and hazelnut.The wild blackberry vines crept along the ground, half-hidden amongst the native grasses and weeds, scrambling over fallen branches and stumps. It was a landscape designed by nature.
Richard Corff is a real estate salesman with a difference.Corff loves a certain type of real estate at the expense of almost everything else.It wasn't always this way, but almost from the time he arrived here from Oklahoma City in 1980, he wanted it to be that way.Corff is the driving force behind 360 Modern, "people passionate about and dedicated to the appreciation of modern architecture and all things related," according to the firm's wildly informative website: www.360modern.com.The firm buys and sells modern architecture homes and "provides a community where buyers and sellers can connect."
Warm sunlight filters through tall windows, splashing on a room of sunny yellow earth tones. The friendly hiss of a shiny espresso machine greets patrons entering FareStart Cafe at 2100. Rich coffee aromas mingle with those of freshly-baked organic breads. Busy patrons chat with friendly servers; others ponder an easy-to read menu upon a soaring wall behind the service counter. Cozy tables for two or three line the wall of windows at this Rainier Valley cafe. Patrons occupy some tables, reading, chatting and enjoying the straightforward and sophisticated cuisine. FareStart Cafe at 2100 opened just a year ago at the 24th Avenue South location; until then it was located at Antioch University. Today the cafe also operates a second site inside the new Seattle Central Library downtown. Young people working in both establishments are students in the Youth Barista Training Program formed by YouthCare, a well-established non- profit providing shelter to homeless youth and FareStart.
ust once, can't there be an unconflicted superhero? Why must Superman, Spider-Man and Batman suffer such split-personality angst that their Prozac refills break the bank? Let Freud clue you in: Caped and sticky-fingered crusaders alike are propelled into their life's work of offing badguys and righting wrongs by the death of dad. Yes, yes, I know, Superman later gets adopted by a salt-of-the-earth Midwesterner, and Spidey only loses a fatherly uncle - but it's still the shattering loss of the guy who largely defines a boy's sense of masculinity that grows the compensating superpower.In "Batman Begins," fifth film in the franchise Warner Bros. inaugurated in 1989, that pattern plays out with a vengeance for Bruce Wayne, offspring of wealthy, beautiful parents whose charity drops like manna from heaven for Gothamites mired in the Depression.
Jim Mar has a distinct take on things. He is a pragmatist, and at almost 91 he has perspective that only time can bring. Then there is his world view. During World War II, he served in North Africa and Europe, so he has seen other lands. But Seattle's Chinatown is the realm he knows best.Jim was born on July 11, 1914 in Seattle, in Providence Hospital. He is the fourth of eight children born to Mar Fook Hing and Lee Shee. Both his parents were born outside Canton, China, and immigrated to America separately in 1906. They met after they arrived in the west. Once here, his father re-named himself Henry, but his mother kept her Chinese name. When Jim was born he was given the occidental name James, as well as the traditional name Mar Gim Toon.As did all his siblings (and, eventually, his children), Jim attended Garfield High School. He lettered in basketball and baseball, and graduated in 1933.
This is the first week of my walking tour of the interesting small street markets and neighborhood stores in Southeast Seattle.The south end is just brimming with unique and interesting small stores that can offer you a lot more, and charge you much less, plus offering a greatly broadening retail experience, if you just let yourself discover them.Transitioning to a small mart future does require some changes in your habits, and maybe a little nurturing by city hall. It could become a really strong and legible part of the South End's signature style as the new neighborhoods emerge along the valley's rail transit corridor. The hard part is to manage the change at both the personal and the municipal levels and to actively see to it that the outcome goes the right way.
The Seattle School District's decision to rescind the school closure proposal does not address its financial plight. In fact, it merely defers the inevitable job losses, program and service reductions or other unpalatable resolutions. Consequently, help is needed to mitigate the impact of the impending cuts. One powerful, effective, and cost free solution is volunteerism. There are a plethora of available volunteer positions in our public schools. Playground supervisor, lunch room monitor, crossing guard, and field trip chaperone are jobs that can relieve the burden of the professional school staff while simultaneously enhancing program and service quality. By performing such tasks as filing, stapling, pasting, cutting, or photocopying, teachers can then more productively utilize their time and skills. Another option is the PTA, which assists with numerous school related functions including fund raising. In my case, I'm a volunteer first-grade reading tutor at my neighborhood elementary school.