Built in 1928-30, the Loveless Building, along Broadway East and East Roy Street, originally housed artisan shops and capacious apartments. Arthur Loveless even lived in the back of the building. The entire complex is listed as a historic landmark and is located at the southern end of the Harvard and Belmont Historic District, across the street from the Harvard Ext. The area has long been a favorite of local architecture buffs as one of the most aesthetically unified areas in Seattle. This February, the shops feature a wide range of works by a variety of different artists. It seems clear that the Loveless Building is an Art Walk unto itself, so you do not have to wait for first Thursday to spend a delightful afternoon at this cozy corner on the Hill.
The pages, often in a variety of pale tints - yellow, blue, green, pink - and about 4 inches by 6 inches in size, are from what people our age used to call autograph books. Remember? These books now evoke such inspiring, silly and fond memories that sometimes I actually feel sorry for today's children, who have merely e-mail and digital cameras with which to capture the fun of school days, young romance and the handed-down precepts of poets, philosophers and sometimes even parents.We don't know exactly when it became customary for American schoolchildren to have such autograph books - in which they recorded important advice like, "When you get married and have some twins, don't come to my house for safety pins" - but we do know that the activity was in full flower by the 1880s and persisted until after World War II.
Much is said about the need for accountability in government spending, but when it comes to action, we're like the mice in Aesop's fable asking, "Who will bell the cat?" A provision in a bill from state Representative Mark Miloscia might just put a bell on the cat's collar when it comes to Seattle Housing Authority's continued destruction of low-income housing and the use of state money to pay for it.Miloscia, a fourth-term Democrat from Federal Way, chairs the Housing Committee. In the last session he championed bills for performance audits of state programs and a plan to end homelessness. The latter created a new state and local funding source with a $10 surcharge on real estate transaction documents, generating close to $20 million a year for cities and counties to serve their homeless populations. In order to access this money, local governments must provide hard data and put in place plans for ending homelessness. While we have criticized King County's Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness, we admire Miloscia's bill because it requires jurisdictions that were formerly doing nothing to start addressing the needs of their homeless citizens, and because it demands accountability in how the funds are spent.
So it turns out Robert Sondheim won't become a city councilmember after all. To be sure, his odds were slim. Sondheim, who owns the Rosebud restaurant on East Pike Street, was one of nearly 100 people who applied for the Seattle City Council seat left vacant when Jim Compton resigned to accept a teaching position overseas.Applicants who were not known to the council had little chance from the start. Contenders were given only three minutes to sell themselves to the council. That large list was whittled down to 14 last week, and, following more lengthy interviews, further reduced to six finalists on Monday, Jan. 23. Safe to say that being known to the council beforehand greatly increased your odds.The list of finalists consists of six women, one of whom is a former councilmember, another of whom served on a former councilmember's staff. Five of the six are minorities. All six are credible candidates. And adding gender and ethnic diversity to the city's legislative body, traditionally a bastion of white maledom, is an admirable goal.But in some respects the council missed an opportunity.
Six senior citizens sat around a table criss-crossed with dominoes, chatting animatedly about quilting, casinos, the important role that the Southeast Seattle Senior Center (SSSC) plays in their lives and how they'd feel if recent funding cuts should affect their favorite meeting place."I've been known to sit at home in my pajamas and cry all day since my husband died. But now I come here," said Betty Winslow, a jovial woman who has considered the center a second home for two years."My daughter pushed me to join-at first I didn't want to be around all these old people!" Winslow teased. "But I've made some nice friends. We bring our lunches and eat, share and joke.""I'd go crazy if I didn't come here. It's home and friends," said Florence Townsend, who has used the center for 22 years. These regular visitors were a small sampling of the more than 1,400 senior citizens that use the center each year.
Donna Amira has accomplished quite a lot in her 26 years of classroom experience. The Dunlap Elementary School art teacher has worked with students at every level of the public school system from the primary grades to high school. Her students have won awards in art contests and had their pieces seen by children in Africa and Afghanistan. Additionally, she has worked with several area business and organizations to find the money to complete her student's art projects. Her most recent one is a peace and tolerance themed mural set for a spring 2006 unveiling. It's one of several completed over the years that has help establish her reputation as an outstanding teacher.
A venerable Southeast Seattle couple, Miriam and Glover Barnes have been on the cutting edge of social justice since their childhood in the late 1920s. Both warm and welcoming personalities, the tall Glover with his ready smile and the smaller but none-the-less mighty Miriam have made their brick home overlooking Mount Baker Park a gathering place for political movements, liberal intellectual thought, and friendly neighborhood barbecues since the mid-1960s. Professor Glover Barnes is the son of an Alabama coal miner who read the newspaper to his children. His mother insisted only clean and proper English be spoken in their home. Although his family attended a Methodist church on Sundays, Glover learned to play saxophone in a neighborhood band at the local Catholic Church. Miriam was brought up in West Virginia by Irish grandparents because her fun loving parents - in those tight, Great Depression years - could not afford the expense or time to raise her. Miriam describes her grandfather as a Christian Democrat who loved opera and her grandmother as an atheist Republican who was keen on baseball. Family meal conversations were lively and educational.
Would you believe that it was the innocent clock that was the in-spiration for the computer that controls most of our lives? That's right. It's a fascinating story.Way back when the faithful needed to be told when to come to prayer, the church needed an accurate clock that made a noise. Clocks developed with round cylinders that turned the hands, and those cylinders had bumps that tripped a lever that rang a bell. (Are you with me so far?)Well, around the time that clocks became accurate enough that they no longer had to be set according to a sundial or an hourglass, the bells that they rang became more and more elaborate in their sequences. The chimes of Westminster are a good example, or the tower bells of Wells Cathedral, which were made in 1450. This involved a very intricate series of bumps or cams. You can find examples of these in every modern music box. These cams also turn figurines on the clock towers. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest - France - the Dukes of Burgundy, who in their time were the richest of the rich, were interested in creating lively fabric patterns for clothing. Up until then, everybody wore gray wool and was dreary. But the happy court of the Burgundian dukes could do anything, and money always helps. So within a hundred years or so (things took more time in those days) someone had taken a clockwork apart and added the cylinder with the bumps to a loom.
An application to put more cellphone antennas on the Magnolia water tower has raised an alarm among some nearby residents who worry about the health effects of the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) generated by the equipment.Although there is a debate in the scientific community about whether EMFs pose a health hazard, concerns about the issue come up practically every time plans to install new cellphone antennas are announced.Magnolia was no different when the cellphone antennas first started appearing on the water tower almost a decade ago, said Andy Ryan, a spokesman for Seattle Public Utilities, which operates and maintains the water tower.
"Pianos and work are both badly needed in Kenya," says Arnie Tucker, owner of Seattle Piano Gallery. The unemployment rate in Kenya is about 50 percent, so it is obvious that work is needed. But pianos? Muriembe drums and obokano lyres, perhaps, but not pianos.In fact, an estimated 78 percent of Kenyans are now Christian, and Christian churches need pianos. Also, Western classical music is popular in Kenya. With a population of about 3 million, the capital city Nairobi is huge, "and every modern country in the world has an enclave there," says Kenn Wildes, co-owner and registered piano technician at Seattle Piano Gallery.
The Picture Perfect Queen Anne (PPQA) group's third and final public presentation last week left a lot of interesting issues unanswered, first and foremost any sort of cost estimate. Matthew Sutton suggested, from his experience, that a ballpark figure might be between $100,000 and $150,000 per block, but the group was unwilling to accept that as a possibility. They are still working toward a final report, which is not ready at this time, nor did the group express any timeline for its completion.I do hope they call another public meeting when the final report is done. Meanwhile, it was great news to hear that they had caught the attention of the city's departments responsible for sidewalks and tree care.
Queen Anne Neighbors for Responsible Growth represents thousands of Queen Anne residents. We are fighting what we believe to be irresponsible development in the heart of our neighborhood.Queen Anne is a locally focused, pedestrian-centered neighborhood. Its historic character grows from a rich and deep mixture of homes, apartments, small businesses, schools, parks, churches and people from all walks of life. We value the diversity of our neighborhood.We believe the development proposed by Christina Cox and her family on the entire half-block that currently includes the Metropolitan Market will violate the character of our neighborhood. It will create traffic congestion worse than we have now. It will cause serious access problems, parking problems and public safety problems. It will also destroy 11 units of affordable housing.The Cox family's proposal calls for second-story retail and second-story parking, neither of which currently exist or belong on Queen Anne Avenue. Zoning documentation calls for "a pedestrian-oriented shopping area composed of small to medium-sized businesses," such as a "small grocery store, coffee shop, video outlet, apartments." The Cox family seeks to destroy housing, more than triple the amount of existing retail space and lease space to QFC (owned by Kroger, of Cincinnati, Ohio - one of the largest grocery store conglomerates in the country).
Regular travelers of 34th Avenue on Magnolia have probably noticed some remodeling going on at the corner of Emerson, where the Magnolia Ristorante used to be. The refur-bishing has ended and the eatery's reopened as Rudy's Place.Because I pass that corner four or five times daily, I've kept an interested eye on the location. When Rudy's Place initially opened, they had crowds out the door. This bears some investigation, I thought, because a good close-by restaurant is always a benefit to the neighborhood.That's how I met Rudy Finne (sounds like Phinney), 57, the jovial, husky, white-bearded namesake of the place. Finne was born in Ballard and then "moved all the way to Magnolia." He went to Ballard High School and Shoreline Community College and finished his formal education at Western Washington in Bellingham.He's been in the food service industry since 1964, when he started at the Golden Tides at Shilshole as a dishwasher.
You can live almost your entire life like one of those little antelopes on the plains of eastern Africa, grazing, hang-ing out with your family and feeling safe in amongst the other antelopes, looking like everyone else, eating what every-one else eats, one big happy herd.And then a hungry lion arrives on the scene. Followed by a hell of a lot of hungry hyenas and vultures.And then comes the panic. The blind running in all directions. The fear deep down in your guts.You may be your Uncle John Antelope's favorite nephew, but when the lioness starts chasing, if you fall or stumble, you'll discover just how important being the favorite nephew is. And just how safe, too.
Market forces are in the saddle and Metropolitan Market is in the way. Market forces, as we all know, abhor a vacuum.Enter QFC.The Metropolitan Market-QFC imbroglio isn't about win-ning over public sentiment; it's about real-estate values.In Queen Anne, even more than most of Seattle, the screw keeps turning.The 2005 median price for a single-family home in Seattle came in at $399,900. Ten years ago a four-bedroom, Queen Anne Craftsman home, completely updated, sitting on a sunny corner lot with open, light-filled rooms and a country kitchen, fetched $339,000.This week $929,000 will get you into a renovated, four-bedroom Craftsman home across from "Little Howe" Park. That deal does include a garage. It should.Last week in this newspaper Christina Cox, one of three property owners of the proposed de-velopment site, wrote a guest column about the QFC project. She maintained, "In September 2004 Metropolitan Markets gave notice to ownership that, due to development of other locations, its future plans did not include this site."As if Metropolitan Market couldn't wait to shake Queen Anne's dust off their heels. That's a disingenuous statement at best. The truth is the Metropolitan Market folks say they want to stay but they can't afford to pay the vertical leap in rent.A little farther on in Cox's column, after the cat's-paw, European-flavored opening ("In Italy, it's passegiata..."), the logic of the marketplace bares its teeth: "The building is outdated, out of character, obsolete and has been standing for more than 40 years."Forty years! Can you imagine? What's love got to do with it?