Picture Perfect Queen Anne (PPQA) presented its final draft plan last week for revitalizing the Queen Anne Avenue streetscape between Galer and McGraw streets. The proposals still need some tweaking before rough cost estimates can be determined, according to the Zimmer Gunsul Frasca (ZGF) Partnership, the architectural company hired to formulate a plan.Still, the proposals are ambitious, and they will be pricey if all of them are completed, conceded PPQA chairwoman Kathy King. But the ideas could also run afoul of property rights in some cases, and community sentiment in others.David Grant from ZGF said the proposals were the result of workshops and surveys of neighborhood residents and local business people. "It was a pretty resounding message," he said of the idea that Queen Anne Avenue is like a village center. A village center is small, serves just the neigh-borhood and is pedestrian-oriented, Grant said, "It has a finer grain, finer texture."That's opposed to a "Main Street" concept, which calls for a larger scale of development that is oriented to vehicles and serves a bigger population than a village center, he said.
The way property owners, architects and QFC tell it, the proposal to replace the Metropolitan Market with a two-story grocery and retail complex will be a valuable, pedestrian-friendly addition to Upper Queen Anne.But none of several hundred neighborhood residents and businesspeople who attended two recent public meetings about the project believe the claims. In fact - judging from some hissing, booing and steamed comments at a Land Use Review Committee meeting Monday night this week - some Queen Anne residents are downright angry about the proposal.The proposal also failed to impress a capacity crowd at Ponti's last week during a Greater Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce luncheon. But property owner Christina Cox and a team of people from the project gave it their best shot in a presentation that included a Power Point slideshow of rudimentary architectural renderings."It's important to note the project is still evolving," Cox said of the lack of design detail. Also conspicuously absent from both the Chamber lunch and the committee meeting was any talk of how deliveries would be made to the grocery store.
My sister-in-law, Catherine, is a wonderful cook. The mother of eight children, all of whom are now adults, she's spent the past 30-some years committed to preparing healthy, holistic and tasty meals for her family. As anyone knows who has struggled with getting a meal to the family table in any form, that's a sizable accomplishment. Although anything that Catherine makes is worth returning to for seconds, she's a fantastic baker. Whenever we get together for meals with my husband's family, which often includes many of his seven siblings and their families, I look forward to her foccacia bread. It is, quite frankly, the best I've ever had.
A Frenchman once told me he'd learned English by watching Marx Brothers movies.Since then, I've seen 150 French movies. Alas, my French remains terrible, but I have discovered an alternative movie universe, with stars and movies as good as anything the English-speaking world has produced.How many times have you searched your favorite video store or surfed channels and found only the same old junk?Time is too precious to waste on bad movies. Here are 20 French movies, which, if fairly watched, are all above four stars.
Neither incessant rain nor inauspicious date could dampen the spirits of the invited guests who celebrated the reopening of the Seattle Asian Art Museum on Friday the 13th (Jan. 13, that is). They had reason to rejoice. After months of work on infrastructure upgrades, Seattle's beautiful and historically significant grand dame of Art Deco architecture is up and running with four new exhibits in galleries that are more welcoming and better able to highlight the artworks than ever before.The renovation is a fine example of how public-private partnerships can work for the best interest of the community at large. The city owns the building. It's run by the nonprofit art museum. Their combined resources made possible this first phase of renovation. The floors were redone; new lettering to identify galleries was created; a new roof was installed, and the yellowed plastic skylights were finally replaced. This ceiling enhancement is amazing. Skylights can provide wonderful ambiance for the display of art, but their impact is negative when their own deterioration distorts the color. The new laminated glass skylights are an enormous improvement.
Renegade Opera brings a spectacle of dancers, singers, musicians and even martial artists to Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci," which comes to Magnuson Park on Feb. 10 through 12.The group brings a new approach to opera while maintaining its integrity, hoping to attract a broader audience, including people who have not previously been exposed to opera."If you've never been to opera before, this is the one to go to," said Greenwood resident Todd Dunnigan, Renegade Opera's musical director."We're pretty confident that just about everyone will enjoy it," added Mark Power, Renegade Opera's artistic director.
My son has a death wish. He's going to be 15 in April. That's the plan, but I fear he has other ideas - at least subconsciously. He's a skateboarder. This means he jumps onto a thin piece of wood that is attached to four wheels, and then he races at breakneck (and I do mean break neck) speeds down streets, ramps, stairs and stair railings. That last thing is called grinding, by the way. I think it has something to do with what happens to your private parts when you hit them the wrong way.
The pitched battle this legislative session in Olympia is over whether to keep the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) or jettison it. The reason for all of the consternation is this year's sophomore class must pass the 10th-grade WASL tests or they won't graduate.Some opponents argue the tests are too tough. But the fact is the 10th-grade WASL tests eighth-grade skills. That means that this "tough" standard requires that graduating seniors be able to do eighth-grade work. Imagine the outcry if we actually required our 12th-graders to be able to do 12th-grade work like some countries do!The WASL is a minimum standard of what our kids need to know, and experienced classroom teachers have a strong role in writing and refining the tests.
Supporters and detractors of the proposed Lower Woodland skate park were emphatic in their stances during the Board of Park Commissioners' public meeting on Thursday, Jan. 26. The skate park's proposed location is 5201 Green Lake Way N., with plans for a 20,000-square-foot skate park adjacent to the existing softball and soccer fields. If the location is approved, construction will begin this summer and completed by the end of the year.According to the skate park's opposition, this site was selected without public discussion, though the design process for this new site has included three public meetings since November. Surrounding neighbors did receive fliers regarding the public meetings, according to the parks department."We [the neighbors] were never invited into this process as a community, and I know having talked to all my neighbors around that the community would embrace a collaborative effort to put the skate park in a successful place for our kids, because it's our kids as well here," said Esther Van Dyke, a Green Lake neighbor opposed to site.Skate-park advocate Ryan Barth apologize to the neighbors who weren't informed about the park. "I don't know who is supposed to do outreach, but it seems like it was a big failure. If you don't put a regional facility in a park that's already actively used, then you are going to put it in somebody else's back yard," he said.
To most Seattleites, the Wallingford neighborhood presents a colorful east-west corridor between Interstate 5 and highway 99. A wide spectrum of internationally themed restaurants and small shops line North 45th and 50th streets and stand in reference to the Guild 45th movie theater, Dick's Drive-In or the QFC with its neon "Wallingford" sign.Hemmed to the north by Green Lake and to the south by Lake Union, most commuters know the area even if they can't or won't stop to enjoy the diversity of the businesses here.Called the "home center of the metropolis" in a 1925 Seattle Times article, Wallingford primarily provides urban housing for city dwellers.
Commerce faces off against conscience in August Wilson's "Radio Golf," the last play written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist (and Capitol Hill resident) before his death in October. This work, now running at Seattle Repertory Theatre in the Seattle Center, fulfills Wilson's promise to write a play chronicling the African-American experience during every decade of the 20th century. As he did in all but one of his dramas, in "Radio Golf" he frames his metaphor in Pittsburgh's rundown Hill District, where he grew up. But instead of his usual crew of socially powerless characters, Wilson mixes a trio of affluent African Americans along with two neighborhood eccentrics more typical of his theatrical fodder. The time is 1997. Harmond Wilks III, a successful property developer, plans to run for mayor of Pittsburgh on the Democratic ticket. Although Harmond grew up in the Hill District, he no longer lives there. But he wants to run his campaign out of his old neighborhood. After all, his father was a scion of local real estate, and Harmond has faithfully followed in his footsteps. Plus, Harmond and his partner and longtime friend Roosevelt Hicks have a plan to revitalize the economically depressed neighborhood. Once the Hill is given "blight" status, the deal stands to make millions.
Today's essay goes out to all my sports-hating, square-hating, mainstream-society-hating good pals on the Hill.Despite everything your subculture's taught you to believe, it's OK to like football.Yes, American football.Yes, that game you've hated ever since your dysfunctional public high school ordered you to love it. That game so beloved by the jocks who bullied you and the cheerleaders who ignored you. That game you've ever since associated with everything you despise about everybody in America who's different from you.As I wrote in this space a month ago, it's time to stop hating everyone who's different from you. Way past time, in fact.Time to learn to see the world through other eyes. To learn new experiences and new passions.And this week's Super Bowl can provide a great opportunity to do all that and more.
Last week, after a generation of delay, the Washington state Legislature finally approved the gay civil rights bill. The bill prohibits discrimination against members of the GLBT community in housing, employment and insurance in the same way such religious or racial discrimination is prohibited. Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign the legislation this week. Without question this is good news.But such news is not the whole story. It says something discouraging that such basic protections took nearly 30 years to achieve. And it says something positive about the persistence of legislators such as the late Cal Anderson and his successor, Ed Murray, and others who consistently championed the cause. The bill's passage is also a reflection of current political climate. The margin of victory in the senate was 25-23, meaning it came down to one senator's vote. In this case that vote belonged to Bill Finkbeiner of Kirkland, who broke ranks with his fellow Republicans - the only one to do so - and turned the tide on an issue that should have been decided long ago. This bill passed by a slender thread.
Edmond S. Meany, an admirer of environmentalist John Muir, was one of the founders of the Mountaineers, Seattle's first conservation society, in 1908 and proceeded to serve as president of the club for nearly 30 years until his death in 1935.No doubt he would approve of a project at a school that bears his name. The sixth- grade science classes at Meany Middle School this year are creating a huge tile mosaic mural with an environmental theme to enhance the school's main entrance. Under the guidance of artist-in-residence Chris Cocklin-Ray, a professional ceramist, and her assistant, Sean Hurley, an art student at Cornish College of the Arts, the sixth-graders are designing and making the tiles, glazing them and giving them to Ray and Hurley for firing in their brand new ceramics kiln - which presents a set of problems. More on that later.
Sen. Patty Murray recently joined Sound Transit in marking a major light rail construction milestone last week before a massive tunnel-boring machine (TBM) began to disappear into the side of Beacon Hill. The TBM is currently digging the first of two, near mile-long light rail tunnels."The tunnels we're building will serve thousands of commuters every day traveling between downtown Seattle, the airport and the communities along the way," Sen. Murray noted.The launch of the tunnel-boring machine represents the start of some important technical light rail construction work. The tunnels will tie in with the underground station that is currently under construction 160 feet below the surface of Beacon Hill. The work is being done by Obayashi Corporation, Sound Transit's light rail contractor for the Beacon Hill segment.