Queen Anne News is pleased to add to the list of journalistic honors won by Pacific Publishing colleagues - a juggernaut-in-progress first noted in this space last week.The Beacon Hill News/South District Journal won three awards in the Society of Professional Journalists-Western Washington Pro Chapter's 2006 Excellence in Journalism Competition. The investigative team of BHN&SDJ; editor Erik Hansen and Magnolia News editor Rick Levin took first place in the Social Issues category for their multiple-part series "Work wanted: America's unknown labor." The four-part story, which ran in QAN Oct. 26-Nov. 16, 2005, previously earned a second-place Washington Press Association "Communicator of Excellence" award in the editorial journalism for non-daily newspapers category. The series focused on the predominantly Latin American immigrant culture in Seattle that utilizes the Seattle day-labor organization CASA Latina.
Who says you can never go home again?One recent Saturday morning - May 13 it was - two families got the chance as the Queen Anne Historical Society (QAHS) held a formal ceremony to commemorate the mounting of the first marker of their new Historical Marker Program, at the O.B. Williams Residence at 1701 Fourth Ave. N. As part of the celebration of National Preservation Month, 45 attendees got to hear house stories from two former as well as the current home-owners. In addition, Russell Holter from the Department of Archeology and Preservation for Washington State spoke briefly about National Preservation Month from a local perspective.
No one walking along Second Avenue West in the morning could possibly resist the smell of the freshly baked rolls and pastries filling the air as they approach 520 underneath a row of red and white Danish flags.Located in the daylight basement of a light-gray modern condominium building, the entrance to Nielsen's Pastries might be overlooked if it weren't for the warm fragrance of those buttery goodies baked every day except Sunday.All passersby need do is follow their noses, walk down a few steps and they'll find themselves inside the cozy little shop where owner/baker Darcy Person, a Magnolia resident, may be in the kitchen finishing a walnut coffee cake or sprinkling almonds on a giant Kringle, a pastry shaped something like a pretzel.
A recently completed report by the Mayor's Task Force for Seattle Center Sustainability highlights a number of failings at the regional and neighborhood attraction. A lack of operational funding and capital investments are a couple of them, but some of the proposed fixes appear more doable than others.Central to the money crunch is the KeyArena, a venue former Seattle Center director Virginia Anderson once described as the "economic engine that runs the Seattle Center." But the Key has been running in the red since the turn of the century, according to the report, which notes that the deficit has been covered by the Center's operating budget. In a move similar to robbing Peter to pay Paul, the task force recommended the deficit be transferred to the city's books, instead. And dodging the controversial proposal to have the city's taxpayers pick up the lion's share of the bill for refurbishing the Key, the report simply says that $200 million should be spent on the arena if the Sonics stay, and $20 million it they don't.The task force notes that budget cuts at the Center have resulted in the axing of 50 staff positions, including those in marketing. The loss of marketing positions, for example, resulted in the Seattle Center Pavilion being taken off the rental market because there weren't enough staff members to book and operate the facility, according to the report.
Arielle Stewart wants to be a journalist, or maybe a public-relations agent. The Center School sophomore bristles with energy and confidence, and when she tells you about the school project she's been working on for the past several months, she looks you straight in the eye with a maturity that belies her 16 years.That program, called Drama Intensive, is the product of a unique collaboration between a group of Center School students and the Seattle Repertory Theatre. It culminates this week with a student-staged production of "Pants on Fire," an original play by Seattle Rep education director Andrea Allen."We basically just get help from the Seattle Rep," said Stewart, who lives on Queen Anne. "But we're basically running it."Drama Intensive, now in its fifth year, pairs nine teaching artists from the Rep with more than 50 students from the Center School. The students are educated in all aspects of mounting a theatrical production, from playwriting, marketing and set design to directing and acting. The project is long-term, lasting an entire semester -about five months - and it wraps up today and Thursday, May 24-25, when the play hits the stage at the Rep's Leo K. Theatre.According to Stewart, the class split into three sections about two months back, with each section taking a more intensive approach to a particular aspect of production. Stewart, of course, ended up in the publicity group, where she's tackled such diverse tasks as creating a publicity guide, constructing a lobby display and co-authoring a blog about her experiences in costume design (visit www.seattlerep.org).
The Magnolia Farmer's Market is gearing up for its June 3 opening, with a long list of changes to this year's offerings that includes a second egg vendor, more cheese, a new grain provider and crepes cooked on-site.Chris Curtis, director of the Neighborhood Farmer's Market Alliance, says she's very excited about the improvements to the market. "Shoppers are going to be very pleased with the vendor mix," she says, adding that the association has worked hard to maintain a balance between "the usual good selection" of products and an array of new and various goods and produce."One thing that people were a little disappointed in last year is that there were never enough eggs," Curtis admits. To remedy the problem, a second egg vendor has been brought into the fold. "There will be plenty of eggs for all," she adds.Fresh, locally grown produce is the staple of the market's selection, and Curtis promises "the usual good selection of Eastern Washington fruit." To that will be added a wide variety of local Puget Sound berries and a lot of locally grown, organic fruit and vegetables. "Pretty much everything that's grown in Puget Sound will wind up at the market," she says.What with the new cheese shop in Pike Place Market, and the recent cheese-tasting festival there, fancy dairy products currently are all the rage among Seattle's culinary elite. Curtis promises "more cheese than in the past," with a new dairy coming in from Port Townsend, called Mount Townsend Creamery, which will specialize in French cheeses such as camembert and tome. "They're a new dairy and a very committed group of young people," she says, adding that they are making delicacies "based on French recipes that are thousands of years old."
High-priced condos over a flagship QFC store are going into a space once occupied by Tower Records after years of planning that involved the city, music-industry doldrums, dueling grocery chains and parking mogul Joe Diamond.Called Lumen, the residential side of the $90-million project includes 94 condominiums that are selling for approximately $265,000 to $1.5 million, said Allan Winningham, a principal with national development company Landstar Real Estate LLC. "This is the first-of-its-kind condominium [project] in Seattle," he said of a glass-encased building.The anchor store will be a 40,000-square-foot QFC grocery, and an additional 35,000 square feet of retail space will be marketed by Bellevue-based Wallace Properties.However, a new, single-story, 30,000-square-foot Tower Records superstore was originally going to replace its old store on the site, said Winningham, who represented the music retailer at the time.It was a complicated situation.
Pontiac Bay Symphony Orchestra's big-band concert and swing dance, It Don't Mean a Thing, will take concertgoers back to the era of such music legends as Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Count Basie on June 10 at the Magnuson Park Recreation Center.A fund-raiser to support the mentoring orchestra, the event will include a guest performance by the Mach One Jazz Orchestra, a 16-piece adult group that performs music from the 1940s and 1950s. This will be the first time the Pontiac Bay Orchestra has collaborated with a guest group for a concert. Both groups will perform a variety of big-band classics, including "In the Mood," "Stompin' at the Savoy" and "Sophisticated Lady."
A step inside Istanbul Imports, 754 N. 34th St., is a step into a foreign land without expensive air travel or a need to learn another language. A dazzling array of Persian rugs and kilims stretch out before curious visitors, while dishes, pillows, jewelry, clothes, lamps, furniture and creative gift items ornament every remaining millimeter of space beyond.Owners Gencer and Sureyya Gokeri take pride in their Turkish heritage and in bringing the rich, intricate designs of Persia, Asia and Europe to Fremont shoppers. Sureyya builds the displays, often by hand, as well as crafting some merchandise, shopping for new products and continually rearranging displays. "I'm always thinking of what else to carry," she admitted, "but most of our efforts are on the rugs."
This summer, the Wallingford community will get something it has long been waiting for: its own farmers market.Scheduled to open next Wednesday, June 7, in the Wallingford Center parking lot, the market will run every Wednesday, from 3 to 7 p.m., through Sept. 29.The project has been put together by a coalition of community members including the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce, as well as Judy Kirkhoff and Jon Hegeman, both members of the Seattle Markets organization whose projects include the Ballard, Fremont and Central Area farmers markets"Wallingford is a terrific community, but being situated between the University District and Ballard, it sometimes just isn't a place where its own citizens go for these kinds of things. I think people have been waiting a long time to get a market of their own," Kirkhoff said.
One year after a driver crashed into 11-year-old Dominick May-Douglass, leaving him in critical condition with severe brain injuries, the Headstrong organization will host a fund-raising benefit in his honor. Featuring music from local bands, guest speakers, refreshments and many prizes, the event will take place on June 11, beginning at 5 p.m., at Ingraham High School, 1819 N. 135th St.Dominick was struck at the intersection of Stone Way North and North 41st Street last May while walking home from an after-school kayaking class at Hamilton International Middle School in Wallingford. Now, more than a year since the accident, Dominick continues to make a strong recovery from traumatic brain injury (TBI) that, according to doctors, can take between five to 10 years to heal."We wanted to bring people together because we can't bear the cost of recovery," said Desiree Douglass, Dominick's mother. "At one point, I thought to myself, I can just sit down and cry, or I could ask everyone to have a party."
'HELL'(Danis Tanovic, France/Poland, 2005; 98 minutes)"L'Enfer" ("Hell")is the second entry in what we might call a posthumous trilogy, based on screenplays co-written by Krzysztof Kieslowski (1941-1996). "Heaven" (directed by Tom Tykwer) came out in 2002; "Purgatory" is yet to be filmed. There's no avoiding the facile observation that hell is other people - or rather, that people's otherness keeps interfering with the purposeful progress of individual lives, each of which can't help seeing itself as the center of reality. Director Danis Tanovic switches from Bosnia as battleground ("No Man's Land") to the internecine agonies of a French family with a guilty secret buried none too deep in its past. Emmanuelle Béart, Karen Viard and Marie Gillain play sisters respectively beset with a philandering husband (Jacques Gamblin), an enigmatic stalker who may in fact be a stalkee (Guillaume Canet) and a father-figure lover (Jacques Perrin) in whose household Gillain feels more at peace than in her own. Add a mother (a fierce, mostly silent portrait by Carole Bouquet) and an unidentified man (Miki Manojlovic) just released from prison (though just when "just" might be is a matter of some doubt), and there's no end of opportunity for escalating tensions that overlap and cross-refer without necessarily being related. Riveting while it lasts, yet oddly ephemeral. -Richard T. Jameson9:45 p.m. Thursday, June 1, Egyptian; 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 6, Neptune
Recently a group of community and church activists held a going away party for the Seattle Sonics at City Hall. With reporters looking on, the group sang, "So long it's been good to know you but we just can't afford you!" and hoisted glasses of sparkling cider to the basketball team's departure. Several MVP (More Valuable Priority) Awards were passed out signifying where city dollars could be better spent rather than one more refurbishment of Key Arena at the team's behest.Organizers emphasized this was not an anti-Sonics rally but an attempt to send a strong message to city officials: If the team was going to pull the old give us more money or we'll leave town trick, then indeed it was time for them to go. The group also has launched a Web site (www.finethenleave.com), and collected more than 850 signatures on a petition urging the Seattle City Council to reject the Sonics' ultimatum for more than $200 million in public funding.
To ensure their schools aren't on the list of schools to close in fall 2007, the principals of Martin Luther King Jr. and T.T. Minor elementary schools are working proactively to save both programs.Effective this fall, M.L. King will move as an entire school into Minor, 1700 E. Union St.However, the new, combined school still faces possible closure because of its projected low enrollment, according to Peter Daniels, public-affairs director for Seattle Public Schools.An 'unusual' moveSuperintendent Raj Manhas announced his approval of the merger during the Seattle School Board's April 5 meeting. Though many details still need to be finalized, such as the school's official name and employee contracts, the plan to combine both schools was approved in its entirety, Daniels said.The combined school will continue to offer M.L. King's year-old Montessori program and preschool.
What do you do when your dedication toward charcoal briquette cooking is only limited to the rain? Even when it's sunny, where do you go in the middle of a South End workday to satisfy your carnivorous urge to chomp into a perfectly prepared hunk of smoked meat?Fortunately, Columbia City holds a few options for those looking to satisfy their culinary Americana cravings, and Roy's B-B-Q has the makings of a classic, well-loved neighborhood restaurant that will do just that: a funky and friendly atmosphere, great value, and, oh yeah, stellar barbecue.Finding Roy's for the first time is not the most intuitive process, for at 4903 1/2 Rainier Ave. S., you can walk right by the eatery (and its sandwich board) in about two blinks of an eye and a full breath.