KUOW Story About Comet Lodge Cemetery

KUOW is running a story about Comet Lodge Cemetery right now. You can hear it on the archive at minute 0:43.

They just mentioned that residents as far away as 26th and Graham talk about seeing spirits, especially those of children, in their house. (I live closer to the cemetery than that. Eek.) There also have been reports of evil spirits roaming around. They're saying it's an active, restless place.

From the KUOW website (note that there's not actually a dog park there):

At 2:50 p.m. – The Comet Lodge Cemetery
Land is hard to come by in the Seattle area, but this isn't a new problem. Beginning in 1927, parts of Comet Lodge Cemetery were sold off. More than 800 people were buried at this Beacon Hill site. Now, there are only about 20 gravestones left. Houses stand on old burial plots and there's even a dog park on cemetery land. Mercedes Yeager runs Market Ghost Tours in Seattle's Pike Place Market. And she just learned about the Comet Lodge Cemetery recently, including stories of hauntings that so many nearby residents talk about. She shows Jeannie Yandel around what's left of the cemetery.

The KUOW page links to an old post I made about the cemetery, here.

Sunny Afternoon in Columbia City

An Anchor porter at Lottie's Lounge.



Love the old license plate holders.



Ten years ago I hitched to work every day. I paid cash.







Smoked tukeys.



Gather has a beautiful neon art installation of found letters from signs. It's shocking how many brands you can recognize just from the font and color. Like the "a" from Radio Shack.



The "x" isn't really an "x." It's that Cingular character thing.



This target will one day grace the roof of artist Jeremy Bert's Boulevard Park home. If you don't see it at Gather, you should be able to see it from a nighttime flight in or out of SeaTac.



(I just now realized that I've admired Jeremy's work at McLeod Residence before.)

Then a trip to the last Columbia City Farmer's Market of the season.







This is what I bought.



I doubt there will be a day this nice again for the rest of the year.

Free Seattle: Volunteer Park Conservatory

My pal Chuck in San Francisco recently blogged about a free thing I should do with my free time here in Seattle: visit the Volunteer Park Conservatory. So I did.



It was nice and warm in there. I should go back in December.











































Then walked around Volunteer Park on this beautiful fall day.

More Cheap South End Fun: Western Bridge

Friday I finally checked out Western Bridge, a free art "venue" in Sodo.

I love their stealth front door -- clever!



The main exhibit right now is this huge white-on-white painting that stretches across the walls and onto the floor. It looks like shadows of trees coming in through big, high horizontal windows. Which confused me a little at first since the building does have big, high horizontal windows. Except it's on 4th Ave. South, so there are no trees around. (Also, a shadow would bend at the corner.) It's like a trompe l'oeil for the stupid and/or unobservant.



Another exhibit featured very dark photos of the banks of the Amazon. I didn't love the art, but I did love the building itself and decided that I wanted to live there.



This feeling got much stronger when I wandered into the living area upstairs.



The other two patrons were hesitant to enter this section, as it didn't seem like people were supposed to come in. But I told them they had to because it was the best part.

The tub is sunken into the cement.





This place belongs on the hipster street of dreams.









And it's just two blocks from Costco!

Western Bridge is open noon to six, Thursday - Saturday. It's located at 3412 Fourth Avenue South. 206-838-7444. Admission is free.