Fairy Ring at Comet Lodge Cemetery

Yes, I know that real fairy rings are made of mushrooms, but I like to think of this circle of daffodils as a fairy ring.

Sorry about the faraway photo. I didn't feel like stumbling down into the cemetery because I'm sick and headachy and disoriented (not used to wearing glasses after both my eyes got infected, and not used to only hearing out of one ear because of this horrible sinus congestion) and big and pregnant and clumsy.



I wish I could believe that elves or fairies or spirits created this ring, but I have a limited imagination. I mean, I could see them floating around, sprinkling wildflower seeds in a circle in middle of the night, but I just can't see them digging the holes to plant all those bulbs.

Christian Restoration Center: City Meeting TONIGHT

Wow. I guess tonight there really is an official meeting about the Christian Restoration Center development. I honestly thought that the property manager and the property ownership group would warn me about public meetings, as I've asked them to do this about a dozen times. I've been giving them the benefit of the doubt, but obviously this doesn't speak very well to their interest in community engagement.

The meeting is at 8:00 p.m. at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center (at the corner of Alaska and Rainier) at 3515 S. Alaska St. Here's the PDF of the Design Review application, which I just found on the City of Seattle website. I encourage you to take a look -- it has some drawings of what the building might look like.

I'm home sick today with a hateful, endless cold and might not be able to make it. Is anyone else going to go?

Here's the e-mail I got from the developer today. Apparently everyone involved has been out of town without e-mail access for a week. Hmm.

Jon and I have been out of town for the last week. Jon doesn't return until today and I returned yesterday, so we are sorry for our delay in our response to you.

Jon did want me to let you know that he tried to reply to your response last
night but was having connection problems so he was unsure if you received
his message as I did not so he asked me to reach out to you.

The meeting tonight is part of the overall permit process. The meeting
itself is for the City of Seattle Design Review. This is where we go to the
city, take our site proposal to the city and answer questions they might
have.

So to answer your question the people who set up this meeting was the City
of Seattle and it is there agenda. I will be attending along with our
architect and depending if Jon is back in time he will attend as well.

If you have further questions please feel free to shoot me or Jon an e-mail.

Thanks.

Rudeen Development, LLC
Kyle Kappen

Neighborhood Meeting About Christian Restoration Center?

Does anyone know anything about this? I got forwarded this message today, but no one knows who's organizing the meeting. I know that the property ownership group planned to notify me when they held a meeting, so this must be some other meeting.

An alert Block Watch member passed on word that there is a meeting tomorrow evening (3/11/08) @ 8:00pm specifically to discuss the project at the Christian Restoration Center. There's a small flyer stapled to the telephone pole at the site. The meeting will be at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center (corner of Alaska and Rainier):

3515 S Alaska St
Seattle, WA 98118
(206) 725-7517

Beacon Hill Groper Still Groping

From today's P-I:

One man suspected in attacks on 21 females
Police beef up hunt for brazen assailant in South Seattle

Seattle police say a man who has forcibly groped women in South Seattle may be responsible for as many as 21 attacks over the past three years, including four in the past two months.

Police fear that the man is becoming increasingly violent after he tried to drag a woman into a dark driveway last fall and targeted two teenage girls walking together in January.

...

Many of the attacks last fall were reported on Beacon Avenue South, from South Columbian Way to South Cloverdale Street, and near 45th Avenue South, police said.

Two Photos: Beacon Hill, Georgetown

I didn't have my good camera on me, but I liked the light.

The view from the Beacon Hill Library parking lot.



The Stock House.

Neighborhood Notes

Drive carefully, please. The victim (and, sounds like, cause) of a fatal car crash on MLK near Jefferson was a carpenter who lived on Beacon Hill. From today's P-I:

Jackson, 43, was driving a Mazda MX-6 on Martin Luther King Jr. Way near East Jefferson Street about 8:20 a.m. when he tried to make an illegal turn onto Temple Place and collided with a pickup, police said.

Jackson and his daughters were taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he died of his injuries.

The girls were upgraded to satisfactory condition Friday, hospital officials said. The driver of the pickup was treated for minor injuries, police said.

Relatives say Jackson — a carpenter who lived on Beacon Hill — was rushing to drop off his daughters, ages 10 and 7, at school in Madrona.

Christian Restoration Center: just one big retail space? From a 2/26/08 e-mail from Jon Hager, the property manager:

The square footage as of now is just the entire bottom at just over 6,000 sq ft. To my knowledge there has not been discussions with anyone in regards to leasing out the space. We are still in the early stages as you know so the main goal is to get approval from the city on everything first.

With that said when submitting the paperwork with the city one thing is to set up a community meeting, I hear that there is one in the works, but the exact date hasn't been set. When I hear of it I will for sure pass it along to you.

Theater in the works at 13th and Shelton? I've been told there's a story in the latest Beacon Hill News about the development of a theater space at the old deVos corner store at 4951 13th Ave. S. Here's the MySpace page about it. The Beacon Hill News website doesn't seem to have last week's edition online yet, and I don't have a paper copy -- sorry!

Cerveza coming to El Quetzal? According to Jennifer, rumor has it that the El Quetzal owners have decided to make the world a better place -- apparently they're applying for a beer/wine license. I don't see them on the list of King County liquor license applications from the last 30 days, but maybe they applied some time ago.

What's up at Beacon and Hanford? Jennifer reports that the Soleil salon at Beacon and Hanford has closed (and that her cool neighbor has already emailed the Pagliacci's, Spiro's, and Mad Pizza joints asking them to look into moving into that space). What would you folks like to see there?

Seattle City Councilmember Tim Burgess coming to the North Beacon Hill Council meeting on Thursday at 7 at the library. I really should go to this -- I owe Tim Burgess an introduction at least. A few months ago, I was standing in front of him in a lunch line and he looked so familiar to me that I automatically said hi to him as if I actually knew him. Then I realized who he was, and that I'd never met him before, but I didn't bother explaining myself until later, over e-mail. Anyway, here's Judith Edwards's agenda for the meeting:

Tim is the chair of the Council's Public Safety, Human Services and Education committee and V. Chair of the Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee. I've asked him to tell us what his vision and goals are, and also to be available for Q&A. Following Tim's presentation is your opportunity to input to the Park's Department's selection of playground equipment for Jefferson Park. All our welcome, so come let your voices be heard! Thursday, March 6, Beacon Hill Library Community Room, 7:00 - 9:00 PM.

Knitting classes at Buggy. The cute little kids' store on Beacon is hosting a series of knitting classes, including a beginners class, for making cute little kids' things. Check out their website for full details, including price and dates.

In other girly class news... Alaska Silk Pie Co., just south of the Tully's headquarters on Airport Way, is offering a dessert-making class on March 8, at their bakery. The cost is $75, and everyone brings home a dessert. Read more about their offerings (and make yourself hungry) at their website, www.alaskasilkpie.com.

And an administrative note. Sorry I haven't been good about posting or returning mail. I've been really horribly sick since Wednesday, when I missed the Manny's celebration at Jules Maes. (Which is why I didn't stop by FTB, either, Erika!)

Prostitution on Beacon Hill, Then and Now

I was just browsing HistoryLink and came across this South End story.

On August 13, 1951, a B-50 “Superfortress” bomber develops engine trouble immediately after taking off from Boeing Field. The plane glances off the Sicks’ Seattle Brewing and Malting Company and slams into nearby Lester Apartments on Beacon Hill, killing 11 people and injuring 11 others.

Sicks' Seattle Brewing and Malting Company is, of course, the Rainier Cold Storage complex on Airport Way.

[Correction: The picture of the Rainier Cold Storage Stock House on the HistoryLink page led me to believe that the bomber grazed that one of the buildings in that complex. However, Jim Harmon of Sabey Corporation (current owners of the property) and other commenters have posted that they believe the plane hit the building that is now Tully's roasting plant, up the street.]

And Lester Apartments? Apparently it was once the world's largest bordello, right here on Beacon Hill.





From the same HistoryLink essay:

Unbeknownst to many, the tragic crash also brought an end to a piece of Seattle’s more infamous past. The Lester Apartments, for years a home for working-class families and fixed-income residents, had an unseemly history that was rarely discussed by the few who remembered it.

In 1910, Hiram Gill (1866-1919) was elected mayor of Seattle in an administration rife with corruption. Gill’s chief of police, Charles Wappenstein, cut a deal with two vice-lords wherein he received $10 a month for each of the approximately 500 prostitutes in Seattle. Business was so good that the men began building a 500-room brothel on the western slope of Beacon Hill to further pad their bank accounts.

A “friendly” City Council cut the builders some slack and gave them a 15-year lease. By the time construction was complete, the local citizenry had had enough of such blatant debauchery at such a high level of office, and a recall petition was circulated against the mayor. Gill was turned out of office -- he was elected again in 1914 after vowing to crack down on vice -- and Wappenstein was sent to the state penitentiary.

What was once proclaimed the largest bordello in the world fell into disuse. Later, the 500 “cribs” were combined into multi-room apartments, and the building’s proximity to Boeing Field led many workers to take up residence there, especially during World War II. Few knew of the building’s history. At some point, it was renamed the Lester Apartments. They were destroyed in the maelstrom on August 13, 1951.

In more recent Beacon Hill prostitution news, the Beacon Lights blogger posted yesterday about the "angels of the morning" who live in our neighborhood.