Sabey to Demolish Part of the Rainier Cold Storage Building Complex

This comes as no surprise to any of us who took one of Sabey Corporation's recent building tours, but the company has announced plans to demolish the rapidly sinking/crumbling Stock House portion of the Rainier Cold Storage Building on Airport Way. This includes the building across from the Vespa dealership, and the facade across from Jules Maes.

They invited us neighbors to tour the building last month so later we could present unbiased testimony as to its state of disrepair. It's an old brick building that was used as an ammonia freezer for decades, to the point that the ground underneath was frozen solid for 24 feet down. The building heaved up an entire foot on top of this ice ball, and now it's in the process of thawing out. And subsequently sinking.

So yes, I can testify that it seemed unsalvageable. I was actually a little scared to even be inside it. They had marked Xes on the walls across cracks, and you could see that their marks had visibly shifted just over the course of some months.

In an e-mail to the Georgetown mailing list today, Sabey representative Jim Harmon wrote:

The silver lining here is that a new building can be placed of equivalent mass, setback off the street to create pedestrian room, allow reasonable vehicle access and circulation, and open up the "great wall" between the east and west sides of Airport Way. This building is in the process of being designed.

Johnson Architecture + Planning, whose work doesn't blow me away but could certainly be worse, is supposed to have some designs done by September 1. Let's hope they're on their best game for this project, which will one of the biggest changes to the neighborhood since I-5 went in.

Here's the application to the Landmarks Review Board to get permission to demolish the structure. You can see the maps and the history and everything there.

Neighborhood Block Party

My little Mid Beacon Hill neighborhood had its first annual Neighborhood Block Party tonight. Lots of people came.



We ate a bunch of food.



The guy in the Utilikilt told me that I looked like a friend of his back in Hungary. So we started talking about living in Eastern Europe, and I found out that a coworker of his in Budapest had been a coworker of mine in Prague.



The band Purdy Mouth (described by Three Imaginary Girls as "Seattle's only gay alt-country band") rocked the block.







The cutest 1-year-old boy in the whole world made an appearance.





"It's not a party till the cops show up."



Some firefighters showed up too, and they told us that our party was better than the Georgetown ones. Thanks, LM, for posing with them! And thanks to you and Rick for talking that nice band into playing for us and for setting up the grills and dealing with the mess and everything. And thanks to Eva for making the signs -- and generally just making the effort with everything -- and thanks to Linda for posting flyers and getting ice and stuff. You guys are the best neighbors!

Ciscoe Morris's Garden in August

It's been a while since I last visited Ciscoe Morris's garden.

The banana plants look great.























Then we headed to our friends' house for a birthday barbecue.



We stayed until it got dark.



Then, after we'd enjoyed hanging out with flowers and friends and toddlers and birthday cake and kitties, we headed down to one of the rougher bars in the Georgetown area to see a friend's band.



Some motorcycle event was going on.





But these bikers weren't like the espresso-sipping, spacesuit-clad BMW guys who hang out at Smarty Pants. They seemed more like real bikers, like the Harley guys who handled security at the Rolling Stones Altamont show or something.



There was some murmuring about shootouts that other chapters of this club had been involved in. (This rumor seemed all the more exciting when cops paid their second visit to the bar in the space of two hours.)

Later on, when I looked them up online, I found out that other chapters have been involved in two "massacres" in the last year alone. And even the local club has recently been charged with "racketeering, kidnapping, assault, and drug and firearms violations."



I also found out what the "1%" on their jackets means.

Full-patch members wear a diamond-shaped patch that reads "1%." The "1%" symbol is derived from a statement by the American Motorcycle Association that 99 percent of the country's motorcyclists are law-abiding individuals.

Ooh la la!

Trip to Toronto: Niagara Fucking Falls

I never thought I would go to Niagara Falls, but I did, and I can report that it is awesome.



I'm not saying that you need to go there, but I'm saying that if you're ever spending some time in Toronto, you need to go there.









Doesn't this boat ride look fun?







Yeah, baby!





Niagara Falls is conveniently located next to wine country.



Cheers!

Trip to Toronto: CN Tower

The CN Tower is tall. It's the "tallest freestanding structure on land" in the world or something like that.



They put in a glass floor to freak people out and encourage them to do weird stuff like lying on their bellies in public.



I could not step onto the glass. It was too high, too scary.



But being that high up didn't put me off my appetite.



We're not normally "eat at the top of the CN Tower" type of people, but we did want to see the view, and the meal included "complimentary elevation" (normally $21.49 per person not including taxes).



Plus, how often do you get a chance to enjoy a bottle from the world's highest wine cellar?

Trip to Toronto: Kensington Market

The owner of Model Citizen recommended that we try La Palette, his friend's restaurant in Kensington Market. OK!



Kensington Market is a cute little neighborhood that kind of reminds me of Eugene, Oregon. People are always protesting something here, but they're also enjoying gourmet French food and some of the best empanadas in town. Their Wikipedia entry has a section called "Marijuana Culture." ("Visitors to Bellevue Square Park between Augusta and Denison will sometimes see (or smell) marijuana cigarettes being smoked.")





As Chuck noted last week, there's been some guerrilla gardening in this neighborhood this month.

I didn't notice any of the little Celosia planters, but I did see this car full of plants right outside the restaurant.





We're scoping the place out for dinner later in the week, and just order some terrine and red wine.







We return to La Palette a couple days later and get a full-on grillade. This one's horse, bison, and elk. It's all really good.



While we eat, a bike parade goes by.





Then a woman starts to pose on the lawn on the car. (A photographer is out of frame.)





But this crazy dude starts harassing her. Toronto's Asshole #2?