Working on the bridge
This lovely photo was posted to the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr by sodoheights.
Tags: jose rizal bridge, street repair
Tags: jose rizal bridge, street repair
Beacon Bits: Anime, biking in Portland, local remixes
Anime collection photo by Paul Fisk (CC BY-SA)
The Beacon Hill Branch is located at 2821 Beacon Avenue South, a block south of Beacon Hill Station. There is a free parking lot behind the building. For more information, call the branch at 206-684-4711.
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Beacon Hill neighbor Willie Weir of Yellow Tent Adventures, along with his partner Kat Marriner, recently did a “week-long, fully-loaded bike trip within the city limits of Portland. We’re talking tent, stove, sleeping bags. No reservations. No hotels. An urban adventure at its frugal finest!” Willie will discuss the trip in a lecture, “Portland: An Urban Adventure,” tonight at 7:00 pm at REI, 222 Yale Avenue North. More information on Facebook (login required), or see the REI page. (The REI page has conflicting information about the event’s cost — it’s either free or $5.00.)
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Two nice shots of the downtown cityscape view from the PacMed/Amazon building were recently tweeted by MarkPrivett and lassielas.
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Two remixes of Helladope’s “Just So You Know” by Blue Scholars’ Sabzi, including the “Beacon Hill Slumlord” mix. — Matson on Music, the Seattle Times
Tags: anime, bicycles, blue scholars, helladope, library, views, willie weir
Crime notes: Tips, burglaries, and more tips
Map of selected items from bhwn.org. V - Vehicle thefts and break-ins, B - Burglaries, R - Robberies, S - Shots fired, O - Other.
Selected scanner items from bhnw.org:
1/13 10:30pm — Burglary: 22nd and Kenny
1/14 1:30pm — Burglary: 35th and Graham
1/15 7:15pm — Vehicle Theft: 15th and Lucile
1/18 3:00pm — Vehicle Break-in: 12th and Atlantic
1/25 9:30pm — Shooting / Weapons: 12th and Atlantic
1/27 1:45pm — Robbery: Beacon and Alaska
1/29 10:30am — Other: 32nd and Myrtle
1/29 12:30pm — Other: 13th and Atlantic
1/31 5:30pm — Vehicle Theft: Beacon and Morgan
2/1 3:45pm — Robbery: Beacon and Brandon
2/4 1:15pm — Vehicle Break-in: Beacon and Horton
2/5 2:30pm — Vehicle Break-in: 17th and Plum
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Collen wrote to the mailing list about a daytime break-in on January 21st at 18th and College where they smashed the bathroom window and took a computer, several iPods, and a camera. He also mentioned that his girlfriend’s car window was smashed a few nights later nearby.
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John Wright also wrote to the list about a car theft and recovery:
Just wanted to let you know that my friend’s car was stolen on Saturday, 1/23, between 10:30 p.m. and Midnight. It was a red 1998 Honda Civic 4-door. It was parked on 17th Ave S near Holgate. We didn’t hear anything, and our dogs (who bark at just about everything) did not make a peep.
It was recovered Sunday morning in the Bryn Mawr area of Renton. It was sitting in a ditch, stereo stolen, steering console trashed, windows open. Rear passenger door was tagged on the inside with a gang sign. They stole the De La Soul CD, but left behind the Nirvana and Nada Surf.
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From SeattleCrime.com’s Robbery Round-up:
January 15th, South Seattle: A man ran inside Cleveland High School and told officers working off-duty at a basketball game that he’d been carjacked at gun point. The man told police he was parked outside the school’s gym when two other men approached him, put a gun to his head and demanded his vehicle. The report says the victim told the robbers “he was ready to die” and to “go ahead and shoot if he was going to kill him.” The victim eventually handed over the car and the suspects drove off.
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After the jump, two lists of very good advice from Felicia and Craig via the mailing list.
More »
Tags: burglaries, theft, tips
Jose Rizal bridge repairs, then and now
The Jose Rizal Bridge rehab project is starting soon, and to facilitate this work, traffic on the bridge will be reduced to one lane in each direction for the next four months. A sidewalk on one side of the bridge at a time will be closed, and access for pedestrians and bicycles will be maintained on the opposite side. There will also be periodic lane closures on South Dearborn Street under the bridge.
The Rizal bridge was also a topic on the Seattle Municipal Archives photostream on Flickr yesterday, when this photo was posted:
Photo courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives.
This is probably a photo of the 12th Avenue South Bridge (now Jose Rizal Bridge) in spring 1917, when a mudslide destroyed the southern (wooden) approach to the bridge. The bridge was later repaired. The Jose Rizal bridge was built in 1911, and is the oldest steel-arch bridge in Washington state. This 1912 photo shows the familiar shape of the bridge that many of us cross daily.
Tags: jose rizal bridge, street closures, street repair
Husky Promise at Cleveland, STEM contract approved
Tomorrow from 1 to 2pm, the University of Washington Husky Promise financial aid program will be at Cleveland High School:
Learn about the Husky Promise program – how it works, how it’s benefitted current UW students, and what it takes to qualify for the program. Meet University of Washington students who have excelled in their pursuing their passions at UW. And find how college tuition and programs like the Husky Promise may be affected by the outcomes of the current legislative session in Olympia.
More at the Husky Promise blog.
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The Seattle School Board approved the $800,000 contract for the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math program starting at Cleveland this fall. From the Seattle Times:
Under the new boundary plan, Cleveland will no longer be a neighborhood high school. Instead, it will be an “option” school, one which students must sign up to attend and with spaces assigned by lottery if necessary.
The STEM program will be phased in, starting with freshmen and sophomores this coming fall.
Read the rest in The Times.
Tags: engineering, husky promise, math, program, science, stem, technology, university of washington, uw
El Centro requests DNS appeal be dismissed
El Centro de la Raza has requested to the City of Seattle’s Hearing Examiner that the appeal of the Determination of Non-Significance filed by Frederica Merrell be dismissed, citing their own involvement in the neighborhood planning process, the impact on their property, and appeal issues said to be ‘not ripe’ for the premature involvement of the office of Hearing Examiner. If not dismissed, they have requested that the appeal be restricted solely to the legal issue of the proper execution of Washington Administrative Code sections 197-11-055 (Timing of the SEPA process), 197-11-060 (Content of environmental review), and 197-11-228 (Overall SEPA/GMA integration procedures).
The full letter as provided to us by Estela Ortega of El Centro de la Raza is after the jump, or available as a PDF here.
Tags: appeal, determination of non-significants, dns, dpd, el centro de la raza, environmental review, zoning
Opinion: “Post Alley” or empty lot?
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:55 am | 20 Comments | Posted in Meetings, Opinion, Urban Planning by melissajonas
Possible development on Beacon Avenue, depicted in the Neighborhood Plan Update.
That plan is being challenged. A community member has filed a petition with the City of Seattle Hearing Examiner (see the earlier news post in the BHB) calling the update process into question and requesting that the DNS (Determination of Nonsignificance) be vacated. Concerns listed in the petition include construction noise, increased traffic, lack of specific guarantees regarding service improvements, and overall disregard for community opinion and the existing neighborhood plan.
Simply put, it’s a request for DPD to be required to throw away over a year’s worth of community input and other work on this project—essentially starting the entire process over.
“Increased density is a worthy goal… We need housing, employment, and services for our future neighbors.”
Neighborhood, City and transit groups have worked hard to update the North Beacon Hill Neighborhood Plan in a way that respects the core values of our community and includes the reality of introducing mass transit into the neighborhood. Two critical considerations for an urban neighborhood served by mass transit include increased residential density accompanied by increased employment, service, and other business development.
Increased density is a worthy goal for our neighborhood: people should live and work near transit. We need housing, employment, and services for our future neighbors. This doesn’t have to/shouldn’t mean increased vehicle traffic—the entire point is that new residents will be using light rail.
If the North Beacon Hill Urban Village is ever to develop, we must move forward as a community. Change can be challenging, but it’s also an opportunity to improve.
Get involved. Learn more about this issue and take action to make Beacon Hill the place you want it to be. Please attend the North Beacon Hill Council meeting on Thursday, February 4 at 7:00 pm. Meetings are held at the Beacon Hill Public Library. The full agenda is here and also here.
(Melissa is a columnist for the Beacon Hill Blog and recently wrote about the Neighborhood Plan Update in her column “Walking with Tica.”)
Tags: neighborhood planning, north beacon, urban village
Neighbor files petition against Neighborhood Plan update process
Community comments posted at the Neighborhood Plan Update open house in September 2009. Photo by Wendi
In the appeal (read it in full here), Merrell states that North Beacon Hill residents and visitors will be “directly and significantly impacted” by the changes, including changes to zoning, density, protected views, pedestrian/bike/auto access, and more. She states that, among other problems, the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) erred in making a determination of non-significance, failed to take necessary steps to assess the impact of the plan changes, and also failed to give proper notice to the community.
The appeal requests that DPD’s DNS for the North Beacon Hill plan update be vacated, and DPD be required to take other actions including additional community notification and environmental impact analyses.
The Neighborhood Plan update process began in Fall 2008 and continued through 2009 with community meetings and open houses in March, May, and September, resulting in the recently published update.
(ed. note—Frederica has occasionally contributed opinion articles to the Beacon Hill Blog.)
Tags: dpd, legal stuff, neighborhood plan, north beacon
Opinion: Beacon Hill’s Post Alley
The view of El Centro down the alley from McClellan. Photo by Joel Lee.
I was walking to light rail yesterday when I noticed that the alley behind the station is a perfect straight shot to El Centro—it almost frames the building like a painting. I had not thought about this alley much in the past. I imagined it someday being a little-used space filled with dumpsters and graffiti, tucked between two large condo buildings where the only use it might get would be the occasional employee taking a smoke break.
But seeing it yesterday helped me re-imagine the space. What if instead of it being a forgotten space behind some buildings, it became Beacon Hill’s Post Alley filled with micro businesses? It could be an extension of the planned courtyard at El Centro and a useful arm of Festival Street. For those of you that don’t get downtown much, Post Alley is an offshoot of the Pike Place Market. It is a pedestrian-friendly sort of mini-market where many smaller businesses have been able to take root in its less-than-prime real estate. It includes Seattle’s famous gum wall.
Photo of Post Alley at sunset by zenobia_joy.
Joel Lee maintains the Beacon Hill Public Art website.
Do you have an opinion? We welcome opinion articles on topics related to Beacon Hill. Please email us your ideas.
Tags: alley, beacon hill station, el centro, s mcclellan
February NBHC meeting agenda
Next Thursday the 4th at 7pm is the February North Beacon Hill Council Meeting at the Beacon Hill Library.
Judith Edwards sent along the agenda:
All are welcome! Come hear what’s going on on the Hill (a lot!).
7:00 — Welcomes and Introductions
7:10 — Councilmember Sally Clark
- her new assignment on the Council
- how we can be of help to her; how she can be of help to us
- conversation with attendees
7:50 — SE Precinct report on crime on Beacon Hill – Shelly Bates and/or a rep. from the SE Precinct
8:00 — Committee/sub-committee Reports (three minutes each)
- Greater Duwamish District Council (Matthew Stubbs)
- Business Association (Robert Hinrix)
- Arts Association and Festival Street (Robert Hinrix)
- Neighborhood Planning/Bike and Pedstrian proposal (Freddie Merrell)
8:10 — Council vote: approving Robert Hinrix as a new Board Member, establishing time for Board Meeting
8:15 — Community Concerns
8:30 — Closure
See you there.
Tags: february, meeting, nbhc, north beacon hill council
