The Seattle Public Library has announced the winners of 20 Kindle e-readers through the recently-completed 2012 Adult and Teen Summer Reading Program. Readers in the program entered to win a Kindle for every three books they read and reviewed.
Shirley Xu was the winner from the Beacon Hill Branch library. Congratulations to Shirley!
“It is the small things that count.
“After months of persistent effort, hours of off-the-cuff design work, and even construction management, out own Ryan Harrison has, with the gracious support of our friends at the Beacon Merchants Association and Red Apple, succeeded in shepherding the construction of a sweet new bike corral at Red Apple. As you can see from the attached photo we are jumping for joy up on Beacon Hill.
“Way to go Ryan for all the hard work, the Beacon Merchants Association for supplying a $500 grant, and Red Apple for footing the rest of the bill.
“Ryan has all the details if you want more.
“Show the Apple some love and roll in soon for your next shopping trip.”
We’ve been hearing that Tippe and Drague (in the old ROCKiT space at 3315 Beacon Ave. S.) would probably open this week or next, but Seattle Beer News provides more details on the new establishment, and says that owners Melissa Cabal and Robert McConaughy plan to open next week if all goes well. SBN reports the opening tap list is heavily local, and the menu will include “simple but good food with fresh ingredients; don’t look for any fried food here.” Hours will be 4 p.m. until late, 7 days a week, with weekend brunches.
You can see in these photos some indications of how the poles have been retrofitted:
It was brought to the attention of the Beacon Hill Blog that there are many more Night Out Against Crime events tomorrow night, August 7, that were not included on the Seattle Police Department’s official Night Out event map. The North Beacon Hill Council website has an updated list of the events in North Beacon (and a few in Mid-Beacon), including:
The Council’s map of all of these events may be seen here.
A ton of people showed up at Jefferson Park yesterday for Tony Hawk’s Birdhouse tour skateboard demo at the Jefferson skatepark. It was a cheery, carnival atmosphere—there were vendors selling yo-yos, camera equipment, skating equipment, and food and drink. There was a lot of excitement in the air as kids of all ages waited to see professional skaters on the new Jefferson skatepark bowls.
People were lined up two or three deep all the way around the bowls. There were kids ranging from age two or three, right on up to grownups older than Hawk himself. Though it was crowded, people seemed pretty cheerful about it.
The skating was impressive, generating oohs and ahs from the crowd like fireworks on the Fourth of July. The weather couldn’t have been better. After some of the tough times Beacon Hill has had in the last couple of weeks, it was nice to have this.
Neighbor Furchin was there and took some truly amazing photos for the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr. See some of them here on this page, and do check out the rest at the photo pool. Thanks to Furchin for going above and beyond for these, and for adding them to the pool so we could show them to you here.
By all accounts, the Jefferson Park Jubilee on Saturday was a success. The neighborhood came out in force to celebrate Jefferson Park’s centennial as well as the completion of the park’s remodeling. Here are some photos from the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool to give you a taste of the day’s events. (Did you take some photos? You are invited to post them to the pool.)
Little Castro on Beacon Hill? That’s what The Stranger called the neighborhood earlier this week: “Beacon Hill is the charming Seattle neighborhood that’s secretly home to the city’s tiniest gay district.” They cited Baja Bistro as “gloriously gay (and super-nice to everyone, regardless of their lap habits),” and also mentioned Inay’s, where there is a dinnertime drag show on Fridays.
Apparently North Beacon Hill’s burgeoning gayness hasn’t gone unnoticed by other publications, either. Seattlepi.com mentioned North Beacon Hill earlier this week as a particularly affordable gay community for those wanting to go cheaper than Capitol Hill, with a median housing price of $221 per square foot in comparison to Broadway’s median of $325 per square foot. (The P-I points out that North Beacon tends to have a lot of same-sex male couples, while same-sex female couples are more often found in Columbia City.)
This being Pride weekend, a lot of folks will be headed off the Hill for the weekend’s festivities. Some, though, will wave the rainbow flag right here in “Little Castro on Beacon Hill.”
The Seattle Times asked Prometheus Brown (Geo from Blue Scholars) to write a guest column about the recent gun violence in the city. Geo gave them a song, performed from what looks like Dr. Jose Rizal Park on Beacon Hill:
Tryin’a do the right thing. I don’t have the answers,
but neither does a person who practices double standards.
If every death’s a tragedy then join us when we’re chanting,
and not just when we’re singing and dancing. Too manyshots fired in the south end, nobody cares.
Shots fired in the north end, everybody scared.
Nothing they can do for us that we can’t do ourselves.
Point the finger at the mirror instead of somebody else.
The post has generated 132 comments so far on the Times page; sadly, many of them were racist or misinformed. “Big shout to the ppl who got my back against the @seattletimes comment section crazies,” tweeted Geo this afternoon. “My favorite @seattletimes comment section response to my editorial: ‘don’t quit your day job.'”
The Montlaker blog had the best tweet in reply: “While @prometheusbrown points out Seattleites live in different cities, @seattletimes commenters live in completely different worlds.”
The Times is also hosting a live chat on the Seattle shootings Wednesday, June 13 at noon with Geo/Prometheus and Cafe Racer regular Andrew Swanson, who also wrote an op-ed for the newspaper this week.
Geo will appear alongside many other performers at today’s Beacon Boogie Block Party outside The Station coffee shop at 5 p.m.
The sun came out on Saturday for the Beacon Hill Festival at Jefferson Park—though, unfortunately, so did the wind. Neighbors enjoyed music, food, art, and games throughout the day. We hope you enjoy these photos of the festivities. (Photos are by Wendi Dunlap unless otherwise noted; all are from the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr. Your photos are welcome in the pool as well.) 
The Stranger’s Charles Mudede suggests that Cleveland High School (the new portion) is “Beacon Hill’s best building.” The new addition, designed by Mahlum (see a slideshow of the building here), was an AIA Project of the Month in May, 2010*. It also won a Citation Award in 2008 from the American Association of School Administrators.
Do you agree? What do you think is the best building on Beacon Hill? What makes a “best building” anyway? Tell us in the comments.
*Mudede’s post says “Cleveland High School, which was designed by Mahlum Architects, won one of the AIA’s 2008 Honor Awards for Washington Architecture.” As far as we can tell, this is an error; the award they won in 2010 is for projects which were previously nominated for Honor Awards but did not win. The website design at the 2008 awards website is ambiguous so the error is understandable.