Photo by Michelle Tribe via Creative Commons/Flickr.The ROCKiT Community Arts Tuesday Folk Club is holding its last Tuesday show this coming Tuesday, March 27. Have no fear, the folk is not going away — instead, it’s moving to First Sundays, with the first show just a few days later on April 1. No foolin’.
Tuesday’s show features the Chicago 7, playing jazz of the 1920s and ’30s. According to their website, the group, organized by trombonist Marc Smason, is “a salute to, and extension of, the polyphonic early hot jazz styles of New Orleans, Chicago and New York.” Here’s an audio clip: “More Than You Know.”
The show will open with a performance by Washington Middle School Alternative Strings. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the cover charge is $5 for adults, free for kids.
The following Sunday the Folk Club debuts on Sunday nights with a Garden House barn dance featuruing fiddler Tony Mates and caller Charmaine Slaven. Cover for this one is $7 for adults, and free for kids. Doors will open at 6 p.m.
Both shows are, as always, in the Garden House, 2336 15th Ave. S.
Illustration by Stephanie Bower; image courtesy of Seattle City Light.
All are invited to come out to Jefferson Park on Wednesday, March 21 from 9:30 a.m. until noon to be among the first to see the new Community Solar picnic shelters at the Park. Local dignitaries and representatives of Silicon Energy, the company who manufactured the solar modules that make up the roofs of the shelters, will be on hand to celebrate the grand opening. The Jefferson Park project is estimated to produce 24,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year, enough to operate 3 households.
In the Community Solar program, Seattle City Light customers have the opportunity to enroll in the program as founding members by purchasing “units” of solar power for $600 each. Members then receive credits to their electric bill, using the power generated by their portion of the project. See more about it here. Members will also have their names included on the shelters: “artistically inscribed on colored metal bands surrounding the structure support columns,” according to City Light.
Wednesday’s weather forecast currently calls for rain, so the solar part of the project might not get too much of a workout. The shelter part ought to come in handy, though.
The first annual Kimball Art Walk is next Thursday, March 22 from 3 – 6 p.m. Beacon Hill businesses will display artwork by Kimball Elementary School students, and there will also be performances by the Kimball Elementary Ukulele Band, bead-making demonstrations, and more.
The art walk starts at Victrola Coffee and will continue to El Quetzal, Hello Bicycle, Bar Del Corso and beyond on Beacon Avenue South. Each site will host examples of Kimball kids exploring science, social studies, history, etc. through the arts.
Jefferson Park sidewalk. Photo by Joel Lee in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.
* * *
Local group Blue Scholars have a short film contest in progress to promote their album Cinemetropolis. See this video for details. Deadline is April 6.
* * *
The Seattle P-I has a photo series, “What Seattle neighborhood are you?” Beacon Hill is represented, but we daresay they don’t know us very well: “BEACON HILL: You were happily climbing the social ladder until you found out the love of your life was two-timing you with then-grungy South Lake Union. Forget Amazon. You can do better than that, Beacon Hill.” Love of our life? Bah. They wish.
* * *
Apparently the lighting at the new Jefferson Skate Park is less than ideal. But Seattle Parks is working on getting it right.
* * *
Former Beacon Hill resident Roger Valdez published an article recently in the Seattle Transit Blog with a radical anti-zoning suggestion: “Beacon Hill: The Revolution Won’t Be Measured in Feet.” But then he followed up with another Beacon-centric post: “Zeroing in on Beacon Hill.” What do you think of his suggestions?
It has come to the BHB’s attention that Lockmore, a neighborhood within Mid-Beacon Hill, has its own neighborhood blog.
Beacon Hill actually contains quite a few neighborhoods — the Hill is huge, and really isn’t a neighborhood so much as a meta-neighborhood, like West Seattle. (This was the subject of some discussion in the early days of this blog.) Are there other blogs for the Hill’s neighborhoods that we need to know about?
This site on Beacon Avenue is being remodeled into The Oak. Photo by Wendi Dunlap.The much-talked-about Oak restaurant, expected to open on Beacon Avenue this spring, has a problem. Owners Lisa Jack and Mat Brooke have received a letter from the state Liquor Control Board which states that they face possible denial of their liquor license because the Board has received 14 protest letters but only 5 letters of support for the business.
They must respond by March 26 with a statement outlining why the Oak should still be approved for a liquor license, and letters from the community will be considered as well.
Brooke and Jack attended the North Beacon Hill Council meeting last week and spoke about the project. They have taken steps to reduce neighborhood concerns, including locating the 21+ bar portion in the center of the building, to limit exterior noise; no door access to the alley, except for emergency exits; no smoking allowed in the back of the building; and no karaoke or live music. There will be all-ages kid-friendly dining space. The menu is planned to be “family-friendly” comfort food such as burgers,salads, macaroni and cheese, and sweet potato fries, with lunch and dinner seven days a week until 10 p.m. as well as weekend brunch. Ingredients will be locally-sourced.
Brooke and Jack will not be absentee owners; at the meeting, they explained that they will be living at the site themselves, and have a direct stake in the quality of the neighborhood.
After the NBHC discussion, several neighbors who live or work adjacent to the Oak site and had attended the meeting to express their concerns about a possible “tavern” moving in indicated that their concerns had been addressed and they seemed to have a much more positive feeling about the new restaurant.
It is unclear whether the protest letters the Liquor Board has received were sent before the NBHC meeting. When the news came out on the Beacon Hill mailing list last night about the Oak’s difficulty with the Board, the reaction on the list was one of surprise, with several subscribers expressing their intent to write in support of the business. In the previous discussion on the Beacon Hill Blog, the comments were overwhelmingly in favor of the Oak.
If you would like to express your opinion on the Oak, send a (snail mail) letter to the Liquor Control Board at:
Washington State Liquor Control Board
Licensing and Regulation
P.O. Box 43098
Olympia, WA 98504-3098
Here’s what has to go in the letter:
Referencing The Oak
License #408904
3019 Beacon Ave. S.
Seattle, WA 98144-5853
Photo by Gavin St. Ours via Creative Commons/Flickr.
You have probably heard of the Beacon Food Forest, the new urban farming project being created west of Jefferson Park. Suddenly, however, much of the rest of the country is hearing about it as well. The Food Forest has picked up a ton of press in the last few weeks.
“It’s a great day if you like the organic food!” Craig Ferguson of CBS’s Late Late Show spent part of his monologue on Monday night’s show riffing about the Food Forest and organic food.
The Hilltop Red Apple on North Beacon Hill and the Aloha Market on South Beacon Hill sell a lot of winning lottery tickets. Photo by Wendi Dunlap. You might be able to pick up a little luck with your lettuce at a couple of Beacon Hill retailers. Washington’s Lottery just announced the retailers in the Puget Sound region that sold the most winning lottery tickets of prizes worth $1,000 or more in 2011. Though the top store on the list is in Yelm, Beacon Hill stores took slots two and three on the list. The Aloha Market at 7762 Beacon Ave. S. had 15 $1,000+ wins, and the Hilltop Red Apple at 2701 Beacon Ave. S. had 14 $1,000+ wins.
The only other retailer in the Seattle city limits to finish in the top ten was the Lake City Fred Meyer, ranked seventh with 12 “big wins.”
According to the Lottery, “the Hilltop Red Apple on Beacon Ave. South in Seattle is a regular to this yearly list.” Last year the Red Apple tied for fifth place on the list with nearby Uwajimaya, with 13 wins. It’s not likely that your odds are better at the Red Apple—it’s that the volume of lottery ticket sales there is very high. Though we haven’t been able to get this year’s stats, the Red Apple has previously been the state’s highest-grossing outlet for lottery ticket sales.
In the last few weeks, Floyd A. Goffney won $1,000 from a ticket purchased at the Red Apple, but Zack H. McCain topped that with a $10,000 win.
Activists have formed a local group, Occupy Beacon Hill, which will be picketing Chase Bank in the Othello neighborhood today at 4 p.m. as part of a national Occupy protest action against Chase.
March 13 was chosen for the date of the protest as it is Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s birthday, as well as the court date for the “Chase 5”: members of Occupy Seattle who chained themselves inside the Broadway Chase branch and were arrested.
Occupy Beacon Hill will protest the Chase branch located at 7100 Martin Luther King Junior Way South, between Myrtle and Othello, next to Othello Station. For more information, call 206-203-2125.
Photo by makelessnoise via Flickr/Creative Commons.Mark your calendar—Jefferson Community Center has some eggy events coming up next month.
On Friday, April 6 at 8 p.m., the community center hosts a Teen Flashlight Egg Hunt for those 12 and older. The event is free, but bring a flashlight and a bag. Meet at the community center gym at 8 sharp. The hunt will be outdoors.
The next morning, Saturday, April 7, is the Spring Egg Hunt and Pancake Breakfast. Breakfast will be served from 9-11 a.m., and the Egg Hunt starts at 10 a.m. sharp. The Egg Hunt is free, but breakfast is not: $4 for pancakes, $5 for pancakes and sausage, or $6 for pancakes, sausage and eggs.
Jefferson Community Center is located at 3801 Beacon Ave. S.
The first annual Kimball Art Walk is next Thursday, March 22 from 3 – 6 p.m. Beacon Hill businesses will display artwork by 
