Tonight is the fourth Friday of the month, which means it’s Van Asselt Community Center Family Fun Night for kids 10 and under and their parents. Tonight’s event will include activities with an Independence Day theme.
There will be a bounce house set up to use up some of that excess kid energy, July 4th arts and crafts, ping pong, foosball, a toddler gym, food, a movie, and more for the family to enjoy.
The event is tonight (June 29) from 6-8 p.m. at Van Asselt Community Center, 2820 S. Myrtle St. Admission is $3 per child, with parents getting in free. Two more Family Fun Nights this summer will be held on July 27 and August 24. For more information, contact Carl Bergquist at 206-386-1921 or carl.bergquist@seattle.gov.
The big blue oven from Bar del Corso. Photo by Dapper Lad Cycles in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.The Beacon Bits are mostly about food lately. You know we have got to be in a new era on Beacon Hill when so many other websites are talking about our restaurants and bars! But there are a few other things that found their way into the Bits collection this time. Here are some of the Bits we’ve compiled over the last few weeks:
“We realized that [Beacon Hill has] been a very underserved neighborhood. Maybe because there’s a perception that it’s too sleepy up here. Would there be enough movement and passerby traffic to support what we wanted to do here? I approached this with a confident exterior. So my biggest surprise in this respect was that not only did we have our loyal regulars and neighbors, who knew this space as the Beacon Pub, but others who traveled clear across town to come here.”
Also on the restaurant front, Thrillist reviews Luisa Taqueria with an unusual simile: “Looking to dominate Beacon Hill’s ethnic-eats landscape like that billionaire dude does the protagonist of Fifty Shades of Grey, the crew behind Filipino mainstay Inay’s just opened Luisa Taqueria.”
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The Seattle Times published one of the earliest photos of a Beacon Hill house recently. The house was at what is roughly 10th and Dearborn, which is not part of Beacon Hill anymore. Back then, however, it was. Since that time, the Dearborn Cut (finished 100 years ago in 1912) has removed the northern ridge of Beacon Hill where it once continued north toward First Hill.
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The NewHolly development on South Beacon Hill has seen home values drop drastically. Could it be because of crime? Real estate agents quoted in a story at Seattle Weekly suggest that instead, it’s a common situation in newer developments, where multiple nearly identical homes are for sale, triggering price wars.
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We all know about Beacon Hill’s high school, Cleveland. But another Seattle high school you may not have heard of has headquarters here on the Hill, as reported by the Seattle Times: the Interagency Academy.
This light pole was knocked down by a van Thursday afternoon. Photo courtesy of Angela Castañeda, Beacon Hill Merchants Association.
Reported yesterday (Thursday, June 28) on the Beacon Hill Merchants Facebook page:
Unneighborly neighbor, potential tragedy averted: At approximately 3:10pm this afternoon a group of summer camp kids and another smaller group of middle school boys were walking toward the library when this once lovely light pole was knocked flat behind them by a large camper van. One boy said he felt the swoosh of air as it fell behind him. The man and woman were said to be hanging out there for a while, possibly arguing and drinking, before they rammed the pole as they pulled away from the curb.
Your dear Merchants staff gathered data, provided details to SPD and reported to City Light. In no time Dan and Scott from City Light’s emergency crew were onsite to disconnect wires and make the sidewalk safe again. Thanks guys!
The Jefferson Skatepark is one of the improvements to celebrate at the Jefferson Park Jubilee. Photo by Joel Lee in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.
The schedule is up for next month’s Jefferson Park Jubilee, a day of festivities from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. on July 14 to celebrate the park’s revitalization and its 100-year history. See the schedule here. The day’s activities will include kiritiki (Samoan cricket), kite flying, skating, lawnbowling, Japanese games, circus arts, Ultimate Frisbee, tours of the Beacon Food Forest site, an Olmsted walking tour and more. Performers scheduled include Wayne Horvitz and Sweeter Than the Day, Mango Son, Blvd Park, Greg Ruby Quartet, the Beaconettes, and more. There will also be a tour and ribbon cutting of the brand-new Beacon Mountain playground.
Among the park improvements to celebrate are the Jefferson Park expansion, the new Jefferson Skatepark, Jefferson Playfield, cherry tree plantings in the park, Beacon Mountain Playground, and solar picnic shelters. All of these were completed in 2011 or 2012.
The Jubilee still has openings for food vendors, but the deadline to apply is tomorrow, Friday, June 29. See here for more information.
Beacon Food Forest fans and friends are invited to come out this Saturday (June 30) from 10 a.m. until noon, to the workshop “Permaculture and the Beacon Food Forest: Building skills and leaders for the food forest planting and care.” The workshop will be held at El Centro De La Raza, room 310, 2524 16th Ave. S.
Topics covered will include permaculture concepts, soil building, plant guilds, and leading a team in planting the first stages of the Beacon Food Forest. Attendees will begin to design plant communities and plan productive work parties.
Yesterday’s Beacon Rocks! was one of the biggest yet, with multiple food carts and vendors on site to complement the music and poetry on the stage. The theme was Transportation (of all kinds), so representatives were there as well from Sound Transit, Feet First, and Beacon B.I.K.E.S. The weather stayed good, and by all accounts, the day was a success.
Here are some photos of the event. All photos are by Wendi Dunlap unless marked otherwise. Did you take photos yesterday? We’d love to see them. You can submit them to the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.
The Feet First giant chicken helped pedestrians cross busy Beacon Avenue.The new art chairs painted by neighbors last year made the site colorful and welcoming as the event opened to the public. Photo by Melissa Jonas in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.Bassist Anton Beck of the group Nigel Mustafa plays at Beacon Rocks!Neighborhood kids enjoy climbing around on a fire truck under the watchful eyes of parents and firefighters.There were several food vendors at this event, including the taco truck that is usually at 16th and Festival Street, a hot dog cart, an ice cream cart, and this crepe truck, serving both savory and sweet crepes.Joanne Klein sings. We are told she was a last minute substitute performer when the group Audio Couture had to cancel, but she did a fine job stepping in on short notice.Continue reading Music, food, and color at yesterday’s Beacon Rocks!→
Did you enjoy today’s Beacon Rocks! event at Roberto Maestas Festival Street? Did you take any photos? If you did, we’d love to post them tomorrow on the BHB. Please add your photos to our Flickr photo pool. We look forward to seeing Beacon Rocks! through your eyes!
Louisa performing at Inay’s. Photo by Gina Tolentino in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.
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.”
These cute pottery critters were made by students in a previous class at Jefferson Community Center. Photo courtesy of Molly Hueffed.It’s summer, which means that Jefferson Community Center is again offering pottery classes to teach the skills of potter’s wheel throwing and handbuilding. Classes will include basic understanding and techniques of centering and throwing, as well as advanced 1-on-1 instruction.
Enrollment is open now for classes that start next week. Call 206-684-7481 for more information and to register, or register online by going to this website, clicking “Arts: Visual/Crafts,” and then “Pottery – Adult/Teen.” Classes are listed there for all community centers, not just Jefferson.
Thanks to Molly Hueffed for the info, and I apologize for the delay.
Mark your calendar: neighbors in the 98108, 98118, amd 98144 area codes are invited to attend a Mayor’s Town Hall meeting on Wednesday, July 18 from 5:30-8 p.m. at Van Asselt Community Center (2820 S. Myrtle St.).
The event starts with a community information fair from 5:30-6:30, followed by a youth performance from 6:30-6:40, then the open Q&A session with Mayor McGinn and City staff.
The town hall is another in a series of town halls throughout Seattle, through the Engage Seattle initiative, designed to “to provide concrete ways for Seattleites to help make our city a better place.” Find out more at the website.
