All posts by Wendi Dunlap

Editor of the Beacon Hill Blog.

SCCC plans for Pac Med still up in the air

As the Seattle Times reported on Monday, the plan for Seattle Central Community College to move programs into the Pac Med building is in no way a done deal.

For the move to take place, the state Senate and House much must reach a budget deal to fund renovations to the landmark building, now officially called Pacific Tower and mostly vacant since Amazon moved out in 2011. The House capital budget allocates money for the project, but the Senate does not have a matching measure. Time is running out — the legislative session ends on Sunday.

If the plan falls through, the Times reports that a developer has proposed converting the building to high-priced apartments. Either way, the building’s owner, the Pacific Hospital Preservation and Development Authority (PDA), needs to get a tenant in there sooner, rather than later. The PDA normally uses income from leasing the building to provide grants to nonprofit organizations providing charity health services.

If you feel strongly either way about the college leasing Pac Med, now is the time to contact your State legislators who represent Beacon Hill:

Adam Kline, Senate, 37th District; Bob Hasegawa, Senate, 11th District; Sharon Tomiko Santos, House, 37th District; Eric Pettigrew, House, 37th District; Zack Hudgins, House, 11th District; Steve Bergquist, House, 11th District.

Plan ahead: lane restrictions on S. Spokane St. 4/28

Barring rainy weather, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is planning to work on South Spokane Street between 16th Avenue South and 19th Avenue South this Sunday, April 28. During the work, from about 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., the street will be restricted to a single lane in each direction. there will be a traffic officer on site to guide travelers through the busy intersection of South Spokane Street and Beacon Avenue South.

SDOT will restripe the roadway to install left turn lanes at the Beacon and Spokane intersection, to improve traffic efficiency as well as to allow for safety improvements and better connections for the neighborhood to Jefferson Park.

In the future, SDOT and Seattle Parks will improve the intersection of Spokane Street and Lafayette Avenue South, adding a pedestrian crossing island, crosswalks, curb ramps, a stairway and a path to access Jefferson Park. These improvements are part of the Beacon Hill Neighborhood Greenway project to improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Dine out in SE Seattle to help your community

This Thursday, April 25, Lifelong AIDS Alliance’s Dining Out For Life returns to raise money to fight illness and hunger in our community. During the event, when you dine at a participating restaurant on Beacon Hill or elsewhere, a portion of your bill will be donated to Lifelong.

Restaurants in the Beacon Hill/Columbia City/Mount Baker neighborhoods that are participating include:

Besides the benefit of contributing to your community, if you dine at one of these establishments you’ll also be entered to win two domestic airline tickets from Alaska Airlines. Tweet photos of yourself participating, and you’ll have a chance to win a Dining Out For Life prize package.

See the restaurant locations in this interactive map:

Beacon Hill Library: the “Heart of Darkness”?

The earth-toned slate shingles on the exterior of the Beacon Hill Library stand out against a blue summer sky. The “whale” shape on the wall is a kinetic artwork; when there is rain, the mouth of the whale opens and drains water to the ground. Photo by go-team in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.
Charles Mudede of The Stranger has a particular dislike for the Beacon Hill Library building. In a series of posts over the last few weeks to Slog, Mudede has called the library branch “a mess,” less artistic than “the cracks on the road,”, and an ugly expression of “phony multiculturalism.”

In this week’s Stranger, Mudede takes his complaints to print, in “I Hate the Beacon Hill Library, and You Should Too: A Journey to Seattle’s Heart of Darkness“:

“What was this really about? The fact that Beacon Hill is diverse, and the conflicting fact that the power structures in Seattle are not. These two facts generate tension. So it is not implausible that the white architects Donald Carlson, Mark Withrow, and Jim Hanford attempted to resolve it by designing a building that’s all over the place, that has a little of everything, that has no center, no gravity, that is restless, bold, and creative, like powerless immigrants. The exact same thing that’s wrong with the Beacon Hill Branch is wrong with City Hall, which was designed by Peter Bohlin, the man behind Bill Gates’s high-tech Xanadu. Both are cut from the same bad intention: inspired multiculturalism. It’s architecture trying to heal. Architecture as a hospital for social ills.”

Mudede goes on to compare the branch’s ship-like structure to “the inside of an old cargo ship,” specifically, the hull of a slave ship.

As with the previous Slog posts about the library, this article triggered some pretty strong discussion in the comments, but commenter JF wins the prize: “When old enough to date, I hope Mudede’s daughter walks into the living room one evening and says ‘Dad, I want you to meet my boyfriend’ as the Beacon Hill library reaches out to shake Charles’ hand.”

What do you think? Does Charles Mudede have a point? Is the Beacon Hill Library an awkward, patronizing example of quirkiness trying to be multiculturalism? Or is it an interesting and well-designed building that both serves the community and reflects the character of North Beacon Hill? Or something else entirely?

Elnah Jordan, Eric Verlinde, and Tom McElroy perform at Garden House Blues

Elnah Jordan.
Elnah Jordan.
The Garden House Blues series returns this Friday, April 19, when Elnah Jordan, Eric Verlinde, and Tom McElroy perform at the Garden House, 2336 15th Ave. S. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the concert starts at 8 p.m.

Vocalist Elnah Jordan performed the role of the legendary Bessie Smith in San Francisco for 2-1/2 years in The Evolution of the Blues, and later starred in Street Dreams, an Off-Broadway musical drama. She has since built a reputation as a powerful singer in jazz, R&B, gospel and blues. Pianist Eric Verlinde‘s fifth CD, Firewalker, collects some of his more than 150 compositions ranging “from Latin jazz to swinging hard-bop.” Jazz guitarist Tom McElroy will open the show.

Before the show begins, Beacon Bento will be available with meals delivered to your table from Inay’s Kitchen and Travelers Thali House for $10 or less per meal.

For more info, see the website.

Canning Connections invites you to pickle asparagus, garlic

Asparagus photo by Wendi Dunlap.
This month’s Canning Connection session on April 23 will focus on a favorite spring vegetable. Canning Connection’s Christina Olson writes:

Having explored sweetness at last month’s Canning Connections, we do a big turn to tartness for our April 23 session.

We’ll be putting up pickled asparagus, so appreciated later on when fresh young shoots are no longer in the markets. To complement those spears, we’ll experiment with pickling garlic. Will it be the recipe for Chinese, French, Korean or another variety of pickled garlic? Both of these pickles make great gifts.

This session is open to those who have taken our beginner class, or those who have experience with water bath canning. Class is held Tuesday, April 23, 7-9 p.m. at the Garden House (2336 15th Ave S.) Cost is $15 and includes everything but your apron. Register online at www.canningconnections.com.

Bean Bonanza kickstarts summer of bean-growing activities

Scarlet runner beans photo by Tim Olson, via Creative Commons/Flickr.
The Beacon Hill Garden Club and ROCKiT Community Arts, with help from a Department of Neighborhoods Small Sparks Grant, are kicking off a season of events focused on bean growing with a Bean Bonanza from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 20. The series, Beacon: A Hill of Beans, will include educational, fun, and tasty activities for neighbors at all levels of gardening experience.

Those attending the Bean Bonanza event will leave with free bean seeds, a bucket, bean poles and soil. Other beany activities include a bean “teach-in” with Master Gardener Mick Duggan, a bean haiku contest, bean bag games, a bean buffet, a sale of sample packets of heirloom bean varieties, and more. Attendees will also find out details of the Beautiful Bean photo contest, demonstration gardens, and plans to decorate Beacon Avenue merchant spaces with pots of scarlet runner beans.

Bean events will continue throughout the summer with taste tests, preservation demonstrations, and an autumn bean supper.

Find out more at the website.

Spanish language and tamale classes coming to El Centro

Tamales photo by iotae via Creative Commons/Flickr.
El Centro de la Raza (2524 16th Ave. S.) is offering Spanish language and tamale-making classes in the next few weeks. Class fees will help support the programs and services that El Centro offers.

Spanish language classes start on Tuesday, April 16, and run until June 20 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 7 p.m. They are taught by professional native speakers in an interactive, community-based setting. Levels from beginner through intermediate are available. The tuition fee is $300. For more information, call 206-957-4605 or email execasst@elcentrodelaraza.org.

The regular tamale-making class returns on Saturday, April 20 from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Students will learn how to make traditional authentic pork tamales. Tuition of $75 includes the recipe and a dozen uncooked tamales. For more information, call 206-957-4611 or email development@elcentrodelaraza.org.

Beacon Hill kids to perform in Swan Lake

The Pacific Northwest Ballet production of Swan Lake starts tonight and runs through April 21 at McCaw Hall. It features 24 students from the Pacific Northwest Ballet School, including three young performers from the Beacon Hill area.

Beacon Hill kids performing in the production include:

Amanda Allen, a fifth-grader from Maple Elementary School, will play the role of Waltz Girl.
Alexis Calonge, a fifth-grader at Dearborn Park, will play a Persian Attendant.
Lucas Galvan, a fourth-grader at Dearborn Park, will play a Page.

Congratulations and best wishes to these talented Beacon Hill dancers!

Seattle Central exploring possibility of moving some programs into Pac Med

Seattle Central Community College is proposing locating its Allied Health programs in Pacific Tower, the former hospital and Amazon headquarters building more commonly known as PacMed. Photo by Wendi Dunlap.
New life may be coming to the mostly vacant PacMed building (Pacific Tower) on the northern tip of Beacon Hill. A neighbor at Seattle Central Community College forwarded us this memo from college President Paul T. Killpatrick:

As some of you may have heard, Seattle Community Colleges has been approached by area legislators and community members to consider leasing a portion of Pacific Tower on Beacon Hill. The Tower currently houses the Pacific Medical Center Beacon Hill Clinic on the first floor. The upper floors, formerly occupied by Amazon headquarters, are now empty. Initially, the District considered creating a district-wide program for the PacMed facility. When that did not look feasible, Seattle Central suggested consolidating our growing Allied Health programs in the Tower.

The College has proposed remodeling between 86,000 and 106,000 square feet of the Pacific Tower to house the College’s Allied Health programs, including Dental Hygiene, Nursing, Respiratory, Surgical Technology, and Opticianry. Renovation cost of the Pacific Tower is estimated to be approximately $27 million and the legislators have indicated they will seek funding for the lease and the renovations needed. Vacated space in our current buildings will be remodeled for much needed additional classrooms.

The Pacific Medical Center has expressed an interest in working with Seattle Central Community College to offer clinical training opportunities for Seattle Central’s Allied Health students at the Pacific Medical Beacon Hill Center and at eight other PacMed clinics in the region. Several other complimentary agencies and programs have also expressed interest in joining Seattle Central Community College to lease the remaining space in the Pacific Tower. These agencies include the Cross Cultural Health Program, NeighborCare, Neighborhood House, Philanthropy Northwest, 501 Commons, and Fare Start.

While this is an exciting opportunity for Seattle Central Community College, everything is contingent upon the Legislature approving the capital funding for this project. In addition, many details have yet to be worked out as this project involves several different agencies and partners. We will update the campus community with more information as it becomes available.

This is an interesting possibility for the much-loved landmark building, and for students at Seattle Central. The Allied Health program is a good fit with the historic and current uses of the building. Stay tuned for more information on this project.