All posts by Wendi Dunlap

Editor of the Beacon Hill Blog.
Crime

Two men attacked, one injured in greenbelt under I-5

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by Ray Marcham, KOMO Communities
(Beacon Hill Blog news partners)

A man is being treated at Harborview Medical Center after an attack at the Jungle, near the Beacon Hill greenbelt.

According to Seattle Police, two men arrived at the Metro bus facility at Airport Way and Atlantic Street at around 1:30 a.m. and said they had been attacked nearby. Police were called soon after, and they were told that the men had been attacked nearby.

Officers were told that the men were under I-5 in the Jungle when two other men approached them. One man was hit with a rock by one of the suspects, while another suspect bit the victim on the neck and bit off part of the victim’s lower lip.

The two suspects then grabbed the victim’s wallet and left on a bicycle. The man who was with the victim was not injured.

The uninjured man told officers that the attackers had been seen in the Jungle a few weeks earlier, but they were not known.

Local Events

Community Engagement Online for All workshop at Beacon Hill Library 10/11

“Building inclusive online community engagement in neighborhoods” is the subject of a workshop this Thursday, October 11, from 4:30 – 6:30 p.m. at the Beacon Hill Library (2821 Beacon Ave. S.), organized by the non-profit BeNeighbors.org outreach initiative of Minnesota-based E-Democracy.org. Co-sponsors include the City of Seattle, the Seattle Foundation, and the National Conference of Dialogue and Deliberation.

The event will include two parts: “Seattle Neighbors Online Networking – Who is doing what?” and “Inclusive Community Engagement Online – Lessons to adapt and deploy locally,” to discuss existing neighbor-networking efforts, tools and processes for community engagement, and ways to build inclusive and integrated online community engagement.

Find out more about this workshop at the event web page.

Food and Drink, Neighborhood Pride

Southeast Seattle vs. West Seattle: a lip-smacking Snackdown

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Have a torta at El Quetzal! Photo by Eleazar Teodoro in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.

Get your votes in for Southeast Seattle! Seattle Weekly‘s Voracious food blog is running their annual Snackdown, in which regions of Seattle compete for the Snackdown title as “Seattle’s best eating district.” This week, Southeast Seattle is up against West Seattle and White Center. You can vote on the website.

In this year’s competition, the suburbs are included, and some Seattle neighborhoods are lumped in with others. So, Beacon Hill is part of the “Southeast Super Region” along with the Central District, Madrona, Mount Baker, Georgetown, Columbia City, and Rainier Valley. Last year’s champion, White Center, gets paired with West Seattle. The Southeast wiped out the Northeast Super Region in a pre-competition qualifying round last week.

Of course, we know all about the great food that can be found on Beacon Hill and elsewhere in the great Southeast. Surely we can defeat the Westerners this week. The winner of this week’s competition will then face the winner of the competition between Downtown/Belltown/Pioneer Square/Sodo and the International District.

Food and Drink

Finally! The Oak opens tonight

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This is what the Oak building looked like in May. There have been more improvements since; tonight you can see the inside of the place, too. Photo by Wendi Dunlap.
It’s been a long wait, with a few bumps on the road, but one more eating and drinking establishment is opening tonight at 8 p.m. on Beacon Hill: The Oak.

Owner Lisa tells us that the Oak (3019 Beacon Ave. S.) passed its health and fire inspections on Friday and after a weekend of “running around like mad doing last minute things,” the owners decided tonight would be the night.

The Oak is the second of two restaurant/bars to open recently after lengthy delays; the Tippe and Drague opened a few weeks ago further south on Beacon Avenue.

City Services, Recreation

Parks making improvements to Beacon Mountain

The slides at Beacon Mountain will be closed through December while the playground is revised and improved. Photo by Wendi Dunlap.

You may have noticed the slides at Jefferson Park’s Beacon Mountain Playground have been closed. Have no fear — they are only closed so that Seattle Parks and Recreation can make the final revisions and tweaks to the new playground that opened in July. The work is being done in conjunction with the contractor and manufacturer of equipment, before the warranty expires. The work should be done by year’s end.

The work will include additions and alterations to the playground including revisions to the surfacing in the spraypark and additions to the mechanical system for spray features; plant replacement and hillside fortification to prevent erosion; revisions to hillside slides; and additions to site furnishings such as picnic tables, benches, bike racks, and trash receptacles. New interpretive panels describing solar energy production in the park will also be installed.

The slides will be closed through December.

For more information (or if you want to suggest additional improvements), contact project manager Andy Sheffer, 206-684-7041 or andy.sheffer@seattle.gov.

Clean and Green, Local Events, Volunteering and Giving

First trees in the ground at the Beacon Food Forest

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Photo by K. Shuyler from the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.

Last weekend, Beacon Food Forest supporters came out in force for the project’s “Ground Making Day.” Project organizer Glenn Herlihy sent out this letter to neighbors and supporters:

The Beacon Food Forest’s Ground Making day was an absolute blast. We’d like to thank the 100 plus community volunteers who came out and converted 3750 square feet of grass into the first Beacon Food Forest planting bed. It was an impressive sight to see so many people farming, smiling, eating and learning together.

We planted the first plum trees and a few shrubs that arrived on bicycle trailers powered by the good people of Beacon Bikes, we shared a delicious meal supplied by Tom Douglas, Essential Bakery, Central Coop and La Panzanella, and made a lot of friends. Thank you nutrient donors! Thanks also to City Fruit and ACTrees, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, Seattle P-Patch, Seattle Parks and Recreation and SPU for being apart of a successful collaboration.

Thank you Food Foresters for making the time to become responsible stewards of your public land. Nice work people!

Continue reading First trees in the ground at the Beacon Food Forest →

Arts, Local Events

The Onlies and Elena DeLisle-Perry to perform 10/7

This Sunday, October 7, The Onlies will perform at Beacon Hill’s Garden House as part of ROCKiT Community Arts’ Folk Club music series. The Onlies (Samantha Braman, Leo Shannon and Riley Calcagno) are students at Garfield High School who perform Irish, Cape Breton, Old-Time, Scottish, and Quebecois fiddle music. On their website, they promise a good time for all:

“Oh, we’ll play some of that old traditional stuff, to keep the geezers happy. (Full disclosure: We’re probably the youngest geezers we know, and dang proud of it.) But we’ll probably debut a few of our shock-of-the-new tunes, so make sure to bring a solid pair of shoes.”

Elena DeLisle-Perry will open the show.

The Garden House is located at 2336 15th Ave. S. Admission is $7 general with kids under 12 getting in free. Doors open at 6 p.m., and the music starts at 7 p.m. Early arrivals will be able to order dinner from several local restaurants to enjoy at the show.

For more information about this and future ROCKiT shows, see the website.

Lost and Found

Have you seen Salvador?

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Neighbor Alice writes in about another lost pet:

We just moved to the neighborhood a week ago, and it seems that Salvador’s explorations must have gotten him lost. He’s a large, gray, very friendly male (neutered) cat, with a notched ear. He’s usually very social and outgoing, but my guess (my hope!) is that right now he’s cowering in someone’s garage, unsure how to get home … Let us know if you’ve seen him or know anything. He’s not micro-chipped. Thanks! Alice & Rob, 206-753-8667

BH in the News, Neighborhood Pride, Urban Planning

Beacon Hill named one of 10 Great Neighborhoods

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The APA praised Beacon Hill’s connectivity to light rail via the Beacon Hill, Mount Baker, Columbia City, and Othello stations. Photo by Wendi Dunlap.

Guess what, neighbors? You live in a Great Place. The American Planning Association (APA), an organization of “planners, citizens and elected officials — committed to making great communities happen,” named Beacon Hill one of 10 Great Neighborhoods for 2012. This puts Beacon Hill in the company of neighborhoods including the Garden District in Baton Rouge, LA; Fells Point, Baltimore, MD; Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA; Cooper-Young, Memphis, TN; Downtown Walla Walla, WA; and others. The Great Neighborhoods are part of 30 Great Places in America listed by the APA, that also include 10 Great Streets and 10 Great Public Spaces.

The characteristics of a Great Neighborhood, according to the APA, include:

  • Has a variety of functional attributes that contribute to a resident’s day-to-day living (i.e. residential, commercial, or mixed-uses).
  • Accommodates multi-modal transportation (i.e. pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers).
  • Has design and architectural features that are visually interesting.
  • Encourages human contact and social activities.
  • Promotes community involvement and maintains a secure environment.
  • Promotes sustainability and responds to climatic demands.
  • Has a memorable character.

The APA cited the Hill’s “dynamic and engaged community,” diversity, and light rail connectivity, while also mentioning our “commanding views and scenic vistas,” and landmarks including “the largest Olmsted-planned and designed green space in Seattle — Jefferson Park.”

Great Places are eligible for bronze plaques to mark the achievement, but it’s unknown at this stage whether Beacon Hill will have a plaque installed.