“…Back in the day, Kimball Elementary’s crossing guard was a fixture in Seattle’s explosive Jackson Street jazz scene. He played with all the legends of Seattle jazz, from Quincy Jones to Ernestine Anderson.” Danny Westneat of The Seattle Times (BHB news partners) wrote a column recently about jazz pianist Kenny Boas, a Beacon Hill neighbor whose past includes hanging out with Ray Charles, playing with famed groups the Savoy Boys and the Bumps Blackwell Band, and crossing the color line—in the reverse direction. The musicians’ unions in Seattle at the time were segregated. Boas quit the white union, and became the first non-minority member of the Negro Musicians’ Union, Local 493.
Until recently, the 85-year-old Boas worked as the crossing guard at Kimball Elementary School on 23rd Avenue South. See a video of Boas playing piano here.
On December 6, the Levy Citizens Oversight Committee gave their final recommendations for Parks and Green Spaces Levy Opportunity Fund grant projects. Two North Beacon Hill projects made the final list, which will go to the City Council for approval in March.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of Dee Dunbar, Vinh Nguyen, and the other Friends of Lewis Park, Lewis Park has been recommended for an Opportunity Fund grant for $260,000. These funds will be used to pay professional crews to take care of the steep slopes which are inaccessible to volunteers, as well as restoration of native plants and trees.
Santos Rodriguez Park at El Centro de la Raza, in the snow. Photo by Joe Mabel via Wikimedia Commons.El Centro de la Raza was also recommended for a $350,000 grant for Santos Rodriguez Memorial Park on the west side of the El Centro building, to revitalize the park and increase public awareness and access to the park space. This grant would be conditional, requiring improvements in public access; the recommendation reads: “Must provide public access during non-childcare program hours. Entrances/access should be provided to make the site clearly open to the public and gates must be unlocked during non- school/program hours.”
This structure is the central feature of Daejeon Park. Photo by Keith Tyler in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.KOMO reports that an anti-North Korea protest is planned for 11 a.m. this morning at North Beacon Hill’s Daejeon Park, 1144 Sturgus Avenue South. Demonstrators, mostly from Seattle’s Korean community, will be protesting North Korea’s November shelling of the South Korean island Yeonpyeong.
Today’s loser: Residents of Southeast Seattle who might, had Sound Transit not decided to build an expensive (and over-budget) station through Beacon Hill, have had two more light-rail stations in their part of the city.
Barnett’s analysis appears to be in error, however. She claims that:
…The distance between stations on the south end of the line is much longer than in the central, north, and (planned) east portions of the line: Nearly two-and-a-half miles from station to station, compared to just over 1.5 miles for the north section and just over a mile for the central portion.
However, the 2009 Seattle Transit Blog article in which she has found this statistic is not referring to Southeast Seattle when it describes “South Link.” The existing light rail line, from Westlake south to Sea-Tac, is known as “Central Link,” and is listed on the STB article with an average station distance of about 1.2 miles. “South Link,” on the other hand, is used in the STB post to refer to the extension of the line from Sea-Tac to Tacoma (or Redondo/Star Lake — it’s unclear which version of the proposed line is being referred to here). The distance between the Rainier Valley stations actually averages (very roughly) 1.25 miles.
Also mentioned in the Publicola article is a statistic from the February 2010 Metro/Sound Transit rider survey (also discussed on Seattle Transit Blog), showing low ridership numbers at Beacon Hill station, with only two percent of riders boarding at Beacon Hill. To put the number in context, this total was just above SODO and Stadium stations (one percent or fewer), and just below Mount Baker, Othello, and Columbia City (each of which accounted for three percent of daily boardings). SeaTac/Airport (30%) and Westlake (23%), unsurprisingly, accounted for the highest number of boardings.
More recent numbers released by Sound Transit last month (February – June station activity based on actual boarding data instead of survey responses as was the February survey) found here and here show Beacon Hill Station with more boardings than Columbia City, Othello, Rainier Beach, SODO and Stadium, and more deboardings than all of the above plus Mount Baker, and only a few short of Pioneer Square.
Sound Transit is spending nearly $500,000 to purchase a home on the brink of one of the notorious “voids.” BHB news partner The Seattle Timeshas the story:
Christine Miller-Panganiban discovered a 21-foot-deep hole in her yard, at 2605 18th Ave. S., in March 2009. She and her husband, Rommel Panganiban, will receive $400,000 for the house, $11,350 for giving work crews access to the property and $65,000 compensation for stress.
Sound Transit will be seeking to recover expenses such as this from tunnel contractor Obayashi Corporation. Read more in The Times.
The Mayor will be launching Seattle’s Citywide Service Plan, said to be a series of volunteer service initiatives to benefit education and youth development.
The tunnel “voids” affecting properties above the Link Light Rail tunnel path through the hill continue to be identified and addressed. From an article in the Engineering News-Record:
Crews have filled in about 80% of nine voids leftover from a 2-mile tunneling job through Seattle’s Beacon Hill. Japan’s Obayashi Corp. did not discover the voids while boring the parallel, 1-mile tunnels as part of its $280-million contract, which has since increased to $312 million. Owner Sound Transit contends the contractor is at fault.
. . .
“We put Obayashi on notice that we think this is an avoidable situation, and the cost is going to be withheld from its final payment,†Gray says. Sound Transit has spent $1.6 million filling the voids.
“The adequacy of the geotechnical data supplied by Sound Transit and the actual behavior of the ground during construction are under discussion with Sound Transit,†says Obayashi spokeswoman Carmen Stone.
And they’re not quite done yet: Sound Transit estimates about 430 cubic yards remain left to find and fill. Read the rest of the article at ENR.
Organizers set up tables at the Festival Street opening last December in front of El Centro's empty south lot. Photo by Jason.Cienna Madrid at The Stranger has written a story about the recent appeals filed against the North Beacon Hill, Othello, and North Rainier (Mount Baker) neighborhood plan updates. The article discusses El Centro de la Raza’s plans to develop the land just south of their building, plans which are—for now—on hold. State law allows neighborhood plans to be amended only once a year. Whether the appeals are upheld or not won’t be determined until it is too late to meet the deadline for this year, so the appeals are automatically forcing a one-year delay to any plan changes.
Madrid interviewed Estela Ortega from El Centro, Bill LaBorde of Transportation Choices Coalition, City Councilmember Sally Clark and David Goldberg of the Department of Planning and Development, and also attempted to speak with North Beacon appellant Frederica Merrell and the appellants from the other Southeast Seattle neighborhoods—for the most part, however, the petitioners aren’t talking. (The exception is Jenna Walden of the Othello group, who suggests that the reason for her group’s appeal is that it is a protest against marginalization of neighborhood groups.)
The resulting article pulls no punches; it concludes, “…Merrell and her cohorts appear to be more concerned with winning than pursuing the best interests of their neighborhoods and the city.”
Responses from The Stranger‘s readers on the website have been mixed.
