Tag Archives: gentrification

Beacon Bits: Food Forest, food for kids, food for thought

Someone spinning on his head at Jefferson Park in the late afternoon sun. Photo by Robinette Struckel in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.

We’ve been holding on to some of these Bits for a while, so no time like the present… here goes!

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The Beacon Food Forest was featured recently in Crosscut, where Robert Mellinger writes:

“There is no other project of Beacon Food Forest’s scale and design on public land in the United States — a forest of food, for the people, by the people.”

The article gives a thorough background on the bureaucratic issues that the Food Forest organizers have had to deal with so far, as well as an overview of future plans.

The Food Forest was also featured in Take Part this week.

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Travelers Thali House was recently touted in the Seattle Weekly‘s Voracious blog as “colorful food kids will eat.”

Travelers was also mentioned in the March issue of Sunset, on page 17. The blurb mentions that Travelers serves Indian street food and gives a couple of examples.

Back to Voracious, where Travelers was featured yet again this week in a “Sexy Feast” review by Jay Friedman:

“My thali looked like an edible artist’s palette. Instead of a paintbrush, I’d dip my fork into the various metal bowls, sampling each carefully and seeing how it blended with the next…

“Exploring and enjoying different tastes and textures, with varied sequences of bites, nibbles, scoops, and swirls, made this a delicious experience.”

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7×7 listed Beacon Hill as “one of the 7 best neighborhoods in Seattle” — specifically, “best for families.” Writer Alida Moore cited our parks, playgrounds, library, diversity, and light rail as reasons the Hill is great for kids, along with one highly-rated school: Mercer.

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Have you noticed that MacPherson’s doesn’t sell sprouts anymore?

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Neighbor Lesley Ernst writes:

“You know the neighborhood is changing when…

“Arriving at my massage office on Hanford St. and Beacon Ave. early last Sunday morning to find that the ubiquitous litter in the parking strip has changed from 40-ouncers to Kombucha bottles and PCC to-go containers.”

Beacon Bits: Facebook, P-Patches and gentrification

Washington Federal sign switch
Down comes the old, up goes the new: a brand new sign went up at the North Beacon Washington Federal bank branch this week. Photo by Jason.
There is a new Beacon Hill Blog fan page on Facebook. We hope to see you there!

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The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods is looking for places to add new P-Patches, particularly in North Beacon Hill; your suggested locations are welcomed — Rainier Valley Post

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Craig Thompson begins a series on the McNeil Island Secure Community Transition Facility for level 3 sex offenders, located just down the hill in Sodo, with a history lesson on how it came to be — Beacon Lights at the P-I

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Jordan Van Voast at Communichi at 2524 16th Avenue South #301 (inside the El Centro building), is offering free acupuncture treatments for first time patients on April 22, 29, and May 1.

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Elliott Jones writes about gentrification on his blog, addressing the issue in the context of Beacon Hill specifically.

Beacon Hill mentioned (briefly) in the New York Times

Beacon Hill received a brief mention in the New York Times today:

The deep recession, with its lost jobs and falling home values nationwide, poses another kind of threat: to the character of neighborhoods settled by the young creative class, from the Lower East Side in Manhattan to Beacon Hill in Seattle. The tide of gentrification that transformed economically depressed enclaves is receding, leaving some communities high and dry.

It’s a bit odd, because Beacon Hill doesn’t actually seem to fit the pattern described in the article, of neighborhoods gentrified by “the young creative class” and then finding their new hipster shops and cafés collapsing from the effects of the recession. Beacon Hill is still a neighborhood seemingly on the verge of gentrification, but we haven’t yet seen an influx of shops “playing the Decemberists in a continuous loop,” as the Times puts it. We have a couple of newish coffee shops, and a couple of newer businesses that might have been on the cutting edge of gentrification up here, but, honestly, it sounds more as if the Times meant to name-check Georgetown.

Beacon Bits: Views, graffiti, and a BIA

Beacon Bits: Gentrification, school closures, and mice

Recycle your old computers and benefit Union Gospel Mission at the same time, this Friday and Saturday at 660 South Othello Street . Photo by Leif K-Brooks.
Recycle your old computers and benefit Union Gospel Mission at the same time, this Friday and Saturday. Photo by Leif K-Brooks.

Improving Beacon Hill: your suggestions

Old laundromat, tagged with graffiti. Photo by Laura Hadden -- thanks!
Old laundromat on Beacon Avenue, tagged with graffiti. Photo by Laura Hadden -- thanks!
Recently we asked you “what are some things you’d like to improve on Beacon Hill?” The ensuing discussion was lively, to say the least. In comparison to the recent discussion about things we love about Beacon Hill, the answers to this one were more diverse.

The answers could be broken down into two broad categories: Stuff We Want, and Stuff That Needs to Improve.

Please read on to see what people said. Continue reading Improving Beacon Hill: your suggestions