Featured Stories

The Washington State Department of Transportation has announced that extended the deadline to comment on the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the SR 520 replacement/expansion plan until April 15.

The project will replace the aging 520 floating bridge with a newer, bigger bridge. What happens when the bridge reaches Seattle is currently the focus of much debate and discussion. Montlake neighbors, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and some state lawmakers are opposed to the plans put forth by the WSDOT....

The Eastlake Merchants Association had its second meeting last week. One of the ideas talked about was some sort of event involving neighborhood artists (an art walk, perhaps).

To that end, I'm curious who the artists are in the neighborhood:

• Where do you work?
• What sort of art do you create?
• What drew you to Eastlake and what keeps you here?
• Would you be interested in showing your work in the neighborhood?
• What else should your Eastlake neighbors...

The waterfront office building at Wards Cove is now fully leased, the Wards Cove Packing Company announced this morning.

The 12,500-square-foot building, which was previously...

Seattle City Light’s four-year “re-lamping” project for streetlights is headed Eastlake’s way, and it may include installation of the new LED lights seen on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the city.

Bad, bad: I've been meaning to get these posted for over a week. At last, here they are.

The Eastlake Community Council's Winter Awakening was on Feb. 25 at Kristos Eastlake....

NOTE: This event took place on Saturday.

It's a perfect day for Tako Truk's benefit event to aid Haiti earthquake relief. Not a cloud in the sky and it's nearly 60 degrees out.

They're serving up CoCo Piggy and other Tako Truk favorites (the Drunken Boy Soup is particularly good today) at Two Beers Brewery, 4700 Ohio Ave. S., until 6 p.m. You can't miss it. It's the building with all the people and the Tako Truk awning out front. And the people tossing cans of bad beer at a bed of nails....

Bryan Partington, one of the project coordinators for the Eastlake P-Patch's expansion project, has created a video tour of the site:

On Wednesday, United States Senator Marie weighed in on NOAA’s now epic attempts to move to Oregon. The Puget Sound Business Journal reported that Sen. Cantwell is demanding a federal investigation into the NOAA’s attempted move. Specifically, Sen. Cantwell is seeking review from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Inspector General in evaluating the move, which will ultimately result in a loss of Washington jobs.

In addition, Sen. Cantwell volleyed several claims directed at the NOAA’s operations&...

Marjorie Nelson's daughters announced today that the Life Celebration for their mother will be at 6:30 p.m., Monday, March 22, at the Leo K. Theatre at Seattle Rep, 155 Mercer St., at Seattle Center.

UPDATE: This post has been updated since it was first published. The hours for Nettletown have been added.

We have updates on two Eastlake-related restaurant stories: Tako Truk's Haiti benefit and the new Nettletown restaurant:

• There's now a location for Tako Truk's event on Saturday: Two Beers Brewery, 4700 Ohio Ave. S., Unit A, in SoDo. The event will be from 1 to 6 p.m. As we reported previously, the event is a one-off to benefit Haiti relief, specificially...

Are you sad that the Eastlake Red Robin is set to close on March 21? Keith Leeman thinks he can save the venerable restaurant, the original Red Robin location.

Leeman has set up a Facebook page, "Don't close the ORIGINAL Red Robin Eastlake." The statement on the page says:

"A fan page designed to show our appreciation to Red Robin while sending a message that the original "Seattle" Red Robin should...

UPDATE: This post has been changed since it was first published. The date of the closure has been corrected. Links to stories by the Seattle Times and SeattlePI.com have been added.

Red Robin has announced this morning that it will be closing the chain's location at Eastlake and Fuhrman, the original restaurant in the chain.

The restaurant will close March 21. The lease on the building runs out in April....

SeattlePI.com's Casey McNerthney is reporting on an Eastlake case of a good Samaritan who ended up being robbed at gunpoint.

UPDATE: This post has been changed since it was first published. A link to a Weekly interview with Cormac Mahoney has been added.

Tako Truk updated its Web site this afternoon with details of their one-off event on Saturday, March 6.

The event, co-sponsored with Two Beers Brewing, will be from "1pmish-6pmish" somewhere in SoDo, the Truk's site says. The Truk site advises watching their Twitter feed for more details....

The Seattle Times has a feature this morning about the demise of the city's coffee cart culture. Turns out, according to the Times, that the last year-round outdoor coffee cart is the one in front Eastlake's 14 Carrot Cafe.

The Times reports there are carts inside buildings and carts on private property, like the one at REI. But carts on city sidewalks are rare. There are only two left and only the 14 Carrot's runs all year.

The Washington State Department of Transportation is sponsoring a public hearing and open house on the SR520 bridge expansion project from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday evening (Feb. 23) at the Naval Reserve Building at Lake Union Park, 860 Terry Ave. E.

Anyone who is interested is invited to attend and review and comment on the environmental analysis of the 520 bridge expansion and the west side interchange designs. You can speak to a court reporter at the event to have your comments recorded....

The Seattle Times is reporting that Vivian Ellis, 44, also known as Rainbow Love, "has been charged with three counts of second-degree promoting prostitution and attempting to promote prostitution."

Ellis ran the Sacred Temple in the 3100 block of Eastlake Ave. E. until she was arrested in May 2009 after a receptionist at the temple complained she was fired for refusing to masturbate clients as her manager requested.

It feels like Spring this weekend. The temperatures are near 60, trees and the occasional crocus are blooming, and people are getting outside to enjoy the day. Even the ducks and coots are enjoying the mid-Winter break.

The video was shot Friday evening around sunset at Wards Cove on Fairview Avenue E. Next time your friends or family who don't live here crack a joke about how "it always rains in Seattle," send them the link to this post and set them straight!...

If you haven't been to the Eastlake P-Patch lately, stop by and check out the progress volunteers have made on the expansion project.

The garden looks a bit disheveled right now, with lots of mud and rock and unfinished planting beds, but once it's done it's going to be spectacular.

(more)

SeattleCrime.com's map shows where crimes are happening. Click here or click the picture to go to the real map.

At its meeting last night (Wednesday, Feb. 17), the Eastlake Community Council Board talked about plans for a public meeting in April on emergency preparedness and crime.

Canek Gordillo and Cecilia Grevson are in charge of the ECC's committee on crime prevention and preparedness. Gordillo told the board that they hope the public meeting will include representatives from the police department and other emergency services. Part of the focus will be on helping Eastlake neighbors to help each other in case of a natural disaster. The other part will be focusing awareness on crime prevention.

As I've pointed out in posts about the monthly Seattle Police Department crime statistics, its tough to know how we're faring because Eastlake is split between two precincts. North of E. Lynn, the neighborhood is in the East Precinct (headquartered on Capitol Hill on 12th). South of E. Lynn, the neighborhood is under the West Precinct (headquarters are downtown on Virginia). Our crime stats get folded in with Capitol Hill or downtown....

UPDATE: Just received word that the upgrade has been delayed until tonight, Sunday, about 10 p.m.

Word comes today from Neighborlogs World Headquarters that this weekend they'll be upgrading the servers the Eastlake Ave. Blog and all the other Neighborlogs sites operate on.

The upgrade will begin at 11 p.m. Saturday evening and they hope to have it mostly completed by 7 a.m. Sunday morning. You...

UPDATE: This post has been changed since it was first published. The name of the event organizer has been corrected.

The Eastlake Community Council continues its sponsorship of fun community events with "Our Winter Awakening" next week.

The evening of Greek food, wine and neighbors will be on Thursday, Feb. 25, from 7 to 10 p.m. at Kristos Eastlake, 3218 Eastlake Ave. E. The poster for the event invites Eastlake residents to "weave a story with friends, neighbors and strangers."...

UPDATE: This post has been changed since it was first published to include the day Mrs. Steinbrueck passed away. A link to Misha Berson's obituary on the Seattle Times has been added at the end of this post. Minor editing changes have also been made.

A longtime Eastlake resident and well-known Seattle actress and theater director, Marjorie Nelson, 86, has died.

She passed away Friday at her home on Franklin Avenue E. after a brief illness, according to her family.

In a blog post, her daughters, Judith and Rachel, said:

Marjorie was an amazing, courageous, inspiring human being who brought her creativity and humanity to everything she did including her work in theater, the arts and activism.

UPDATE: This post has been changed since first published. A copy of the letter to Gary Locke has been attached and detail has been added.

The City Council and the Mayor's Office have released the letter to Gary Locke (see attached PDF). In it, the council and mayor say that locating at either NOAA's Sand Point base (the Western Regional Center) or the Federal Center South could be done "at a very small fraction of the cost of moving to Newport."

I'm working on a project with other neighborhood bloggers that will focus on the graffiti problem around Seattle.

I recently wrote about graffiti on the new I-5 noise walls along Harvard Avenue E. The Washington State Department of Transportation says that graffiti on the freeway side of the wall is their responsibility. They quickly painted over the Harvard Avenue tags.

If the graffiti faces the...