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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:
You can answer in the comments to this post or e-mail me at curtmilton@comcast.net. I'd love to do a series of articles on local artists and, maybe, we'll find places to show your work in the neighborhood. 
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. This is the latest community gathering sponsored by the ECC. And, while it wasn't as busy as the previous event, it was fun and interesting. There were several people there I hadn't met before, including some from around the corner on Portage Bay. There was talk about neighorhood issues, including the plans for the 520 expansion, and appreciation for the event that brought everyone together. And, the food and wine were great. Thanks for Susan Forhan and the ECC for sponsoring! Bryan Partington, one of the project coordinators for the Eastlake P-Patch's expansion project, has created a video tour of the site:
Gilead appears to have moved in to their new building on Eastlake, across from Grand Central. Anybody know if any of the retail spaces are leased out? 
Take time out from your winter hibernation to join your neighbors at the Eastlake Community Council's latest event, Our Winter Awakening. The evening of food, drink and good conversation will be this Thursday, Feb. 25, from 7 to 10 p.m. at Kristos Eastlake, 3218 Eastlake Ave. E. Kristos menu includes some traditional American items, like burgers, but their main focus is Greek cuisine. It will cost you $10 to get in. That gets you a glass of wine and light appetizers. After that, you're free to order from Kristos' happy hour menu as well as their dinner and dessert menus (but you'll pay full price for those items). They'll have happy hour prices on beverages all night. The ECC did a similar event last fall at Louisa's that was well attended and lots of fun. It's a great chance to try a local restaurant, chat with your neighbors and make some new friends. 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 Times quotes former owners of coffee carts who say indoor coffee shops killed off their businesses. There's good news for those who love the Carrot's cart, according to the Times article:
Read the whole Times story here. It also includes a nice photo of the 14 Carrot's cart. 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! Eastlake Sunset, Wards Cove from Curt Milton on Vimeo. 
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.
After a short break during the worst of the winter weather, the p-patch volunteers are back at it. Work parties take place most Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. I stopped by last Sunday when a small group (Tom Naylor and Rebecca and Bryan Partington) were working. Rebecca said Saturdays tend to have the most volunteers. The expansion project is a perfect example of "sweat equity:" The more you work on the project, the higher up the list you'll be to get one of the new plots. The expansion is adding 23 garden plots to the p-patch's original 27. The older plots are 200 square feet while the new plots will be 100 square feet. The new plots are located on the hill above the original part of the p-patch. Heavy equipment was brought in last fall for the big earth-moving part of the project. But much of the work has been done by people toting dirt and rocks and granite up the hill, and then digging and move lots of earth. A new pathway has been sculpted out of the hillside. It connects the lower and upper plots. Ultimately, a bench along the path will provide a quiet place to sit and contemplate the garden. The Giving Garden, where the food grown is given to local food banks, has been moved to the base of the hill. The water line has been extended to cover the Giving Garden and the new plots and new spigots have been added. Pieces of cement from old city sidewalks are being used to make the walls of the Giving Garden. At the top of the hill, surplus granite pavers from Westlake Park are waiting to be placed to mark the edges of the new plots. Rebecca and Bryan said the heavy granite was hauled up there by hand by volunteers ... well, by wheelbarrow, but you get the idea. As the project progressed, Bryan said they realized they could squeeze in three or four more plots. Down by the street, Tom was constructing new handicapped-accessible planting beds. The raised beds are replacing older beds and will allow with limited mobility to garden. Rebecca says they hope to have the expansion done in time for the summer growing season. If you'd like to help out, there's always room at the work parties. I try to post the work parties at least a week in advance on the Eastlake Ave. Blog calendar. The next work party is tomorrow, Saturday, Feb. 20. For more information, check these sources:
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." You'll pay $10 at the door, which will get you a glass of wine and light appetizers. After that, you're free to order from Kristos' happy hour menu as well as their dinner and dessert menus (but you'll pay full price for those items). Mary Hansen has designed the poster for this event as she did for last summer's movie night and the Fall Gathering in October. Susan Forhan is doing the organizing duties for the Awakening. The Fall Gathering at Louisa's proved to be a great evening with lots of Eastlake residents dropping by to chat and meet their neighbors. The event offered a chance to meet people and catch up with old friends and try out a neighborhood restaurant. The ECC deserves out thanks for sponsoring these events. Thanks, everyone, and I'll see you there! 
Eastlake has a number of street end parks. One of the more interesting (and least known) is Good Turn Park on Fairview Avenue E. at E. Martin. On Monday, Feb. 15, Presidents Day, volunteers will be pruning, weeding and cleaning trash out of the park from noon to 2 p.m. Volunteers are advised to bring work gloves and sturdy shoes.
The park's landscape architect, Tom Zachary, will also be on hand. Chris Leman reports that they'll be looking at a design for kiosks to go here and in other neighborhood parks that would hold volunteer and historical information. The park, which sits on the Lake Union shore in the shadow of the I-5 Ship Canal bridge, is open to the public but not owned by the city. A history of the neighborhood on the Eastlake Community Council's Web site has the story:
The Seattle Times, in a story on the dedication of the park in 2000, said it had cost the city only about $15,000. Bergren and Nordstrom spent about $50,000 on the park and neither lived to see the project completed. 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 street, call the Seattle Department of Transportation. You can report graffiti to the SDOT on its Web site. The WSDOT also has a site for reporting graffiti. How bad a problem is graffiti in Eastlake? Where else do you see graffiti in the neighborhood? Do you ever clean it up or paint it over? Does your business have a graffiti problem? What should the city do about graffiti painters? Whose responsibility should it be to clean up graffiti? Put your responses in the comments here or e-mail me at curtmilton (at) comcast.net. Thanks for your help! PowerToasters Club provides tools to boost your career right here in Eastlake It’s the new year and you’ve made your annual list of resolutions. Perhaps you’re trying to eat healthier. Or spend less time in front of the TV. Or maybe you’d like to boost your career. Toastmasters International, a thriving organization with 250,000 members in 106 countries, can help you develop the communication and leadership skills needed to reach this goal. To get promoted, you may need to become a better presenter and more confident team leader. You may need the ability to talk and answer questions off the cuff. If you want to land a good position, you’ll need job interviewing skills. All these skills can be learned in the supportive setting of a local Toastmasters meeting. When Oregon resident Gary Schmidt joined Toastmasters, he was an unemployed college graduate who, in his own words, performed poorly in job interviews. He had difficulty expressing himself effectively. Toastmasters training helped... 
UPDATE: This post has been updated since it was first published. More detail on Lolita and Glenn Gray, owners of the tree, has been added. I walk and drive by the tree at Franklin and Hamlin every day and I always enjoy the changing decorations that mark the seasons and holidays. If you're having a bad day, the tree is sure to make you feel better.
Right now, it's decorated for Valentine's Day. In the photos, you'll see it decked out with pumpkins and ghosts for Halloween. Not only is it fun to look at, but it helps me remember what holidays are on the horizon. And now, someone has given the tree its own fan page on Facebook: The tree on the corner of Franklin & Hamlin. At the moment, there are only four fans and the page is less than 45 minutes old. If you're on Facebook, give it a look and leave a comment or a photo. You heard it here first! An article in the February/March 2007 edition of the Eastlake News (it's on page 5) has more detail on Lolita and Glenn Gray, owners and decorators of the tree. 
I discovered the lead photo on this post while searching through Google one night. It shows a postcard view of Lake Union and points beyond taken from the Eastlake neighborhood. There's no date on the card but VintageSeattle.org, the source of the image, estimates it to be at least 100 years old (click here to see the photo on Vintage Seattle's site). Joe Mabel, who graciously allowed me to use one of his photos last week, posted this image to Wikipedia Commons and added some notes: You can see Queen Anne on the left, Fremont roughly in the center of the photo and the future Gas Works Park along the lake off to the right. Far off in the distance is Ballard, which looks to be mostly denuded of trees. Vintage Seattle says the card was published by Lowman & Hanford and printed in Germany. And the site shows you what was written on the back. Vintage Seattle also had a photo of the same view in 1912, taken by Webster & Stevens and published in The Argus. In this image you can see the old Stone... 
UPDATE: This post has been changed since it was first published. A photo of Fire Station 22 has been added as well as a link to a historic photo of the station taken around 1910. Seattle will be marking the 16th Annual Neighbor Appreciation Day on Saturday. The event is "a special day to reach out to neighbors and express thanks to all who help make your neighborhood a great place," according to a press release from the city. As part of the event, fire stations all over the city will be open to the public from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fire Station 22, 901 E. Roanoke, serves Eastlake. Stop by and meet the fire crews who keep Eastlake safe. Photos of Fire Station 22, both now and in 1916 when it was located at 11th N. and E. Howe, can be seen on the SFD's Web site. MOHAI has a terrific photo of Fire Station 22 taken around 1910. MOHAI says the original station housed firemen and a horse-drawn hose wagon. A motor pumper replaced the horses in 1924. The location on top of Capitol Hill was an advantage, MOHAI says, because it made it easier for the horses to race downhill to a fire. The station in the MOHAI photo was replaced with the new station on Roanoke in the 1960s.
UPDATE: This post has been changed since it was first published. A photo of the memorial bench created for the Stockleys has been added. A Seattle Times story this morning brought the reminder that Sunday will mark 10 years since an Alaska Airlines MD-83 airplane crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, killing all 88 passengers and crew onboard. The plane was returning from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Among those killed that day were popular and well-known Eastlake houseboat residents Tom and Peggy Stockley. Tom was the wine columnist for the Seattle Times and "perhaps the nicest guy in Western Washington," as one Eastlake resident who knew him wrote to me this morning. Peggy was active in the Floating Homes Association and other community groups. In a 2005 rememberance of her parents, their daughter, Paige, said of her: "My mother strolled the docks in folk dresses from her many wine trips with my dad, taking care of the dock cats, chatting with the neighbors and working on the Floating Homes Association newsletter and other Eastlake projects." Today, a memorial bench at Lynn Street Park celebrates the Stockleys in the colorful tiles that cover its surface. There are wine bottles, a typewriter, a cat, boats, ducks, flowers and more depicted on the bench. If you knew Tom and Peggy, please feel free to share your reminiscences in the comments to this post. Rebecca Partington sends word that work parties on the expansion of the Eastlake P-Patch, 2900 Fairview Ave. E., are resuming. Work parties will be on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, running from 10 a.m. to approximately 2 p.m. Bring work gloves and a water bottle, Rebecca says. The P-Patch is adding 20 more plots to the 27 it already has. The original plots are 200 square feet. The new plots will be 100 square feet. Related links:
If you've wondered what all the talk is about the Eastlake Neighborhood Plan, the Eastlake Community Council has a meeting Monday that may answer your questions. The plan was developed 10 years ago with lots of input from Eastlake residents. It helps city policy in matters of growth, transportation, housing and general livability in the neighborhood. It was a 20-year plan and has 10 years left to run. The city is considering updating some of the plans and has been taking comments from residents in Eastlake and other neighborhoods about their plans and how they're working. At a workshop in November, the city's Department of Planning and Development reported on what they've heard and asked Eastlake residents present to respond to comments from meetings and an online survey (see previous post here). Details on Monday's meeting:
Terry Richard from the Oregonian in Portland wrote yesterday about the I-5 Colonnade Park mountain bike course. Word of the bike course has spread around the world through word of mouth, he says, and through the biking press. Richard quotes a visitor to the park, Ben Donnelly, on his reaction:
Richard said Portland is considering possible sites for a similar mountain bike course in that city. Eugene also considered a site under a new freeway bridge but had to abandon the idea because it would have required wetlands mitigation and renegotiation of a lease with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Richard's piece also has a slideshow of photos of the Colonnade trail by Jamie Francis. The Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance helped to develop the bike trail. They have more about the trail on their Web site. The Mountain Xpress newspaper in Asheville, N.C., has a related story on their web site with two videos of the park. There's a new date for the first meeting of the newly forming Eastlake Merchants Association: 9 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 28. The meeting will be at Cicchetti, 121 E. Boston St. Anyone who owns, operates or works at a business in the Eastlake neighborhood is invited to attend. The group is asking those who attend the meeting to bring their ideas on how to make Eastlake's business district better. Susan Forhan, co-owner of Eastlake Massage and a board member of the Eastlake Community Council, is organizing the meeting with the help of Susan Kaufman, owner of Cicchetti and Serafina. If you have ideas or questions, contact Forhan at imzadi01@gmail.com. As we noted in a previous post, Kaufman helped write the Eastlake Neighborhood Plan in 1998. Among the ideas proposed in that document were signs welcoming people to the neighborhood, an annual event like an art walk, improving lighting and publishing a guide to local businesses. The holidays may be over, but the third annual Treehouse for Kids toy drive is still going on. You have until Wednesday to leave toys at Louisa's Cafe Bakery. The drive benefits Treehouse for Kids, a Seattle group dedicated to helping improve the lives of foster children. The drive is sponsored by the Eastlake Community Council and Louisa's. If you want to know what to donate, check the Treehouse web site. For other questions, e-mail the ECC at info@eastlakeseattle.org.
The Argosy Christmas Ship will be making its final Lake Union appearance of the 2009 holiday season tonight, Wednesday, Dec. 23, at 9:45 p.m. The ship will appear off Gas Works Park and feature a performance by the Seattle Girls Choir. There will be a bonfire onshore at Gas Works.
It only stays for about 20 minutes, so be on time if you want to see it. There are good vantage points around the Eastlake area to see and hear the ship and the musicians. After that, it's all over until Christmas of 2010. Check out photos of the Christmas Ship on Flickr. Walt from the Eastlake Zoo reports that last Sunday's fundraiser was a success:
Next up on the Zoo's event calendar: another cook-off, this time with chowder as the focus. It'll be sometime after the first of the year.
The historians at the Seattle Municipal Archives have a great collection of historical Seattle images posted on their Flickr photostream . This image shows the University Bridge, northernmost boundary of Eastlake, as it was seen from Terry Hall in 1958. As one commenter on Flickr noted, without the title of the image it's difficult to place where it is. The bridge is still there. It's what's missing from the photo that makes this view interesting: no I-5 Ship Canal Bridge, no Space Needle, no skyscrapers of the modern Seattle skyline. The electric transmission towers in the photo are still there as are the three TV transmitters on Queen Anne. If you go to Flickr and look at the larger version of the photo, you'll be able to see the rail tracks running across the bottom of the image. That rail line is now the Burke-Gilman Trail. Other than that, this is a view of a low-rise city on the verge of becoming more vertical. Just a few years after this photo was taken, I-5 was built, cutting Eastlake off from Capitol Hill. And the 1962 World's Fair erected the city's best-known icon, the Space Needle. 
If you're looking for holiday gifts that are uniquely Eastlake (more specifically, uniquely Lake Union), check out the Floating Homes Association's Houseboatique. They have everything from t-shirts to license plate frames, all of them featuring the Floating Homes Association's iconic houseboat artwork. The Houseboatique is located in the Floating Homes Association's office at the south end of the Tenas Chuck moorage parking lot, 2329 Fairview Avenue E. Look for signs along Fairview to direct you to the cozy and, on a bitter Saturday afternoon, pleasantly warm office. The Houseboatique will be open Sunday, Dec. 13, from noon to 4 p.m. It will also be open next weekend, Saturday, Dec. 19, and Sunday, Dec. 20, also noon to 4 p.m. The office is sometimes open during the week. Call 206-325-1132 for more information. New this year at the Houseboatique are license plate frames and party plates. Other items include baseball caps, coffee mugs, umbrellas, aprons, t-shirts, books (a cookbook with recipes and stories... |
