West Seattle, Washington
04 Friday
Longtime WSB’er Kevin McClintic cc’d us on this letter earlier this morning, and we asked to publish it as an open letter. He had told us a few months ago about being hassled on a state ferry for taking photographs, and while we’d thought about writing a story then, we never got around to it. Now that he’s been hassled again, it seems worthy of further light. He is sending this to various government officials:
Thursday evening (8/6) I finally decided to take my first ride on our new light rail system. I parked my car at the Mount Baker Station and took two small pocket cameras and a monopod with me. I purchased a round trip ticket and boarded a train to Westlake Station.
I had a delightful time at Westlake with one exception. If you have not yet been, you should! It is beautiful, and there is SO much to see and photograph. I will have to return when I have more time. Public art everywhere! I was a little concerned about leaving my car on the street in the Mount Baker area after dark, so I cut my Westlake visit a bit short.
Upon arrival at Westlake Station, I put one of the cameras on the monopod (similar to a handicap cane) and proceeded to walk all over the station, taking pictures of buses and trains. After a few minutes of that, I took the escalator to the upper level and took more pictures on the mezzanine level. There were plenty of security officers around and some of them walked right past me. Not one even said hi to me.
Metro might just want to take a clue from the banking industry on this one. If someone “looks” suspicious, take a moment and say hi to them – perhaps take a moment and suggest a good place to get great pictures or a particular item of interest?
I even approached one security officer with my camera in hand, and asked him if there was a time limit on my round trip ticket. His answer was “good all day” and that was the end of that conversation.
After I had been shooting all over the mezzanine area, a security officer finally approached me and told me that “this is a sensitive area” and I need to “STOP taking pictures.” Hmm… where did I least hear that line? On a Washington State Ferry, and that issue has since been resolved. Their head of security personally invited me to return often, and take ALL the pictures I want.
I told the Metro security officer that as far as I know I have the right to take pictures ANYWHERE in a public place. He did not like that answer. I was polite, but I was not going to back down, and he did NOT like it.
Kevin’s letter continues after the jump:Read More
Several people have asked via e-mail and Facebook whether the King County Water Taxi is planning extra runs tonight because of the huge turnout expected at the Sounders/Barcelona game. Answer from county transit spokesperson Linda Thielke: No. But please do note, they’ve already warned of possible bus delays in the Pioneer Square/SODO areas. 1:39 PM UPDATE: Just got new information from Thielke — she says Argosy has agreed to an “11th hour” addition of runs to help with the expected postgame crush:
Argosy WILL add runs to help with traffic for the Sounders Game tonight. They will continue the half hour schedule after the usual (last) 7:30 run and continue through 9:30 pm. The last sailing from Seattle will be at 9:30 this evening. This is an 11th hour addition – thank you Argosy!
And she sent a postscript minutes later:
Just confirmed with Argosy that they will delay the 9:30 sailing to West Seattle if the Sounders game is not over. The purpose of that last run will be to get folks from the Sounders game to West Seattle.
Thanks to David DeSiga for sharing, via Facebook (with permission to republish here), his photos of the Blue Angels‘ departure from Boeing Field a little more than an hour ago. His angle is about the same as the one from which we watched, just south of the airport’s tower. They took off heading south, no flybys back around the city, so some have asked “Are they gone?” Yes, and here’s the proof. Click ahead for a few more pix (also, KING has just posted the video shot from its chopper, which hovered just a bit to the west):Read More
(iPhone photo that doesn’t do justice to tonight’s sunset – send a photo if you have one that does!)
As the sun sets on another Seafair Sunday, we have one last look at those six blue-and-yellow U.S. Navy jets that have either mesmerized or maddened you for the past four days – there don’t seem to be many people whose opinions fall inbetween. Thanks to everyone who shared their views of the high-flying Blue Angels – this one from Jim Clark:
And there’s the seventh Blue Angels crowd fave – this view of Fat Albert is from David Rosen of SlickPix Photography, who was out along I-90 today:
David also shares this view of two Blues:
Our lingering memory is always the sound of the cockpit covers closing, and the jets’ engines firing up at the Museum of Flight – this clip from the M-o-F fence today is more about that sound than the visuals:
And we never leave without a snapshot of the ever-cool crew:
Last update we got, the Angels were scheduled to leave Seattle on Tuesday. If we get any more specific information than that, we’ll let you know. Meantime, lots of video of today’s events, including other airshow acts and the hydro races, can be found at kirotv.com – their TV station has the Seafair television contract, so they have the most “behind-the-scenes” stuff to share.
Those are the Seafair-provided Corvette convertibles that Blue Angels pilots and entourage use to get around while they’re in Seattle each summer, leaving downtown – with police escort – Saturday morning. The video is from former Blue Angels pilot Len Anderson, who traveled to Seattle with the team on Thursday and has been sharing behind-the-scenes photos, video and observations via his Twitter account (@lead_solo) all along the way (here’s a link to his photo of the pilots in the parking garage, pre-Corvettes, and a photo of the SPD motorcycles awaiting them). But you don’t have to be an ex-pilot to get “behind the scenes” to some degree; that’s the feeling we always get when watching the Blue Angels’ arrivals, takeoffs and landings at the Museum of Flight, including the crew preps before the pilots show up:
To get any closer, you’d practically have to be flying yourself, which might provide a view like this one that David Hutchinson shared, after taking photos from Ruby Chow Park on the north end of Boeing Field:
For the timeline of this year’s Boeing Field/Museum of Flight viewing (from our experience so far), and more photos, read on:Read More
Continuing our 4th annual collection of reports from Temporary WSB HQ East, aka Boeing Field during the Blue Angels‘ appearances at Seafair: If you are thinking about going to see them today, but not necessarily determined to watch from Lake Washington, we happened onto another option for watching their takeoff, landing, and significant Angels-glimpsing inbetween. On Friday, since we didn’t extricate ourselves from the desk soon enough to go hang out “on the fence” (explained here) at the Museum of Flight, we had to find an alternative spot along the Boeing Field runway. A turn opportunity presented itself just north of the Boeing Field tower, and we wound up here:
The turn is at South 81st Place and East Marginal (map). It’s a small Boeing lot but as with the Boeing lots closer to the Museum of Flight, nobody seemed to be checking credentials. Drawbacks: A road parallels the runway-boundary fence, so you need to stand on or behind the fairly short concrete barrier. Advantages: You’re right there as the Angels go wheels up – and you get the Fat Albert (C-130T support plane) flyby, too:
Not to mention the multiple Blue Angels sightings during the show:
These folks ON the runway (across from “our” spot) had an even-better view, but somehow we doubt that spot’s publicly accessible:
The Blue Angels took off just before 1:30 on Friday, with a ground-shaking opening act from other airshow performers, particularly the F-15E Strike Eagles. Today, we’re hoping to get to the Museum of Flight in time to wait “on the fence” and see the walkdown, the synchronized crew moves, etc. And remember, the I-90 floating bridge closes 12:45-2:40 pm.
(photo taken from south side of Boeing Field before yesterday afternoon’s practice takeoff)
If you’re not interested in watching those six bright-blue jets tear through the sky, the main effect of today’s practice that you’ll want to know about is the 12:45-2:20 pm I-90 bridge closure (tomorrow and Sunday too). If you are, today’s what we dubbed “Free Day” – you can go to Lake Washington and watch the air show (the Blue Angels are the stars but other acts perform) and hydro time trials without paying admission, unless you want to sit in the grandstands. (We wrote in 2006 about how to get to the lake shore.) For other Blue Angels-watching options, our preferred option remains the Museum of Flight, where you can arrive early for a spot on the fence to watch the “walkdown” (here’s our “on the fence” story from 2007) before the ground-rumbling takeoff; always hard to tell how the fence crowd will be, but we wouldn’t advise getting there later than noon. You can also watch the takeoff from other vantage points around Boeing Field – cars line the frontage road on its east side, and yesterday we wound up on its south side. Our fellow independent-neighborhood-news-site operators at Central District News have published not-so-well-known free viewing options in their “Blue Angels bonus” report. Also part of Seafair: Fleet tours continue today.
The SDOT pre-weekend roundups of where you’ll run into road closures etc. around the city have proven to be a popular feature, even if there’s nothing West Seattle-specific; just got the latest one this morning, so read on to see where to find the fun and/or where to avoid:Read More
When Sea-Tac’s old cell-phone lot shut down in early June, the new one was projected to open in “early July.” That time frame came and went, but today’s finally the day the new lot’s ready to go – 9 am, according to this news release. The new lot has 100 spaces, about twice the capacity of the old one; it’s just north of the old one.
(Blue Angels fly over Boeing Field, photo shared by David DeSiga via Facebook)
If you have been a WSB’er for a year or more, you know that one of our summertime digressions from West Seattle-specific reporting involves the annual Seattle visit of the U.S. Navy’s aerial demonstration team, the Blue Angels. They even have their own WSB coverage archive. They start arriving tomorrow, so we’re publishing the schedule for starters (as distributed by their home base for the week, Boeing Field, though the Angels are here under the auspices of Seafair):
MONDAY: #1 Blue arrives at 9:30 a.m.
TUESDAY: Blues #1-6 arrive at 2 p.m.
THURSDAY: Blue Angels practice times: 10 am-12 pm, 1:30 pm-2:30 pm
FRIDAY: Blue Angels performance: 1:20 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
SATURDAY: Blue Angels performance: 1:20 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
SUNDAY: Blue Angels performance: 1:20 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
TUESDAY: Blues #1-6 and Fat Albert depart
“Fat Albert” is their support plane, which usually flies right before they do, for one last survey of the area:
While the Blue Angels are primarily here to perform over Lake Washington, we highly recommend the experience of watching them take off and land at Boeing Field – adjacent to the Museum of Flight, an attraction in its own right, with special Blue Angels-related activities all week. To see the choreography of the pilots’ “walkdown” (WSB video here) and the maintenance crew Friday-Sunday 
(Thursday is a little looser since they don’t do the official show), you need a spot along the fence south of the Museum – it’s something like a parade stakeout, so be there a couple hours in advance (here’s our “On the Fence” story from 2007; note there’s overflow parking at the Boeing facility across East Marginal Way from the MoF’s main driveway – map). Once they start taxiing, everyone bolts northeast toward the museum/runway; the takeoff shakes the ground like an earthquake. On Friday, you can see the show at Lake Washington for free (except for the grandstands, which charge admission all three days), since technically it’s “rehearsal” and the hydros are in time trials, not races. If you want to go to the lake Saturday/Sunday, here’s all the official ticket/schedule info. Last reminder: The I-90 bridge closes for a few days each day Thursday-Sunday because of the Blue Angels; here’s the schedule.
(Seafair Pirates passing City Hall – without invading it! – parade-bound at 5 pm)
If you’re thinking about going downtown for the Seafair Torchlight Parade, better hurry. We drove most of 4th Avenue from Westlake south and curbside space doesn’t open up till City Hall at 4th/James. You can of course watch on TV (channel 7, 7:30 pm) or online (kirotv.com). Remember that The Viaduct closes its northbound lanes approximately 5:30-7:30 pm for the Torchlight Run, which precedes the parade; 5:30 is also when 4th Avenue closes, according to the citywide weekend-events traffic alert, and that’s from Seattle Center all the way to the International District, where the parade ends. We’ve learned of at least one more West Seattleite in the parade — Delridge resident Lisa Keith‘s son Zachary is one of the winners of a Boeing contest to choose kids to ride their bikes in the parade, pulling wooden hydros (which they had to build) like kids did way back when (Seafair is celebrating its 60th anniversary and that means extra nostalgia). The major West Seattle representation comes from the Hi-Yu float, royalty and accompanying volunteers; it’s fairly high up in the parade order this year, according to the lineup published on KIRO’s website. And of course there are West Seattleites in the Seafair Pirates, Seafair Commodores and Seafair Clowns organizations. West Seattle has two reps in the Miss Seafair competition pre-parade, as we noted here on Friday; and the mayor plans to ride in the parade this year, so there’s another well-known West Seattleite. We’ll be taking pix of the West Seattle parade participants to publish later (and we’ll add the Miss Seafair winner to this post – unless it’s a West Seattleite, in which case we’ll publish something separate)! Meantime, we’re staked out watching parade participants head toward the start of the route – the photo above shows the Pirates going by a few minutes ago; the Chinese Community Girls Drill Team passed just before them, in their yellow school bus. Again, whether you’re watching in person or at home, here’s the published parade order. 7:48 PM UPDATE: Jacqueline Saarenas was just chosen Miss Seafair – she’s a Seattle University student representing the Seattle Filipino Community.
From the Alaskan Way Viaduct‘s two-hour northbound lane closure during Saturday night’s Seafair Torchlight Run to games earlier that day at BOTH stadiums, and beyond, it’s going to be a mega-busy weekend. We just got the official citywide traffic advisory – read on:Read More
Our fellow neighborhood-news-service operators at Central District News are covering a shooting investigation right now, and they tell us there’s a possible West Seattle link – the suspect’s girlfriend is believed to live here. So we’re passing along the description information: “The suspect is described as an 18 year old white male, 6′ tall, muscular build, blonde hair, wearing a black tank top and shorts. He is possibly associated with a tan 2001 Chrysler Voyager minivan. Police consider the suspect to be armed and dangerous.” Read the ongoing coverage at CentralDistrictNews.com here.
Alki-area resident Shauna Causey, who works in communications for Comcast, just sent this news release and we thought you’d be interested since the news is just now starting to make the rounds – new HD channels that are being added elsewhere in the region tomorrow and on their way to West Seattle within months – read on:Read More
We’re just back from another event on the downtown waterfront (call it the “tunnel defense” media briefing, story in the works) and didn’t know about this one till we found out on Twitter: A change of command ceremony is under way at US Coast Guard District 13 HQ at Pier 36 right now – with a 15-gun salute. Here’s a news release – but even better, you’ll find links to photos (like the one above) and running commentary from the District 13 public-affairs staff on Twitter at @uscgd13.
This is not in West Seattle but the folks at King County Animal Care wanted to get the word out far and wide, so they even sponsored WSB for the week, knowing animal lovers abound in West Seattle, and we want to make sure you’ve heard about it: The county’s Super Pet Adopt-A-Thon is tomorrow, 10 am-4 pm, at the Kent Animal Shelter (here’s a map), with adoptable pets from all over the state, as well as pet experts on site offering behavior advice and more. Full details here.
We wanted to join the chorus of reminders in case you’re an Eastside commuter. This wouldn’t affect you till you come home tomorrow, but here’s the heads-up, since WSDOT just issued this reminder:
Beginning tomorrow, commuters will face two weeks of long delays across the I-90 floating bridge as WSDOT begins extensive repair work. Crews will close all westbound mainline lanes of I-90 and funnel traffic into the two express lanes.
The westbound I-90 closures actually start at 4 pm today. Here’s the project page; here’s the WSDOT page for “what’s happening now.” ADDED SUNDAY NIGHT: Some extra info from WSDOT:
The “Bellevue to Seattle” and “Issaquah to Seattle” travel times on the WSDOT Web page will not display accurately for the next few weeks due to construction to replace aging expansion joints on the I-90 floating bridge.
*www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/seattle/traveltimes
*www.wsdot.wa.gov/Traffic/seattle/Traveltimes/commutes/BellevueSeattle90.htm
*www.wsdot.wa.gov/Traffic/seattle/Traveltimes/commutes/IssaquahSeattle.htm
Travel times are created from data collected by electronic vehicle detectors imbedded in the highway. To complete repair work on to the I-90 floating bridge, crews must reconfigure and shift lanes. However, this means vehicles will not be traveling over the directly over the electronic traffic detectors and our computer systems will be unable to generate an accurate travel times.Traffic engineers in the Seattle Traffic Management Center will calculate “Bellevue to Seattle” and “Issaquah to Seattle” travel times manually every 60 – 90 minutes. These travel times will be posted on the “What’s Happening Now” construction Web page: www.wsdot.wa.gov/construction/2009/today
(photo from Daniel, added 9:07 pm)
We got a call from someone thinking the huge plume of smoke to the east was from Beacon Hill. Nope – it’s an apartment building in Renton. We’re following photos and info via Twitter – here’s one photo, and another. Here’s a link to whatever’s the latest reported here;; a map to the exact location is here. ADDED 9:05 PM: A few more photos via Twitter – the flames; the smoke from Mercer Island. And we added a photo from Daniel (thank you!) showing the smoke as seen from Westwood. (P.S.) @alexpietsch on Twitter says the building that’s burning is newly constructed Harrington Square.
West Seattle is one of the city’s three focus areas for the Youth Violence Prevention Initiative – as discussed during last Thursday’s City Council town-hall meeting in Fauntleroy — so anything related to it is news here, even if it’s an event happening in another part of the city, like this one: It’s just been announced that Marian Wright Edelman is coming to Seattle for a YVPI summit next Tuesday in the Rainier Valley – read on for the official announcement:Read More
From the city’s traffic-alert list for the SODO area (you can sign up for the list from the bottom of this page):
Repaving 4th Ave S between S Royal Brougham Way and Airport Way S begins tonight, Monday, June 29, and will continue through the end of July. In order to minimize traffic interruptions, most work will occur during the evening hours between 6 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.
This isn’t on the list of citywide road-closing events – and it’s not in West Seattle – but Admiral resident Dennis Ross suggested more of West Seattle’s 50+ residents might want to know about it, so here’s info he shared about a half-marathon walk around Lake Union this Sunday, part of Seattle Parks’ Sound Steps program, the Northwest Senior Games and Seafair:
Sunday, June 28th — 7:00 am arrival and registration, — 7:30 am walk
Event information: — 13.1 mile walk looping twice around Lake Union. Event includes water/snack stations, live music along the way, prizes and special athletic T-shirts (while supplies last). Invite your family and friends to walk with you or to cheer you on.
Contact Mari Becker — (206)-684-4554 or e-mail sound.steps@seattle.gov
Location: Start/Finish Gas Works Park on the north side of Lake Union, 2101 N. Northlake Way (map)
Sound Steps is a Seattle Parks and Recreation walking program for adults age 50+. The Sound Steps program includes ongoing weekly walking groups and special events for active older adults.
Northwest Senior Games represents five cities in King County that specialize in recreation and community services for adults 50+.
Just last night, we mentioned that West Seattle writer Georgie Bright Kunkel is planning another presentation involving her group of local “Rosie the Riveters.” Tonight – Georgie just sent something she wrote after the news of Michael Jackson‘s death (which hasn’t been WSB main-page fodder till now, but is being discussed in the WSB Forums and on the WSB Facebook page along with millions of other places on- and offline). Read on for Georgie’s unique remembrance (which explains the photo above):Read More
We know some folks off Alki noticed the search aircraft and vessels – so we wanted to note that we just got word from the U.S. Coast Guard, they’ve suspended the search for someone who may have disappeared from a Seattle-Bainbridge state ferry. The search started after the ferry arrived at Colman Dock with one car left on board, unclaimed, registered to a woman from Sequim; that was just after 4 this afternoon, and the search – with multiple agencies involved – was suspended about an hour ago.
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