West Seattle, Washington
06 Friday
Checking back on the Evergreen State Barbecue Championship happening along the Alki promenade all weekend — Yes, there is indeed one vendor selling food (from a $2 corncob to a $24 full platter with full rack of ribs), if they haven’t run out by now! Meantime, the judging is happening hourly; we were there at brisket-judging time, and followed Jonathan from Edmonds as he left his battle station and headed for the judging table holding what he proclaimed would be the prize-winning brisket (plus our videographer asked him to predict the outcome of the Seahawks-Bengals game, which at that point hadn’t started):
Among the most amusing aspects of the Barbecue Championship, from an onlooker’s perspective, is the wide variety of wordplay in the team names and their attire, logos, banners, etc. We caught up with this next guy mostly because of his T-shirt:
Also seen at Alki today, just past the east end of Barbecue Row: The Statue of Liberty Plaza Project crew, selling their $20 fundraising T-shirts. As mentioned at the last public meeting, they’re trying to get all their fundraising done by year’s end.
Along Delridge, the North Delridge Adopt-A-Street volunteers have been busy this midday — we saw groups mostly in twos and threes, with bright yellow bags, taking the time to make their neighborhood a better place.
On the Alki promenade, the Evergreen State Barbecue Championship participants spent the morning setting up. This photo shows the stack of wood one team brought along. The barbecuers say they will be cooking all night, judging tomorrow; apparently one vendor will be selling food tomorrow, but the others are just there to compete (different health regulations, too). The video clip after the photo is a short walking tour going past about a third of the booths.
In The Junction, construction/excavation crews have taken down most of the graffiti-laden retaining wall at the back of the ex-Hollywood Video/future QFC-Office Depot-apartments megaproject on Alaska:
One other note if you will be out and about — the last leg of Erskine, going southwest from The Junction, is blocked off at the five-cornered intersection (7-11, Uptown, etc.), because of road work just to the west.
-On the door at La Rustica tonight: “Closed For Remodel/thanks for your patience.” (Interesting way to put it.)
-On the gate at Hotwire tonight: Sidewalk Cinema rained out one more time. This was supposed to be the reschedule of last month’s “Monty Python & the Holy Grail” rainout. When the raindrops started smacking the windshield just as we entered The Junction, we were mega-bummed, to say the least.
-On the window at Chuck & Sally’s tonight: The same “closed for several days” sign that’s been up for several weeks. City records show that someone filed a “land use code” complaint a few days after our early September report, but no indication exactly what they’re alleged to have violated, and no resolution of the complaint yet.
No further details, but we have verified the reader tip (thank you!!!!) that a note on the door of Coyotes on Alki says “closed till further notice,” bearing yesterday’s date. Some may wonder if the 17-month-old restaurant has fallen victim to the curse of everything that’s been in there since The Point Grill (which we personally still miss), but it might just be closed because of the side-sewer work for which a permit was granted today.
While we were at Alki to get a visual on the Coyotes note … stopped for this gratuitous shot of the 4th-to-last sunset of Summer 2007:
No wonder the traffic was nuts getting through the last leg of the Fauntleroy “exit” from The Bridge. Somebody has a sign on the overpass for the first time in weeks. Given what anti-banner watchdogs have done in recent weeks (see comments on this post), we expect it to have lasted approximately 3 minutes after our driveby. So we snapped a quick pic in case “Torie” doubts somebody really tried to wish her (?) a “happy b-day.” Yes, yes, we know, banners are illegal and a traffic hazard and all that, but we have to say, without them, West Seattle feels like a slightly lonelier place.
Fifteen days after the death of its owner on Labor Day, and just a few hours after we photographed the bouquet resting against the then-still-closed-doors with a note of sympathy (photo left), Tervo’s Mini-Mart on Fauntleroy is back in business — doors open and neon signs lit, as of when we drove by a short time ago.
Thanks to Jerry @ JetCityOrange for sending pix of the crosswalk work by Lafayette Elementary:
The pattern is made of a heat-transfer type of plastic called DuraTherm, according to this Herald article from last month; read more about DuraTherm crosswalks here.
Think our crosswalks need more of this treatment? That’s probably something you can bring up at next Wednesday’s WS open house about how to spend millions of voter-approved city $. And steps away from this street work, a Lafayette note: School families are wrapping up Phase 1 of their playground renovation project with a volunteer planting party this Saturday. Congratulations!
Did a double-take driving through Morgan Junction this evening — after almost four months, Cal-Mor Circle is out from under the renovation-masking yellow and white mesh (described most famously by the Schooner Exact folks as reminiscent of a frothy mug of beer). Before photo left, after photo (tonight) right.
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Spotted from Delridge by Mike Dady (thanks for sending us the photo!) — this paraglider headed in the Camp Long/WS Golf Course direction this morning:
Anyone know where in WS they take off from? Web searching yielded nothing obvious.
The goal is the same — momentum toward a breast-cancer cure — but the Race for the Cure and the 3-Day Walk are very different, even to watch. The former is an intense, relatively brief crowd event; the latter, we learned along Lincoln Park and Beach Drive and Alki Ave this morning, is no giant throng with the hundreds of walkers passing at once, but instead a steady stream, sometimes one by one:
Emotions run high — watching the 3-Dayers while shadowing them for a few miles from the other side of the street brought us to tears at times, perhaps intensified by the fact we both lost our moms to cancer — but that includes joyful emotions; the 3-Day clearly is boisterous and celebratory, as were the people who could be found all along the route this morning, cheering the walkers from the sidewalk (or honking from the street):
Along Alki Ave’s Condo Row, signs and pink ribbons cropped up on balconies:
And all along the shore, the walkers streamed on by:
By 10 am, while the fastest/earliest walkers were out of West Seattle and headed for this afternoon’s ceremonies at Seattle Center, the last group members were still walking along Beach Drive, just past the whimsically decorated rest stop set up at Me-Kwa-Mooks:
Before a few final pictures … a reminder why this matters.
The breast-cancer-fighting 3-Day Walk participants continue streaming northbound alongside Lincoln Park and down Lincoln Park Way toward Beach Drive. First photo below shows an unofficial “cheering station” at Fauntleroy/LP Way, across from the 76 station, with two women greeting the walkers (one seated, left, the other standing in bright blue shirt; they had a music player blasting the inspirational theme from “Rocky”!)
The entire route is not publicly released, but from some sightings around WS tonight, you can put together the path the 3-Day walkers will be taking starting early tomorrow morning. Once they are bused from where they’re camping tonight, it looks like they’ll start at Lincoln Park, where we found this line of temporary relief stations in the south parking lot:
The route from there appears to go along Fauntleroy, then down to Beach Drive and around to Alki, where, as we’ve mentioned previously, an “official cheering station” will be set up in the 1700 block of Alki Ave from 7:40 till 10:15 am. The walkers then proceed toward downtown, where the 3Day ends with ceremonies at Seattle Center. We thought the route from Alki was probably the obvious path along the low bridge, but one e-mail tonight reports another line of Honey Buckets at the park at 26th/Genesee so sounds like there’s a detour along the way — drivers in the morning, please be extra cautious and watch out for this big event on our WS roads.
The north side of the big parking lot at the future site of Fauntleroy Place has turned into a pay lot. We asked Blue Star Management, which is developing FP, what’s up. Company rep Eric Radovich wrote back, “Having Diamond Parking manage the north side of the big parking lot greatly reduces our liability on the site. This also cleared out the Gee Motors vehicles that had been parking on the site without permission. The fee to park in the Diamond lot in the evening is just $2. There is still plenty of free parking for patrons of Schuck’s Auto Supply and Hancock Fabrics on the south end of the lot.” We also asked Eric about the FP retail status, given that we are frequently pinged about rumors of changes in megaprojects including that one; he says NO CHANGE – it’s still on for a 47,000-sf Whole Foods store and a 14,000-sf Hancock Fabrics store, and it now looks like demolition/groundbreaking should start next March/April.
After a couple days’ closure without signage or explanation, the sign shown below is now on the door @ Tervo’s Mini-Mart (4415 Fauntleroy). Several people e-mailed us after seeing police, fire, and medical examiner vehicles there on Labor Day afternoon, worried there had been a crime of some sort. Today we found out what happened: Police say a 48-year-old man died in the store, apparently suicide. Our condolences to that man’s family; it’s always important to mention that the Seattle Crisis Clinic has a 24-hour suicide-prevention line at 461-3222.
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From Admiral Junction to Morgan Junction on foot, much to be seen. Including:
-Dangerous driving at Cali/Genesee and Cali/Fauntleroy. At the former, a car turning right/north onto Cali (by Divina) almost took out a bicyclist that the driver would have seen with a good look south before the turn. The bicyclist shouted indignantly for a while, the driver paused, then both finally continued on. At the latter — a car almost took us out, turning right/west onto Fauntleroy (by the Corner Inn) as we stepped into the crosswalk. We’re not much for shouting so we just glowered.
-Banner up for a new business in the mixed-use building at 5446 Cali: “On the Way Maternity.” According to its city business-license classification, it’ll sell clothing. Doesn’t look too close to opening; various renovations are under way inside.
-In The Junction, the former Hollywood Video etc./future megaproject site along Alaska now has a “coming soon/Office Depot” banner on the fence. (Why not “coming soon/QFC” too?)
Sunset photo #1 hot out of the inbox, courtesy of WSB reader “K” (thank you!!!!):
Sunset photo #2 is one we shot from Golden Gardens tonight (heresy! we left WS! attempt at relevant linkage, below the pic):
Driving through Ballard on the way to GG, we mused that Ballard and WS really should be “sister neighborhoods” — lots in common, from condoization, to maritime history/ongoing industry, to the status as home to the city’s two most popular public beaches, and much more. As if to put an exclamation point on that thought, a sign caught our eye in a Ballard business window, triggering a not-so-long-ago WS memory: Ben & Jerry’s on Market has just closed. While we’re not sure about that (ex-)shop’s current ownership, we do know the former B&J’s in The Junction was owned by the people who (at least at the time) owned the one in Ballard. One other interesting sighting during our brief invasion of the north end tonight: This lovely charter yacht ($70K/week!) moored at Shilshole.
WSB reader Val sent the two photos below from 35th & Holden, where the end seems near for a nondescript little house that’s on part of the land where the city will build the new Fire Station 37 to replace the historic building 4 blocks north (the substation next door is on the other part of the land and is going away too).
From Val’s e-mail:
This house was remodeled a few years ago after being vacant for a while (before the remodel, it inexplicably had two front doors) and obviously wasn’t anything special, but I hate to see a loss of housing anywhere. I believe there is a new fire station going in to these two lots, and unlike in Queen Anne, there was no public outcry about the loss of historic housing in the neighborhood. I suppose it is too much to ask to hope that the house is being moved somewhere instead of being trashed … Plus, I’d like to see the old fire station become a local (British for nearby bar). There’s really nothing along 35th, and the E-9 in Tacoma has been doing great business for years.
From the past few hours … first, a mysterious morning beach fire on Alki:
Next, the intrepid early-morning fishing denizens along Seacrest:
And from The Junction … the sun-dappled breakfast crowd @ Easy Street Cafe (tomorrow by the way, we plan a post asking everyone for their WS food favorites … we love ES and a few other spots but recently discovered Skylark brunch and want to dish about that too … ES and Skylark are among the places where you can even order lunch for b’fast!):
2:05 am, blurry but you get the idea. Very easy to see if you look high in the SW sky:
ADDED PHOTOS, 2:40 AM: Views of the moon, pre-eclipse, taken last night by Shelby Stenson from the Kingston-Edmonds ferry, forwarded by WSB reader Jan:
One is a sound, one involves wildlife, both were sent in by WSB readers wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar, or better yet, has relevant info.Read More
Two beautiful sights, both from Lowman Beach: Most recently, that’s where we happened to be when we spotted fireworks across the Sound, over Bainbridge (visible no doubt to anyone with a north- or west-facing West Seattle water view). Turns out the fireworks were part of the Town & Country Market 50th anniversary party. Earlier, here’s tonight’s sunset scene from Lowman, in a photo sent by Maria Esztergalyos (thank you!):
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