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CHS Pics | Summit sweats out its own block party

(Images: Sebastian Garrett-Singh for CHS)

As fighter jets screamed through the sky and the masses descended on the beaches of Lake Washington for SeaFair, a small gathering on Capitol Hill was picking up steam. The first Summit Block Party — between East Olive St and East Howell on Summit Ave — brought together an eclectic mix of the community and offered a space for the Hill to enjoy a tallboy on a (Seattle-style) sweltering Saturday.

Arriving shortly before 1p, the smell of pot wafts through the air and attendees listen to an acoustic performer play Beatles covers while enjoying paper bag wrapped beers and conversations with interesting vendors. A random attendee remarked, “This is awesome!” Another quietly admitted to me, “I didn’t pay to get in,” thinking he had pulled off a master-mind scheme, “sneaking” into the free event, I assured him this was not the case.


(Image: @bluedream42)

Organizers of the event had riffed on the city’s annual participation in the “Night Out” events that encourage neighbors to organize street parties across the country. The event is focused around this Tuesday’s night of community parties in many corners of Seattle. Many of those will be in quiet, residential neighborhoods on quiet residential streets. Intrepid city dwellers of Capitol Hill will bbq and take over their streets, too. The Summit crew decided to take the riff one notch higher  adding live music and vendors — plus plenty of coordination with local business managers and facilities to pull it off.

Later in the evening, the crowd has grown and the smell of burgers and charcoal tickled and teased the nostrils, brown bag wrapped 40s abound, and Portland band Black Pussy is rocking out . The set ends with front-man Dustin Hill asking the crowd to help him get drunk. He’s come to the right place. Seattle doesn’t see many 75 degree nights and it clearly has plans to make the most of this one.

The block party began to wind down and trickle off to parties, bars and a planned after-hours event farther up the Hill.

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Caphill@hotmail.com
11 years ago

wow…a block party on a street where every other building is sex offender or a halfway house. The who’s who of criminals on Capitol Hill

gypsychic
11 years ago

Way to be a downer, dude.

ERF
ERF
11 years ago

No, that’s not a downer. It sounded like a karaoke competition for the illiterate. That’s a downer.

Melissa
11 years ago

@caphill..so if you heard it you must be living in said halfway/sex offender home then right??… & the photo’s of the people..you are so right..CREEPY!

Dotty
Dotty
11 years ago

I was kicking myself for not bringing a camera, when I walked through the block party on my way to and from our p-patch. (I live on Summit, but way up the hill, and the p-patch is at Summit Slope.) I especially wanted to take a photo of the old Alhambra Hotel, and I can do that any time, but it was so much fun to see people sitting on the steeps having a great time in the sunshine. (Your photo at the end of the group here.) The Alhambra, which was built circa 1908, is still a hotel (SRO, these days), even though it doesn’t have the dining room it was apparently famous for in the 1920s. When the folks built the Piedmont Hotel in 1926 (you’ll know it as the Tuscany Apartments) up the hill on Summit, they not only were the former managers of the Alhambra, but they stole the chef too. Yeah, folks who live on that block now seem to have run into some bad times, but that can happen to any of us, and it was a delightful street gathering — a shame it was just too hot to dance!