I-5 Shores Seattle

No, this is not a model, its real. It's called tilt-shift and it's pretty much the coolest thing to hit photography since the Polaroid (R.I.P.). This particular beauty was created by Erynn Rose (sonek321). Check out more of his amazing tilt-shift photos in his new book, Miniature Seattle.

Unfortunately this is the only tilt-shift photo I could find of our lovely little neighborhood. If anyone else has any, or better yet, if any of you talented photographers out their create some of these, please, please post them to the CHS flickr pool!

At Melrose and Denny, there were hundreds of people milling about, drinking, spraying silly string and screaming "Happy New Year" while watching the fireworks. Not a bad way to pass into 2009. The rain was cold, but the booze kept me warm inside!

Does anyone know if the Bus Stop 2.0 is finally open on Olive? I have been walking by it for months now, and it showed some progress with the new paint and logo. I'm getting antzy to want to get in there for a drink. I miss the old Bus Stop, and can't wait to get in there now.

Anyone have any updates on this?

View Larger Map

Walking home everyday from my work downtown, I can't help but wish that the freeway was, well, banished entirely from this earth. I know, I know, our city would be an even more dysfunctional mess without it but seriously, crossing Pike/Pine from downtown to Capitol hill is just an unenjoyable experience; the mind numbing noise and sickening smell of gasoline. It just ain't fun.

Don't get me wrong, its not all bad. Of course there is the wonderful view on the way down; I love sitting on the benches in the dog park and seeing the top of the space needle popping out between the buildings. In fact, I think were lucky to have such a transition from the skyscrapers and business of downtown to the older, grittier, culture of the Hill. A definitive neighborhood border is something most Seattle neighborhoods often argue over.

But I just feel that they could do a better job with the Pike/Pine bridge connections to make it more enjoyable for us foot goers. So, since I don't want to just be a whiner, I'll dish up my own (admittedly drug-induced) vision for a better Freeway crossing:

Ok, so the theme here would be a creek crossing in a small town. I think it would be really cool because it would be this very village-like ideal but on a grand scale in the middle of a dense urban center. The juxtaposition would be mind blowing.

We start with the bridges. There ugly and stupid. Since I know for structural reasons (and probably financial) we can't just remove them but what if we dress them up. Throw a bunch of wood paneling on them, maybe even add a little artificial arch and some unnecessary but beautiful cross beams and wooden railings. You could even throw in some stone support looking things to give it that really old feel.

Then, between the two bridges there would be some kind of art piece to represent water. Maybe a bunch of hanging blue rod things or some pretty opaque panels. Basically anything that could partially block the view of the freeway below and muffle the sound a bit. The cool part is that the sound that does make it up could almost be like the rushing of the creek below. Yeah...pretty cool.

It would also be important to get some big weeping willows on either side of the bridges, that hang out over the freeway, and perhaps top it off with a little sculpture of a fisherman sitting on the ledge with his fishing pole hanging out over the edge.

 

Feasible? Maybe not. But I can dream can't I? Anyone else got other ideas for how to make this crossing awesome?

Olive between Melrose and Bellevue is a mess as of 4:45pm. There are at least 4 buses sitting on Olive, not moving, not even turned on it looks like. There was a bus trying to turn right onto Melrose that got stuck, so there was a metro tow truck trying to push it from behind but it wasn't really working. Didn't look like any cars were getting through there at all.

I have kind of a weird job. I'm a reporter/editor/etc. working for my own neighborhood blog. Bradford Bohonus, besides having an amazing name, also has a weird job. He's a 'virtual reality' panoramic photographer. Around 12:30p on Friday, he was setting up for a cold and icy panoramic shot of downtown from the corner of Bellevue and Thomas when three buses entered the frame of his viewfinder:

When the second bus passed me it was as if some horrible stage had been set, a chain of events that appeared hopelessly pre-determined. Two buses sliding down the hill towards a 30+ foot cliff over the I-5 interstate. This is the type of thing that one can certainly play out in their mind. I only hoped that what I thought might happen next wasn’t going to happen.

As the near-tragedy became merely a bizarre entry in Snowpocalypto 2008, Bohonus says he scrambled to set up his VR camera to capture the scene. The result is this odd image of kids scuffling about on an icy street, the bus they just scrambled out of stuck, humbled, and exposed above the roar of I5 -- notice the manacing spray of snow on the roadway below.

You can find another panorama from the other side here.

Being the skeptical kind, I asked Bohonus why he didn't have more pictures of the kids exiting the bus or the emergency response. The photog's response: "I only had my "VR" camera with me (fisheye lens). So I only took the two panoramas you see. The second shot does show someone climbing out of a window of one of the buses though. Most all of the people on the Buses came out of the windows. Very quickly I might add."

I didn't ask how many times Bohonus fell scrambling around the streets. I could have compared notes. I fell once. More than enough.

E John is slick. A #48 bus lost a chain and is stuck.

Some footage I shot this morning around noon-ish, all in the I-5 Shores. I wanted to get up to Broadway and to other parts of the hill my camera was getting too wet and I was tired of lugging around my tripod.

Hillsters sledding down Denny using everything from real estate a-boards to garbage can lids.