Radio Point Seattle
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A man so high on cocaine and wine that he needed to be hospitalized after being arrested was chased down by customers of nearby Tougo Coffee as he made his getaway after burglarizing 18th Ave boutique Gossamer Collective. The colorful details of the bust come from Tweets reported by the Central District News blog:
mgrummer tweets that it was Gossamer Collective which lives in the spot just south of Tougo. He says that he and other Tougo customers helped apprehend the perp: "I was there this am right after it happened. Another customer followed as the guy took off w/ the goods & directed patrol officers over the phone as to the thief's location"
Here's what SPD had to say about the incident:
On 11/19/09 at 6:35 a.m., officers were dispatched to a Burglary alarm at a business in the 1400 block of 18th Av.
A witness reported that the alarm was sounding and someone was inside the store. The store was burglarized earlier and it was unknown if an employee was inside.
Upon officers arrival witnesses reported that a male suspect left the store via a broken window, carrying merchandise. A description of the suspect was broadcast over SPD radio and within minutes an officer located the suspect running near 15th Av and Spring St.
The suspect was arrested and taken into custody without incident. The suspect was positively identified by 2 witnesses.
The suspect was then transported to Harborview Medical Center as he was having an adverse reaction to taking too much cocaine and wine. All the stolen property was recovered.
Upon release from the hospital, the suspect will be booked into King County Jail for Investigation of Burglary.
CHS received this warning tonight in an e-mail forwarded to us from the Madrona Moms mailing list:
just want to give a heads up, one of my friends was mugged at Pine between 23 and 24th just two nights ago. copys say it's been a string of muggings in the area. a group of teenage boys and one girl hide in the bushes and then knock down the victim.
We'll see what we can find out about the report of a 'string of muggings' -- did find this incident at the end of September in which a pizza delivery employee was robbed near the location of this report.
The residents of McKinney Manor senior housing are picketing this Sunday morning at 19th and Madison in protest of what they say is chronic neglect of their housing by the manor's owners, Mt. Zion Baptist Church.
The senior group says it has been asking for help from city agencies since March 2008 because of the lack of repairs and leak problems in the building managed by Quantum Management.
Samuel B McKinney Manor is located at 1916 E Madison St across the street from Mt. Zion.
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Photo credit: Yehudit Solomon
It's a busy night on the CHS calendar with an parking open house and a community council meeting among the activities to keep you moving on a Thursday evening. A new edition to Capitol Hill's weekly entertainments debuts tonight at Central Co-Op's Madison Market: Community movie nights at the market launch tonight with a free showing of Network. From IMDB: A TV network cynically exploits a deranged ex-TV anchor's ravings and revelations about the media for their own profit. A neighborhood news blog would never do that.
Flick starts at 7p.
On Twitter this morning, Justin Brotman, Healeo's owner, reported the following: "Someone picked our back lock last night and stole our deposit and cash register money. Tonight we will have an alarm and me sleeping inside." We reached out to Seattle Police Department spokesperson Mark Jamieson and confirmed that the burglary is thought to have occurred sometime between 10 pm last night and 10:30 a.m. this morning. An estimated $700 was taken from the till.
Sheri Lavigne's inspiration for Calf & Kid, the cheesestore she plans to open at the Pearl later this year, is the Bedford Cheese Shop located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
This spring, CHS reported that cheese shop The Calf and Kid was making plans to open its business on 12th Ave near the Northwest Film Forum. That plan was not executed. And Sheri Lavigne's hunt for a location down in I-5 Shores didn't pan out either. So don't count your curds just yet but it sounds like Calf and Kid finally has a home lined up. In an interview with CHS's own Seadevi, Lavigne said she's got the financing in place to open her shop in The Pearl building at 15th and Madison. Her neighbors will be Anchovies & Olives, newly moved-in plant purveyor Envy and CHS sponsor Healeo. Now, all Lavigne needs to do is sign the lease. (if this plan changes, no more updates until we have Calf & Kid cheese in our mouths!). Target for opening is a leisurely (easy for us to say) "before Thanksgiving." Watch for the full interview from Seadevi later this week.
Every time I go to Madison Market, I check out with a bad taste in my mouth. The checker is there, watching me to see if I take a bag so they can punish me with a surcharge. It's annoying. It doesn't make me bring my own bag - it just makes me annoyed with Madison Market and the holier-than-thou crowd.
This is from a guy who drives a car that gets 35+ miles to the gallon. I bring bags to the store - when I haven't used them all for garbage bags. I am seriously concerned about global warming. But I am thoroughly annoyed by grocery bag fees.
I will be protesting the Block Party Crashers in spirit this weekend. This tax is a bad idea. It won't impact the amount of garbage Seattle hauls in any significant way (i.e. changing weight or volume by more than 1%), and it gives people who are on the fence about environmentalism a really bad feeling about it - by giving them an annoying reminder of the "nanny state" every time they check out.
Ways we could *actually* make the city greener:
- tax gasoline
- charge people a congestion tax on the freeway
- increase fees for garbage collection
- Increase electricity fees and give a fixed rebate back to low-income households
- Increase natural gas fees and give a fixed rebate back to low-income households
- pay people to not cut down large trees on their properties
If you could get just one green initiative passed per year - just one thing that would make the world greener - this is it? It'll take 1,000 years at this rate!
February of last year saw hundreds of us converging on Mount Zion Baptist Church, at 19th & Madison, for the Democratic Caucus. It's time to go there again, this time for a more local political purpose. Some Central District neighbors and I have arranged a combined Central District & Capitol Hill election forum, which is being co-sponsored by (among others) the Capitol Hill Community Council and the East District Council.
At the forum, which will be on Monday July 27th from 6 to 9 PM, you'll be able to submit questions to all the candidates for Mayor and City Council and for the local School Board position, and hear how they cope with them. If your question doesn't get pulled out of the hat, you should be able to grab the candidates before and afterwards to grill them. All the details of the election forum are posted here, together with flyers for you to share. Here's the approximate schedule, in case you can only come for part of the event:
6:00 Start: 5 minutes Welcome (Pastor), 5 minutes intro etc.
1) 6:10 School Board position 5: Cullen, Helmstetter, Bass, Smith-Blum
2) 6:35 Council position 2: Conlin, Ginsberg
3) 6:50 Council position 6: Kaplan, Licata, Israel
4) 7:10 Council position 4: Bagshaw, Tobin, Carver, Plants, Bloom
5) 7:35: Council position 8: O'Brien, Williams, Forch, Miller, Royer, Rosencrantz
6) 8:05 Mayor: McGinn, Donaldson, Nickels, Mallahan, Garrett, Drago, Campbell, Sigler
7) 9:00. Thanks. Disband.
This is an all mail election: ballots mailed out around July 30th - return them by August 18th. Registration by mail, and address changes, deadline was July 18. If you are not registered in Washington State you may register in person by August 3. For more information see: http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/registration.aspx or call 206-296-VOTE (8683)
Because certainly you can't get too many updates on Pony (CHS reviews) and news about bars with decks on Capitol Hill: The observant and/or Madison-traveling may have noticed that not only does the soon-to-be new home of Pony have a new sign, there's also some construction going on.
The DPD permit describes the work thusly:
Change of use from retail to drinking establishment and construct deck/fence addition to existing commercial building, and occupy per plans.
The $34,000 project will add yet another new outdoor drinking option on the Hill for our sunnier-than-typical Seattle summer.
Pony was born as a temporary replacement for the doomed Cha Cha space on Pine. You can read many odes to its past glories, here. Its new location was previously the home of Acacia Florist. The new Pony is slated for an early August opening.
The project slated for 1222 E. Madison -- the current home of Precision Tune -- is up for its second design review tonight after the board rejected initial plans for the mixed-used development last month:
In the end, a divided board did not grant its recommendation despite saying much in praise of the project. But concerns over the 13th/Madison corner compelled the board to request the developers address that aspect of the design and present an update at a future public hearing. Specifically, the board didn’t like the concave entry and asked the developer to look at more asymmetrical and different shapes.
CHS contributor Josh Mahar had this to say about the project's initial design:
The architects are Bellevue-based Baylis Architects. I can't say it's a standout project but it seems nice. Earlier I was worried that keeping the parking within the structure would inevitably make it ugly, but they massed the garage in the back of the building so it's hidden from the street. Also, the limited parking will hopefully keep these units affordable (they claim in the proposal that this will be workforce housing). Due to earlier feedback they also shrunk the retail spaces, allowing for between four and six different spots. Check out the full proposal here [3.45mb].
The board will decide if the new design passes muster tonight at 6:30 PM at the Montlake Library.
I went to shop for groceries at Madison Market earlier today and found them closed until further notice. My suggestion is that you call (206-329-1545) before you hike over there for your groceries. The nearest grocery stores to Madison Market are the Safeway on 15th and the Trader Joe's & Safeway on Madison Street.
Earlier today, I spoke to Scott Reichert, the owner and manager of C.C. Attle's (a/k/a Men's Room), located at 1501 East Madison about Bullitt's plans to build a green, living building at the site. Scott stated that he expects to remain at the current site for at least the next year. Moreover, he emphasized that Bullitt (the building owners) have been great to work with - and that in fact, he had just received a lease extension.
I posted this story over at CDNews about an article in the Daily Journal of Commerce today, which says that the Bullitt Foundation plans to develop the C.C. Attle's site at 15th and Madison into a "uniquely Northwest building" that performs "a series of technically rigorous functions in geology, hydrology and solar applications."
http://centraldistrictnews.com/2009/06/16/cc-attles-site-to-be-developed-by-bullitt-foundation
Brief update on the Madison shots-fired story we followed over the weekend. Confirmed this morning that nobody was shot and that police believe the man with the gun shot into the air during an altercation in the parkling lot across the street from Chop Suey and the Electric Tea Company on Madison. Four people were arrested at the scene but only one was booked into jail -- the other three were interviewed and released. The arrested man was booked for illegally carrying a firearm and possession of marijuana.
Saturday night around 11:25 PM, 911 callers reported that a man had started shooting during a fight near the Electric Tea Garden. At least one caller reported that a victim had been hit while other callers reported seeing only a man firing three shots in the air.
UPDATE: 10:48 AM - SPD confirms that there were shots fired last night in the 1300 block of East Madison around 11:15 PM. SPD tells CHS that four people were detained, a gun was recovered and at least one of those people were arrested though details of the specific arrest or arrests was not available at this time. SPD was also unable to provide information about the cause or victims at this time. SPD did say that the Gang Unit is investigating this incident.
From the archive of last night's police scanner archive activity, multiple reports of shots fired came in to 911 last night around 11:30 PM. Callers said somebody started shooting during an altercation near the Electric Tea Garden. At least one caller reported that a victim had been hit while other callers reported seeing only a man firing three shots in the air. The man was only described as black and in his 20s.
The King County Jail registry system shows one man booked overnight for investigation of drive-by shooting. It is not yet clear if that booking is related to the Madison incident.
ORIGINAL POST:
Two unconfirmed reports of shots fired last night on Madison around 14th or 15th Ave. First, from an e-mail tip we received around 11:30 PM last night:
I think gun shots were fired near the taco time on Madison around 15th. 3 or 4 cracks/pops then shit load of cop cars about 5 minutes later. They are still there.
And also this from Twitter from about the same time:
@toastercookie: seattle u public safety reporting shots fired at 14th and madison
Nothing about injuries in information at hand. The 911 logs don't show any response to the area at that time but those reports only show medic and fire response, not police. There is, however, a big medic response for an assault with weapon in the logs last night at the same time in Lake City that we'll ask about.
UPDATE: 10:30 AM - Just heard back from Seattle Fire Department that they won't be able to provide information about the Lake City 911 incident until Monday morning so still waiting to hear back from SPD. In meantime, I have archives from last night's scanner activity that I'm checking out now.
There will be a final design review meeting for 2026 E Madison St, the old site of Deano's, on May 6th at Seattle Central. Dominic Holden recently wrote a nice piece about this site, but I thought I would do a little more analysis on the project here on CHS.
First the project details: 222 residential units, 9,576sq ft retail, and 229 below grade parking spaces. As always, the parking seems excessive, but at least it's underground.
This project, along with the old Twilight Exit site across the street, and another lot south at 23rd and Union, are all being developed by prominent local architect Jim Mueller. Mueller is perhaps best known for his work with Vulcan in South Lake Union. He's had a hand in pretty much all recent development down there, including two projects I have found refreshing, 2200 and Alley 24. As Central District News relates, Mueller has gone above and beyond the Design Review to engage the community about his developments, which is always nice. The design for this building was done by Weinstein AU (of Agnes Lofts at 12th and Pike)
The design calls for a 6-story structure with a public courtyard in the center. The courtyard will be accessible from a double-height passthrough on Madison, as well as two East-West breezeways that approximate the alley that ran through the site. There will be four or five retail spaces, which will mainly face Madison but will wrap around a bit onto E. Denny street. Most spaces will also have entrances from the courtyard area. The rest of the ground floor will be two-story walk-up townhomes with street entrances, as well as courtyard entrances. Both the townhomes and the public courtyard seem pretty ambitious to me, based on the history of the location, and I really applaud them for that. They could have done something like the Summit at Madison Park, with a fotress-like wall facing 23rd and a single, huge retail space.
For more info on development in this area, check out Andrew Taylor's very informative google map.
View Madison Street Developments in a larger map
Central Cinema, one of this site's sponsors, is offering a "buy one, get two free tickets" coupon through the end of April. Get your coupon here.
The equivalent of a puppy Amber alert has been issued for Payton, a young Schnoodle reportedly taken from a car parked in the back lot of Piecora's on Saturday night while the dog's owners dined inside. Here is part of the note from Payton's owner posted to the West Seattle Blog:
Our 10mth old puppy, Payton (named after the Glove. In honor of my lost and beloved Sonics), was stolen from our car tonight while we were dining at Piecora's. He is a Schnoolde (Schnauzer/Poodle mix) and weights 13.5 lbs. We were parked in their back lot and planned to go to the Beverage Place in W. Seattle afterwards as they allow dogs. I had to talk my wife into letting him come as I felt bad locking him back up after working all day. The camera [footage] literally shows them pull up, throw a boulder through our window, grabbed him and go.
Payton's owner is offering a reward for the dog's safe return.
Purebred Schnoodle puppies are for sale for $650 on this breeder's Web site. There is currently no law in the city that prohibits leaving a pet inside a vehicle during typical Seattle temperatures.
UPDATE 3/30/09 9:30AM:
Payton the Schnoodle is back home. The dog's owner tells West Seattle Blog the stolen pup was found wandering the streets of Federal Way this morning:
I don’t even know how to describe what happened in the last 28 hours or so but my wife and I are in total disbelief. We just got our beloved Payton back. Apparently sometime around 9am this morning the thieves dropped him on a busy 4 lane road in Federal Way. 2 ladies on their way to church saw him and picked him up. They posted some ads around Federal Way but saw the clip on KOMO and called it in.
The owner also had some nice words for Piecora's. "The owner’s of Piecora’s were so helpful and caring and deserve a lot business their way. The owner came in (Sunday) just to get me the footage that SPD decided to ignore (as it was just a theft of “personal property”) so we could get it on air and out to people."
CHS neighbors, god bless 'em, get a little freaked out these days when they see a real estate sign on their favorite neighborhood businesses. Neighbor Marco, I'm happy to inform that the venerable Martin's off Madison is not going anywhere despite the large real estate sign plopped on top of it. Just got off the phone with Marty who informs that, yes, the property is for sale, and, yes, his lease goes with it. He's expecting at least six more years at the location and, he adds, that means at least six more years of the best brunch on Capitol Hill. All I know is that Martin's was one of the few places open and serving beer in the middle of the day when I got canned from a job a while back. For that, they will always hold a special place in my heart (though, hey, those pitchers were expensive!).
by Dotty DeCoster
Dotty originally wrote this piece for next week's issue of the Capitol Hill Times. With the Times overhauling its business, that issue won't make it to the printing press. Thanks Dotty for sharing your work here on CHS.
Aside from the weather, one of the perennial conversational topics in Seattle continues to be the question: "Where is Capitol Hill?" The geographic answer is that there isn’t a Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill, originally a sub-division developed by James A. Moore beginning in 1901, is located along a north-south ridge that once extended south all the way to Renton and ends to the north overlooking what is now the Lake Washington Ship Canal.
This is not to say that Capitol Hill isn’t high above sea level. The most spectacular of our current built structures are the three communications towers clustered near 17th and 18th Avenues just south of E. Madison Street that rise to nearly 1,000 feet above mean sea level. Located at the southern edge of what we call Capitol Hill, people from out of town tend to see the towers, point to them, and say, “There is Capitol Hill.” After all, the other three tall towers are on Queen Anne Hill, which is a hill. At something close to 410 feet above mean sea level, the “Capitol Hill” towers stand on ground only about 39 feet shorter than the ones on Queen Anne. But the ridge they stand on extends northward and includes the highest point in Volunteer Park at 453 feet. For comparison, the highest point in Seattle is at High Point at 35th Ave SW and SW Myrtle Street (near the water tower, in West Seattle) at 520 feet.
The Television Towers
The KCTS-TV tower, on the corner of 18th and E. Madison went on the air in 1965. Channel 9 is Seattle’s Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) channel (Channel 41 digital) and began as an experiment at the University of Washington in 1954. (KCTS = Community Television Service, with the K for west of the Mississippi River.) It was founded with a gift from Mrs. Dorothy Bullitt, president of KING Broadcasting Company, and the station’s license was held in trust for the community by the U.W. Board of Regents. The station was located at the U.W., but the transmitter was at Edison Technical College, now part of Seattle Central Community College, until the current tower was built. During the mid-1980s, KCTS ended its official relationship with the UW and built it’s current broadcast facility near the Seattle Center in 1986. The tower continues to belong to the U.W., and, in addition to KCTS transmission, provides for transmission of radio stations KUOW-FM (94.9) and KEXP-FM (90.3) which also began at the U.W. The WA7ARC Radio Club has part of their Repeater System mounted on this tower.
The KSTW-TV tower was built in Seattle in 1979, on the same block but south west a bit. This is Channel 11 (digital 36), originally in Tacoma (KSTW = Seattle Tacoma Washington). First known as KTNT-TV, the station began broadcasting in Tacoma in 1953. It was sold to Gaylord Entertainment in 1974 and they changed the call letters and built the transmitting tower in Seattle. The analog channel has been VHF, which means that we all needed to use a round antenna rather than rabbit ears to catch it. Now owned by CBS, the tower includes antennas used by the Coast Guard. The KSTW building is right next to the KCTS building on Madison Street. Across 18th Avenue is the newest of the towers, built in 1985 as KTZZ-TV. Currently, it is KMYQ 22 (digital 25), a My Network outlet.
All three of the towers have television stations currently transmitting in analog, but ready to transmit in digital when the federal government tells them. Currently, the date has been extended from February 14 to June 12, 2009: an historic moment in television history.
The Renton Addition
The television towers are located in the old Renton's Addition, first platted for real estate sales in 1899, two years before the Capitol Hill Addition was named. It was owned by Sarah and Captain William Renton and was the area between 15th and 19th Avenues from Howell to Union Streets. Extended in 1892 as the Renton Hill Addition, the boundaries went east to 24th between Olive and Union. Historically speaking, the towers are located on Renton Hill.
It has been a long time since anyone spoke of Renton Hill, and the neighborhood has been without a name – part of Capitol Hill on the north side of Madison, part of the Central Area on the south side of Madison – anchored by T.T. Minor Elementary School (1890-1940, 1941-2009). Today, it hosts shopping destinations Madison Market (the Co-op) and Trader Joe’s, along with the towers, and at 17th is the place one changes buses along Madison Street to go through. CHS has been attempting to come up with a name that actually would work for this neighborhood – Radio Point, anyone? In the meantime, Seattle artist Christopher Martin Hoff has been painting the towers from a seat right outside Madison Market.
photos by seadevi
Head over to Central District News for coverage of today's march against school closures and rally at Garfield Community Center.
This account of an attempted home break-in in Radio Point will make you want to go double-check your deadbolts -- or be thankful you live in a condo or apartment building. The post showed up on CHS Monday morning but I didn't want to bring it to everybody's attention until I was able to get more details and confirm a few facts with SPD. Here's the description of the attempted break-in:
12.30am Sunday morning January 11 we experienced an attempted break-in to our townhome on 18th Avenue. We were home upstairs, with the lights on. The door bell at our upper door (split level entry) rang a few times in quick succession, followed by a brief wait, and another few rings. We stayed quiet; discussing whether or not to see what was up.
Shortly thereafter, they tried to kick in our lower door and break the frame. This shook the front of the house and was very forceful. At this point I (Matthew) came downstairs while Tricia phoned 911. I looked out the window and noticed there were two young gang members (confirmed later by police) standing on the sidewalk keeping watch. They were looking down the side of our property at the third man who was grabbing one of our patio blocks. This third man then came around to our lower door and began smashing the block against the window. I then banged on the upper window and flicked the lights on and off to let them know they were being watched and we were home. They did not immediately respond to this, and tried once more to break the window/door.
Eventually the three men quickly headed north on 18th and were approached by the police who then gave chase and were able to catch one. The police recognized the other two as part of the 23rd and Union Street gang (named something very similar). Fortunately our window is not overly damaged; the door frame has slight damage but also held.
SPD confirmed that they are investigating the incident but could not say if they have specific suspects they are looking for. The suspects were described as three black men, in their 20s, wearing dark hoodies. The one man who was stopped by officers was questioned and released. SPD could not confirm if the are investigating this incident in conjunction with any other agency. In the Monday post, the victim said she has been told the FBI is working cases involving gang activity.
