Thieves nearly ruined Valentine’s Day as they smashed a flower-filled U-Haul truck into Madison Park Jewelers but had to leave the store’s massive safe behind in a messy getaway from police early Tuesday morning.
Seattle Police says a security alarm system and video showing the box truck and its flowery cargo repeatedly smash into the building brought officers to the scene just before 6 AM. Arriving officers reported the storefront destroyed and a group of suspects and the truck still at the scene.
As police moved into position, the suspects fled in the U-Haul, dragging a large chain behind it in a cascade of sparks as it sped west on E Madison. At the burglary scene, police also found the area strewn with Valentine’s flowers. Continue reading →
Seattle Parks and Recreation finally issued a press release this week announcing its planned public meeting this Wednesday night for citizens “to learn about and provide input for the Denny Blaine Park Play Area project.”
Last month, CHS broke the news on the meeting and the hush hush planning backed by an even more quiet private donor to squeeze a kid’s play area into the grassy public park popular with the many communities who have made the space a refuge for enjoying the multimillion-dollar shores of Lake Washington in the nude. Continue reading →
Friends of Madison Park, the area’s nascent community council, has been hard at work since its founding in April. In their first months, the group has focused on filling the community’s event calendar and their fledgling committees have proven a great alliance between local businesses and Seattle Police.
Vice-chair Mary Beth McAteer says Friends of Madison Park has revived community events such as the children’s bike parade and weekly live music in the park. Other events include a wine fundraiser and weekly TED talks; their website has events scheduled as far out as next spring.
“We think of ourselves as a start-up,” says McAteer, describing the fervor the board brings to event planning and neighborhood organization. McAteer works as a Virginia Mason medical librarian when not working on the board. Her husband owns the Hillside bar on E Olive Way.
The success of this group in one of the wealthiest areas of the city and an area mostly dominated by single family-style homes is a contrast with E Olive Way and Capitol Hill where community councils have faded away and neighborhood chambers of commerce, disintegrated. It also is taking shape after Seattle’s big push away from neighborhood councils over concerns about representation and equity at City Hall.
The Madison Park group was founded after the pandemic decimated the area’s existing community groups. Erik Wicklund, the group’s communications director, describes them as a merger of two pre-existing Madison Park institutions: the business association, which organized events, and the community council, which handled administrative matters. Wicklund owns a real estate firm headquartered in Madison Park’s central retail strip. Continue reading →
Liquor license paperwork reveals the revival of The Attic is ready to reopen on E Madison about a mile from the G line’s planned Madison Valley terminus.
Dating back to 1937 through a lifetime as a sometimes tavern, bowling alley, and, yes, shooting range, The Attic building is being overhauled for a new life under the wings of prolific Seattle food and drink entrepreneur Ethan Stowell.Continue reading →
Metro’s plan is to keep the electrified trolleys of Route 12 and 10 rolling once RapidRide G comes along (Image: CHS)
With construction of the new line now at “50%,” officials are collecting feedback on proposals to alter existing bus routes that will connect with the Madison RapidRide G line when it begins service in 2024.
The new “Madison Street Area” network would alter Routes 10, 11, 12, and 47 in the Capitol Hill, Central District, First Hill, and Madison Valley neighborhoods to “improve public transportation connections and transfers,” reduce duplication with the new RapidRide G line, and “address service that was suspended since COVID began in 2020,” Metro says.
The new configurations could also fit better with the streetscape overhaul currently underway that will make Pike and Pine one-way between downtown and Bellevue Ave.
Metro’s plan is to roll the proposals out now and collect survey feedback through May before possibly revised revisions go out later in the year and are finalized in time for RapidRide G’s start of service in 2024.
Metro is promising “a final proposed bus route network that reflects community input from this survey, conversations with community members, and equity analyses” by fall 2023.Continue reading →
Graffiti from a recent protest — thanks to a CHS reader for sharing video of the scene
Seattle’s Russian Consular Residence has been targeted by protesters and graffiti in the wake of the nation’s invasion of Ukraine though the U.S. State Department tells CHS the Madison Park neo-classical mansion remains shuttered and locked down.
“The facility is closed, and entry or access to the property will be granted only with permission of the Office of Foreign Missions,” a State Department spokesperson said.
Despite being empty for four years after the expulsion of the diplomats who called the E Madison mansion home, protesters have targeted the property with graffiti and messages of support for the Ukrainian people.
The office of Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov has not responded to CHS about the protests and the status of the historic multimillion Seattle property the Russians still claim to own.
In a statement to Capitol Hill Seattle in 2020, Antonov lamented the closure of what was the only Russian consulate on the West Coast and the lockout at the E Madison residence. Continue reading →
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Denny Blaine knife attack reported: A victim suffered non-life threatening injuries in a reported knife attack inside Denny Blaine Park Tuesday night. Police and Seattle Fire were called to the Madison Park-area scene just after 9:30 PM to a report that a male victim had been stabbed or cut in an attack by a stranger as a large group gathered in the park. Police searched the area but made no arrests. Police say there were some conflicting details in witness reports. The victim was transported to Harborview and was reported conscious and alert, per radio reports.
Montlake fires: A man suffering a possible mental crisis was arrested after a string of garbage and recycling bin fires were set across an area of Montlake Tuesday night. Seattle Fire responded to the set fires starting just before 11 PM and reported finding more set along E Lynn not far from the 520 construction site and the former Hop-in Market. There was no significant damage. Police searching the area took a suspect into custody shortly following the Seattle Fire response. He was booked into King County Jail for investigation of reckless burning.
Welp. There was just a shooting 3 blocks from my house at the park about an hour ago in #Seattle. Someone got shot in the arm. Pretty sketchy. Cops told me it most likely was gang related. pic.twitter.com/Z8ZYyO8VV4
At least one person was injured and taken to the hospital after a shooting Thursday night near the playground in Madison Park.
Seattle Police responded to reports of several shots fired just after 8 PM and reports of at least one person with a gun on foot in the area of the park. Several vehicles were also reported speeding west from the scene.
UPDATE 10:52 AM: SPD has posted a brief on the shooting and says a 27-year-old woman at a barbecue with friends suffered a gunshot to the calf:
Massive crowds marched down E Madison for a rally at the beach
Protesters against police brutality and inequity were marching east on Madison Friday afternoon when they passed tall fencing and finely pruned bushes.
It was the gated Broadmoor community and the main goal of the march, which started inside the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone and ended about three miles away at Madison Park Beach, was to engage rich, white neighborhoods in Seattle’s ongoing protests.
UPDATE: You can still call it CHAZ if you like but the name that the community has chosen is CHOP — the Capitol Hill Organized Protest. “We are not trying to secede from the United States,” speaker Maurice Cola said Saturday afternoon.
Broadmoor served as a perfect foil for what these protesters said they wanted to do Friday; mobilize affluent white people with power to spur change that would benefit Black people. While passing, they chanted “Out of your homes and into the streets” to the couple dozen people standing on the sidewalk outside the community’s entrance.
Organizer and Seattle Peoples Party leader Nikkita Oliver highlighted the female organizers of the protest and repeated demands that the Seattle Police Department be defunded by 50%, spending increased on community-based organizations, and the protesters not be prosecuted.
She said that city leaders would try to offer some piecemeal changes to protesters, but urged demonstrators to stay in the streets until the system is overhauled.
“[Mayor Jenny Durkan] is going to try to find $100 million somewhere in the budget for 10 years to give to community, but it’s not going to be $100 million from the police,” Oliver said. “That means we have not won yet. Let’s be committed; let’s make this more than a moment. People have sacrificed things in the last 10 days; people have sacrificed things in the last 10 years; people have sacrificed things in the last 100, 200, 300 years and are tired of our powerful moments not making into a movement. It’s because we give into accepting reform.”
“Reform feels easy, but it’s not. Reform is bullshit.”
The crowd of thousands was one of two huge marches across Seattle Friday. As this group headed for Madison Park and the beach, an even larger “silent” march stretched out for blocks and blocks from the Central District to Beacon Hill. Continue reading →
The Russian Consular Residence the day diplomats moved out in 2018 (Image: CHS)
By Claudia Yaw, UW News Lab/Special to CHS
Two years after the Trump administration expelled 60 Russian diplomats from the country, tension lingers over Seattle’s historic Samuel Hyde House — the city landmark in Madison Park where Russian diplomats used to reside. The U.S. State Department owns the land underneath, but the Russians still claims the house as their own — and they want back in.
In a statement to Capitol Hill Seattle, Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov lamented the closure of what was the only Russian consulate on the West Coast and the lockout at the E Madison residence.
“We presume that when the situation in our bilateral relations stabilizes, there will be a positive decision on returning this beautiful residence to its rightful owner as well as on reinstatement of Russian consular presence on the West Coast,” Antonov wrote.
CHS has agreed to post the complete letter from the ambassador as a condition for his comment. You can find it at the end of this post.
But the U.S. State Department doesn’t seem to have any immediate plans to do anything with the house. Continue reading →
