Friends share an inflatable couch while watching themes of friendship, loyalty, pride, love, and ambition in Volunteer Park
The plays were the thing this weekend in Volunteer Park as the annual Seattle Outdoor Theater Festival filled the public green space with drama, comedy, and, thanks to the hot summer temperatures, a general appreciation for more matter with less art. CHS stopped by Saturday’s Greenstage performance of The Three Musketeers. Continue reading
More than 130 ideas for District 3 have been narrowed to a handful in a community process CHS documented in all of its awkward glory here. Now the sometimes awkward, occasionally twisted Your Voice, Your Choice citizen budgeting process for street and park improvements is down to it final phase for the year.
Through July 16th, District 3 citizens can cast their votes for three of ten finalist projects that range from a $16,100 plan to improve the crossing at 14th and Aloha on Capitol Hill to a $90,000 proposal to repair the sidewalk on Summit Ave between Madison and Spring on First Hill. Continue reading
Now in its fourth year, First Hill Fidos filled the park with furry friends and their fans Thursday night. As the doggos marked their territory in our hearts, neighbors met each other for the first time, and some new friends were made in the process.
Thanks to the dedicated efforts of Alex Hudson and the First Hill Improvement Association, First Hill Fidos brings a little activity to an otherwise mostly quiet First Hill Park. “It’s like that classic Seattle joke, people say hi to the dog but they won’t say hi to a person,“ Hudson tells CHS, “This is a way to break that a little bit. There’s such a community of dog people, and providing them an opportunity to get together and meet each other. Plus, it’s cute as hell.” Continue reading
PlayThey: Top row (left to right): Jasper Fox, Brian is Ze, Jazz Goldman
Bottom Row: Kara Phoebe, Neve Be, Joy Ma
Not pictured: Christian Radler
A triangular park in front of one of the most unique office buildings in the world isn’t your typical venue for summer DJ dancing. THiRST, a weekly all-ages party, is putting the unassuming McGilvra Place Park along E Madison at 15th into motion every Friday through summer.
‘THiRST is a queer/femme DJ event. I started off go-go dancing in the gay scene being kind of like the ‘hot oddity,’ in the room,” Kara Phoebe says.
After working in many different entertainment industries and watching friends barred from different venues and areas for being “too intersectional,” Phoebe was inspired to start a collective of seven queer artists with the goal of being as accessible as possible. Continue reading
On a cold and drizzly weekend, let us think of summer days on the Volunteer Park lawn, enjoying music and maybe a cup of wine. That stage where the music is coming from? The plan to create a new amphitheater in Volunteer Park is moving steadily forward from dream to reality.
“Volunteer Park Trust is continuing to look for opportunities for support for the Amphitheater Project, including applying for a Major Projects Challenge Fund grant,” the group’s Jeff Crandall tells CHS. “In doing so, we are seeking letters of support from community organizations for the project. We have been working with public officials on obtaining funding support from city and state funding sources. And in order to make the fundraising more manageable, we’ve been working with ORA Architects on a design review to seek cost savings from the original estimate.” Continue reading
The path to building a park in the City of Seattle takes years and years and thousands and thousands of dollars. So, CHS got a little excited when we saw work underway at the corner of 19th Ave and Madison. The excitement was a little premature. Cayton Corner will be a nicer open space this summer with a safer, less trip-y sidewalk but the money needed to complete the full vision for the park is still an open question.
Things are moving forward slowly in the meantime. “The new sidewalk is part of the park construction,” a Friends of Cayton Corner representative tells CHS: Continue reading
The Washington Park Arboretum is said to be home to the largest botanical collection west of the Mississippi, with some 20,000 trees and plants across its 230 acres, and countless birds and rocks and things. Sunday, officials and neighbors gathered along the new Arboretum Loop Trail to celebrate the route’s grand opening with a “vine-cutting,” speeches, and lots of good dogs.
“That is the cutest dog I have seen yet today,” Sally Clark, former Seattle City Council member and the University of Washington’s director of regional and community relations, quipped as a canine in attendance for the grand opening event barked during her address. “And I have seen a lot of dogs this morning.”
The 1.2-mile trail has created a new 12-foot-wide paved path through the leafy area along Lake Washington for walkers, wheelchairs, slow bikes, and strollers and to connect to the park’s meandering trails. $7.8 million in 520 construction mitigation funds from WSDOT powered the project. Continue reading
Kim’s picture of the Pac-man pocket park from the Capitol Hill Seattle Facebook Group
The latest discussion in the Capitol Hill Seattle Facebook Group brings together many themes familiar to readers of CHS — public space, parks and p-patches, homelessness… and dogs.
Kim posted this image of the E Olive Way at Summit at Denny Pac-Man pocket park and raises a valid issue — what use is a pocket park if nobody uses it? “I pass this sad scene every day and have never seen anything suggestive of added value going on there,” she writes. “Would make a great pea patch or dog park with a little investment.” Continue reading
After a few years of larger scale events in the city’s parks, Seattle is downsizing its Easter egg hunt efforts once again in 2018. Again there won’t be an egg hunt in Cal Anderson — and the Central District’s parks and community centers also won’t see the free egg hunts again this year.
Family with young egg hunters will have to plan a visit to nearby community centers or organize hunts of their own with family, friends, and neighbors. Here are two community center hunts to add to the list: Continue reading
On Thursday night, a small group of Capitol Hill denizens gathered in a fourth floor classroom at Seattle Central College to mull over project ideas submitted to the city’s Your Voice, Your Choice neighborhood grant process. The 20 or so participants split up into two groups, representing north and south, to rate the 42 publicly solicited proposals for District 3, narrowed down from 134-plus.
The projects were assessed by two criteria: need and community benefit.
It was an informal exercise in face-to-face, block-to-block, small-bore civic engagement. The groups briskly discussed each proposal, jotting down their scores. In attendance were Seattle Central professors and students, local apartment dwellers, and planning-savvy wonks like Ryan Packer, senior editor of The Urbanist, whose name tag sticker read, appropriately, “Ryan The Urbanist.” Continue reading
