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Last year’s most important Capitol Hill story? 8,600 homeless in Seattle

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To end 2018, CHS pored through its year of Capitol Hill news coverage to look at the stories that made the biggest impact in and around the neighborhood. CHS Year in Review 2018 | Capitol Hill’s 23 most important stories is here. As part of the tally, we asked readers to vote on which stories they felt were the most important. As we jump fully into a new year of reporting — CHS’s 13th year of coverage — here are the results.

  1. May 31, 2018: 2018 count shows 8,600 people homeless in Seattle
  2. June 12, 2018: Good news, Amazon, Seattle won’t be taxing you after all
  3. June 20, 2018: With a snip of a ribbon, two years of construction starts on Capitol Hill Station development
  4. August 2, 2018: Sexual misconduct and rape accusations force Meinert to sell stake in Lost Lake and the Comet
  5. June 30, 2018: Eyewitnesses: Capitol Hill’s mystery soda machine has disappeared

You can check out the full 2018 review here and see the most read and most commented stories here.

 

CHS Year in Review 2018 | The year in Capitol Hill pictures

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Remember 2018. Here is what happened on Capitol Hill. Here is what it tasted like. Here is what it looked like. We’ve selected 50 of the best images from CHS coverage over the past year. Below, you will find the faces and places at the center of CHS stories about the neighborhood and beyond, Most of the shots come courtesy of CHS photo pro for hire Alex Garland. We — and the neighborhood — are lucky to have his eye. Thanks to Alex and all of the CHS contributors for another great year. Click the photos for the news behind the images.

2018 CHS Year in Review: Capitol Hill’s 23 most important stories | Mergers and acquisitions — the year in Capitol Hill food+drink

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CHS Year in Review 2018 | Most read and most commented stories

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The numbers do not lie. Or something. Here’s a look at CHS’s 2018 stories from an analytical point of view.

CHS 2018 Most Read

  1. 5/30/2018 SWAT standoff blocks off area around E Howell — UPDATE: Suspect taken into custody
  2. 6/30/2018 Eyewitnesses: Capitol Hill’s mystery soda machine has disappeared
  3. 6/22/2018 The Pike/Pine fallout from Meinert rape accusations
  4. 12/18/2018 ‘Please refrain from donating to panhandlers’ — Capitol Hill Uncle Ike’s sign targets handouts
  5. 4/14/2018 Broadway apartment tower home to Whole Foods to open this summer — but no shopping ’til fall
  6. 1/29/2018 Here’s why QFC is closing off its Harvard Ave entrances 
  7. 9/14/2018 Victim dropped outside Harborview after 24th and Yesler shooting 
  8. 5/24/2018 Union cocktail lounge will bring together Capitol Hill gay bar legends
  9. 1/9/2018 A Jewish deli on Capitol Hill: Pastrami, kosher hot dogs, and knishes the plan at Dingfelder’s Delicatessen
  10. 8/1/2018 Lumbersexual axe-tossing bar Blade and Timber coming to Broadway 

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CHS Year in Review 2018 | Capitol Hill’s 23 most important stories

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In 2018, the Seattle Consulate of Mexico came to Capitol Hill

Last year, two Capitol Hill tragedies — the city’s ongoing homelessness emergency and the Ed Murray sex abuse accusations and resignation — ranked as the most important CHS stories of 2017.

In 2018, the stories that most moved the neighborhood also included ongoing challenges and the downfall of a powerful man. The twists and turns of time brought new businesses to the neighborhood, new leaders, and, yes, even new critters. Here are the most important Capitol Hill stories of 2018. You can let us know what 2018 stories you felt were most important — and remind us of anything we missed — here.
Take the CHS 2018 most important stories survey or view the latest results

  • Reporting by KUOW’s Sydney Brownstone of sexual misconduct and rape accusations against Pike/Pine business owner — and business community leader — Dave Meinert threw new light on the entrepreneur and his many connections across the neighborhood to Seattle City Hall… and beyond. By late summer, his Pike/Pine business partnerships were mostly dissolving as Meinert was forced to sell his stakes in neighborhood holdings including the Comet and Lost Lake.
  • In February, CHS reported on a silver screen worthy twist in the overhaul of the old Harvard Exit theater. The Seattle Consulate of Mexico was moving to Capitol Hill. The diplomatic facility opened during the summer and by August, the Mexican flag was flying proudly above Capitol Hill.
  • Off the Hill in Madison Park, diplomacy played out in a different way as souring international relations forced the closure of Russian Consular Residence on an April morning as diplomats, workers, and their families packed belongings, gear, and equipment into a small convoy of trucks outside the neighborhood’s Hyde mansion.
  • An alliance of residents, neighbors, and historical preservationists came together to first stop a plan to turn the Royvue into microhousing and then win landmark protections for the 1924-built garden apartments. Continue reading →

CHS Year in Review 2018 | Mergers and acquisitions — the year in Capitol Hill food+drink

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Proud new owner Andre Sayre was all smiles in 2018 after buying his neighborhood hangout Sun Liquor and changing only one thing — the name. Stop by Sol Liquor and say goodbye to 2018.

There was a symmetry to 2018 in food and drink on Capitol Hill. The year began with the chilly January morning opening of Westman’s Bagels and Coffee taking over a puny E Madison counter space home to a string of walk-up ventures along E Madison over the years. 2018 comes to a close with another chilly morning opening after a deal to take over a decade old E Olive Way tequila bar resulted in the Eastern European and Jewish daytime fare of Dacha Diner. The two projects share a bit of cultural heritage. And both were representative of many of the CHS stories in food and drink around Capitol Hill with sales and acquisitions, small spaces and counter walk-ups — not new mixed-use construction, and first-time buildouts.

The year was also highlighted by a new generation of first-time restaurant and bar owners. For Andre Sayre, above, the Capitol Hill neighbor bought his favorite neighborhood bar.

Maybe this is what the maturation of the area’s food and drink economy looks like as new development is pushed to areas like the Central District. Maybe it is just a lull before the next storm of activity. Below, here is CHS’s look at the year in Capitol Hill food+drink. Continue reading →

CHS Year in Review 2017 | Capitol Hill’s 50 most important stories

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For two years running, CHS readers have voted Capitol Hill Station as the most important story of the year. In 2015, it was the light rail station’s unveiling after years of construction. 2016 brought CHS’s (the other CHS!) start of service. Now, 2017 brought the fruition of more than a decade of community planning as the designs for “transit oriented development” around the station were finalized. But 2017 on Capitol Hill also included stories of great sadness and stories of triumph and change. The “S-path” opened. It snowed on Christmas. The mayor fell from grace. Some of the most important we remembered are below.

Take the CHS survey | View latest results

YIR 2017
+ Steps toward affordability in the year in Capitol Hill development
+ Smaller, ambitious-er, gay-er — the year in Capitol Hill food+drink
CHS YIR: 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017

These 50 things happened in 2017…

  1. Work halted since the Great Depression began on St. Mark’s.
  2. Capitol Hill got a Pac-Man park.
  3. Seattle elected Jenny Durkan, our first woman mayor since Bertha Knight Landes. She got a rude first greeting on Capitol Hill.
  4. The Seattle Women’s March stretched from the Central District to Seattle Center.
  5. Nikkita Oliver ran for mayor.
  6. Kshama Sawant organized an anti-Trump town hall.
  7. Ed Murray, Capitol Hill’s man in City Hall, was accused of sexual abuse, dropped his reelection bid, and, after a painful summer, resigned.
  8. It snowed on Christmas.
  9. The Seattle homelessness state of emergency continued.
  10. Anti-semitic graffii targeted Temple De Hirsch Sinai. Continue reading →

CHS Year in Review 2017 | Smaller, ambitious-er, gay-er — the year in Capitol Hill food+drink

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It might tell you more about the past five years than 2017 to know that 33 new “openings” was part of a general cooldown in Capitol Hill’s ongoing food and drink economy boom. More than two dozen new bar, restaurant, and cafe ventures opened their doors around the Hill for the first time this year. In the underpinning of those openings, however, we find a softness. During the boom, we’ve never included more openings on top of another recent opening that so quickly became a recent closing or more reboots. And if it wasn’t for poke sand sushi — pizza was 2016, yo — the 2017 opening tally would be even lower.

YIR 2017 Food+Drink Survey

CHS’s yearly tallies are probably missing a name here or there, include some stretch-y borders, might include a double-count or three, and… well, you get the idea. (Source: CHS)

CHS won’t pretend to be able to explain why all the things that happen, happen. Surely, every boom must have a bust — or, at least, a slowing. The nature of the business — and margins — will mean shifts in approach over time.

One thing to point out about the year in food+drink 2017 is that even on what looks like the backside of the upward curve, Capitol Hill has a rich and varied network of ambitions, community, and creativity to present to patrons. And in the midst of it, there were still a few big, new ideas — albeit, in slightly little smaller spaces.

YIR 2017
+ Steps toward affordability in the year in Capitol Hill development
Food+drink: 2016 / 2015 / 2014 / 2013 / 2012 / 2011 / 2010

AMBITIONS: A small band of entrepreneurs forged entirely new food+drink ground across the Hill in 2017. Caitlin Unsell’s dream of a cat cafe came to life with E Pine’s Neko, a Bellevue Ave cafe became a craft coffee showcase with Ghost Note, while Good Weather grew from a hidden away bike shop into a new Chophouse Row cafe. The highest aspirations were found at By the Pound, Capitol Hill’s first deli counter with a secret bar. Meanwhile, perhaps the last of Pike/Pine’s era massive food and drink “complexes” finally debuted when the big beer-backed Redhook Brewlab made a summer opening. Continue reading →

CHS Year in Review 2017 | Steps toward affordability in the year in Capitol Hill development

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Did 2017 even happen or was it just an extension of 2016? Seattle’s housing market remains the “hottest” in the nation. Yay for existing homeowners. Sorry for renters and everybody else. Capitol Hill’s population is pushing 34,000 and, unfortunately, there is likely continuity in the mood around affordability and housing. In our review of 2016 development, more than 40% of respondents said they were less optimistic about the future of Capitol Hill — and renters were even more pessimistic.

Fortunately, 2017’s year in development around Capitol Hill was marked by small steps forward to address the affordability crisis while some of the last big remaining chunks of not-so-recently redeveloped blocks finally hit the market and found new buyers with new plans for six — and, maybe soon, seven — stories. Some buyers, however, were happy to keep things the way they are. For now.

Meanwhile in the Central District, tensions rose over the pangs of investment, change, and gentrification before settling into a different kind of march toward what seems like progress. It was a busy, fast moving year.

Below are the top stories CHS reported on in the year in development. Maybe this year, the future of the Hill will look a little brighter.

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CHS Pics | 2016’s 20 ‘most interesting’ pictures from the CHS Flickr Pool

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Bird on a bench

The CHS Flickr Pool contains more than 33,000 photographs — most of Capitol Hill images, many glorious, some technically amazing. Here, you’ll find the 20 photographs the Flickr algorithm has deemed as the “most interesting” images taken by the neighborhood shutterbugs who contributed to the group. The magical recipe combining the ideas of “most viewed” and more did an alright job sorting out some of the more compelling images taken this year. But you can also spin back through our “this week in pictures” archive to see the many amazing images the algorithm missed. Meanwhile, you can also check out 2016 in pictures from CHS’s photographers and reporters.
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