15th Ave E’s The Canterbury is holding a memorial Sunday to remember Greg La Rose. Bar regulars and members of the Canterbury community will gather at 2 PM Sunday at the Canterbury for a wake to mark the passing of their fellow employee and friend. CHS does not have details on the circumstances of La Rose’s death.
A criterium, Wikipedia will tell you, is “a bike race held on a short course often run on closed-off city center streets.” Saturday’s racing of the 2011 Volunteer Park Criterium involved multiple waves of racer categories throughout the day. We’ll add results when they’re posted. Wikipedia will also tell you that success in a criterium depends on both solid technical skills and the ability to race safely in a pack of cyclists. In other words, it’s a metaphor for modern life. Hope you had a safe round and round on your Saturday.
All we can say is we found a permit from the City of Seattle Department of Transportation for 10th Ave between Pike and Pine to be closed to vehicles for 10 minutes on Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 4 PM.
We’re still gathering details on this Saturday morning incident involving a man found beaten inside a vehicle parked near 19th Ave and Madison. Updates as we learn more. In the meantime, here’s the SPD report on the investigation:
Man found beaten in a church parking lot
On 4/9/11, at approximately 10:43 a.m., officers responded to 19th Ave E and E. Madison to a church parking lot to investigate an assault.
A passerby called 911 to report a male that looked like he had been assaulted in a vehicle that was parked in a church parking lot. Seattle Fire Department Aid unit 25 and Seattle Fire Medics responded and treated the victim on scene. The victim was found sitting in the front seat passengers’ side of the listed vehicle and he was unable to speak and had been beaten severely about the head and face.
The 21-year-old victim was transported to Harborview Medical Center for treatment of his injuries. The vehicle was impounded and taken to the processing room. This is an open and active investigation.
Though rests isn’t quite accurate. The (probably) almost 100-year-old sign still works. Still does its job of telling you that you are on ‘E. Olive Pl.’ near the corner of Melrose. Hill shutterbug and frequent contributor to the CHS Flickr pool Rob Ketcherside recently added this picture of the old sign and his research into its origins. He graciously permitted us to share his work on CHS.
Seattle’s Oldest Street Sign?
Hanging on the corner of the Celeste Apartments, this is a good candidate for the oldest street sign in Seattle.
I think it’s from about 1918.
The Celeste is at 304 East Olive Place, at the corner of Melrose Avenue East and East Olive Place. Now, be careful. There is no Melrose Place in Seattle. But we’re right next to the dividing line of Melrose Avenue East and “not East”. That dividing line is East Olive Way.
This is where things get tricky. A half block away is also the dividing line between East and “not East” Olive Way. And a block beyond that is the start of East Olive Street. Thankfully there is no “not East” Olive Street (anymore). And there is also no “not East” Olive Place – the street we’re standing on that ends one block away.
Nestled in this forgotten armpit of Olive Ways and Places and freeway entrances is our aged sign.
Seattle does not put street signs on buildings anymore. There’s one just left of the “G R” text in this pre-1909 photo of 2nd and Columbia. Older style font than this, but our signs haven’t been white on black for a long time, either.
The Celeste Apartments, like so many Capitol Hill denizens, underwent a sex change at some point. She was built as the Allen Apartments. And just to muddle matters, he was at the corner of Melrose Avenue and then-known-as OIive Street. The year, 1908.
By 1912 it was known as East Olive Street. And by 1919 the Allen was listed in ads as its current address, 304 East Olive Place. But a year later, the city still officially referred to it as East Olive Street when describing the creation of Olive Way from Bellevue to Boylston and John (still missing in this 1918 map). Confusing, but I’m guessing that East Olive Place was christened in around 1918.
And, with nothing else to go on, I’ll venture that the sign dates from those early days.
(To be clear, I’ve only established a “no older than” date. Find me another white on black street sign though!)
We asked SDOT about the sign but the department could not provide information about the specific sign. They did point us to some useful background on the “oldest sign” question, though. According to “Public Works in Seattle, a Narrative History of the Seattle Engineering Department 1875-1975,” the first porcelain enamel-on-metal street name signs with white letters on blue background appeared in the Central Business District around 1922. Wooden signs of the same color predominated throughout Seattle until about 1952. According to the book, most of those were attached to wood posts or to existing utility poles.
At this point, we have no information indicating when the enamel-on-metal signs were phased out. But Ketcherside’s sign probably does date from the early 1920s. We’ll have to hold a big party in 2022. But, then again, why wait?
Volunteer Park is filled with the whir of bike chains and spokes this Saturday for the annual Volunteer Park Criterium races.
It’s a full day of racing in the park so i you’re looking for a quiet walk, you might want to pick a different place to stroll.
If you’re looking for a two-wheeled action, the races are quite a scene and worth a walk through Volunteer. We posted the full-day schedule of races (and a roster of other weekend activities to consider!) here.
CHS will have a photographer capturing some of the action but if you have any images or video you’d like to share, please send us a note at [email protected].
Early Friday morning, a section of East Roy street was coned off from traffic to allow for the trimming of a large bald elm tree that shades Joe Bar and Olivar. Pedestrians stopped to watch three men climbing the limbs of the old tree, watching their heads as dried out branches fell from above. Better to have the pieces falling now than wait for Mother Nature to topple them at an inopportune moment.
Some heavy machinery in action on a finally-sunny Friday on the Hill. The chainsaws are flying on E Roy as the city works to trim the 80-foot elm tree that keeps Joe Bar and the Loveless building company. Patrons enjoyed the free show and were cautioned by several signs warning “WORKERS ABOVE.”
We’ll have more pictures from the big trim soon. Update: More pictures from the trim by Suzi:
Out on Broadway, the real-life Tonka toys were hard at work tearing down the buildings in the lots that will soon make room for the start of construction on the 230 Broadway project. And, yes, while the project is truly located at 230 Broadway *E*, who are we to mess with marketing, right?
The first building to go was the most charming of the bunch — this rubble pile used to be the converted 1901 house that, most recently, was home to the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce. The house’s exterior will be missed — its inside, trust me, after years of office use, was no great loss.
Earlier this week, we brought everybody up to speed on the project and shared word of a community meeting later this month to discuss construction issues.
