Monthly Archives: November 2020

CHS Pics | The corner of 34th Ave E and Douglas Q. Barnett Street

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E Union at 34th Ave E has a new honorary street name. Now, to find the former home of Seattle’s Black Arts/West Theatre, just look for Douglas Q. Barnett Street.

The new designation was celebrated last week before the Thanksgiving holiday with a ceremony at the corner where Barnett founded and led the theater from 1969 until it lost funding and was closed in 1980. Barnett passed away last year at the age of 88.

“I had none,” said Tee Dennard tells CHS of his acting experience before finding Black Arts/West Theatre. “I came out here on a bet — on an audition. And I got the part.” Denard eventually became artistic director and has enjoyed a lifetime as a working actor. Continue reading →

In Washington, your phone can now tell if you may have been exposed to COVID-19 — and, if you may have exposed somebody else

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Washington has now joined the growing number of states enabling smartphone notifications if someone you’ve been close to ends up testing positive for COVID-19.

Opting into the WA Notify system jointly created by Google and Apple will add phone users to what Gov. Jay Inslee Monday called “a simple, anonymous exposure notification tool.” Continue reading →

Volunteer Park Cafe has new owner with plans to showcase wine and preserve tradition of the Capitol Hill corner store

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The old market days at 17th and Galer (Image: VPC)

Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park Cafe will soon begin a new life as a showcase for a Washington winemaker and is making a shift closer to its corner store roots.

“It’s just something we did have that slowly eroded away,” James DeSarno says of Seattle’s once ubiquitous corner stores like Groucho’s that used to serve the neighborhood around 17th and Galer. “The ones that are left are special.”

In 2012, the city was on the path to commercial zoning changes in lowrise and midrise neighborhoods that would have allowed what many hoped would be a new proliferation of cornershops but the city council ultimately backed off the plan in the face of anti-growth opposition.

DeSarno, principal at D3 Architects and co-owner of the Freehand Cellars winery, has now purchased the cafe smack in the middle of northern Capitol Hill’s single family-dominated residential zone in a $1.4 million deal that has been in the works for months after a previous plan to purchase the property fell through.

DeSarno says his plan for the new life for the shop at the corner of 17th and Galer is to try to keep a good deal of the same relationship with the neighborhood in place with cafe and coffee offerings but with a renewed focus on wine featuring his Yakima Valley winery’s creations. The architect-owned Freehand has been making wine since 2018.

“Freehand is already doing delivery and a wine club. A Seattle spot felt like a natural,” DeSarno said.

Continue reading →

Seattle World AIDS Day virtual event will include dedication of first AIDS Memorial Pathway artwork

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In This Way We Loved One Another by artist and poet Storme Webber (Image: The AMP)

A virtual event to mark Tuesday’s World AIDS Day will include the dedication of the first artwork completed for Capitol Hill’s AIDS Memorial Pathway, a project planned to link the Capitol Hill Station transit facility, housing, and new grocery store and commercial projects to Cal Anderson Park.

Stories of the Past, Stories of the Present: Honoring World AIDS Day takes place starting at 5 PM Tuesday with an online program “to reflect on the impact of HIV/AIDS” that will include the dedication of the AMP photography project In This Way We Loved One Another by artist and poet Storme Webber that hangs at the Cathy Hillenbrand Community Room inside the affordable Station House Building that is part of the station’s mixed-use developments. Continue reading →

Three arrests as protest marches on Capitol Hill for ‘essential workers’

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Protests in the street on E Olive Way (Image: SDOT)

A Black Lives Matter march for essential workers part of “Black Friday” protests across Seattle ended with arrests Friday night at Denny and E Olive Way on Capitol Hill.

A group marching through the neighborhood was reported blocking traffic and had been given dispersal orders, Seattle Police said. Continue reading →

How is COVID-19 spreading in Seattle? Households, workplaces, and gatherings most likely for exposure

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Customers stand in a socially distanced line wrapping around the block Thursday to pick up their vegan Thanksgiving orders from 12th Ave’s Plum (Image: CHS)

With officials fearing new momentum in the fall wave of COVID-19 from Thanksgiving gatherings, Public Health has provided the clearest information yet in this “third phase” of the pandemic about how King County and Seattle residents are becoming sick. The answers won’t allay Thanksgiving and holiday fears — and they won’t be easy to address under current restrictrictions and mandates.

In a new report released before the holiday weekend, county health officials said contact tracing shows that most people becoming infected by the virus here since late September are being exposed within their own household. How it is being introduced into the household is a larger, more complicated answer. Officials Wednesday said they don’t have a clear view of how “household” exposures are starting because people are reporting a wide range of contact environments, and often report multiple possible exposures. Contact tracing here has also been complicated by those becoming ill either intentionally or unintentionally providing incomplete tracing information. Continue reading →

Happy 80th birthday to Bruce Lee, Capitol Hill’s most legendary eternal resident

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(Image: CHS)

Martial arts legend Bruce Lee rests today atop Capitol HIll in Lake View Cemetery. Friday would have been his 80th birthday.

CHS visited the site earlier this week. Resting next to the grave of his son Brandon Lee, Bruce’s headstone was covered as usual with its mix of flowers and coins. The grave sites atop a hill with an eastern view are a popular place to visit to pay respect to the masters.

Hours at Lake View are currently limited due to the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. The non-profit managed facility is also undertaking a small construction project around the graves. We checked in with the management about the project multiple times but Lake View’s office never got back to us. The organization has faced a challenging year with the ongoing pandemic and controversy surrounding the removal of a Confederate monument from the cemetery.

The construction fencing, meanwhile, will serve as an unfortunate background on what will likely be a busy weekend for visitors. Continue reading →

Whulshootseed — crossing over in Cal Anderson Park

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The memorial totem pole for John T. Williams carved by his brother and family and raised at Seattle Center in 2012 (Image: City of Seattle)

“Woods thronged with Indians” — the USS Decatur’s map of Seattle

A recent essay on the ongoing demonstrations in Seattle and the summer of the Capitol Hill occupied protest attempted to frame the activism as microcosm of the upheaval seen this year across the county. It’s a good read:

It was a raw experience felt physically by those who attended the CHOP. This complicated blend of hope and despair, and the busy organizing that went into managing each, ended after shots rang out in the night, two were killed, and the SPD swept the protesters out.

But the essay also strings the physical core of Seattle’s protests — Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park — to a history of oppression and conquest: Continue reading →

With applications due for $4M next round, 10 Capitol Hill and Central District $10K Seattle small business relief fund grantees weigh in

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If you own one of the 9,000 Seattle businesses that applied for a $10,000 city grant early on in the pandemic but weren’t chosen during the first three rounds, there may be hope once again.

Seattle’s Small Business Stabilization Fund, rolled out in March, has now been revitalized as part of the City Council and Mayor Jenny Durkan joint $5.5 million COVID-19 small business relief package passed in August. Of the businesses selected in this upcoming round, at least two thirds must have five employees or less and identify as “high risk of displacement or highly disadvantaged.”

So far, 469 businesses have received grants through this fund and over 60 of them are in District 3 neighborhoods including Capitol Hill and the Central District. The application period for this next round closes on Monday. You can learn more here.

For some Capitol Hill and Central District businesses, the grant was a necessary part of staying afloat during a time when federal and other sources of funding weren’t panning out. For others, it’s just one part of a larger effort to withstand the ongoing pandemic, especially in light of recently  tightened COVID restrictions.

  • SugarPill: The Pine and Broadway apothecary was one of the first businesses to receive a city grant. Owner Karyn Schwartz says it was the first type of governmental funding SugarPill received, coming through at a much needed time when invoices from the previous holiday season were piling up along with rent and payroll. “Without that grant, SugarPill would quite possibly have not survived,” she said. “It was a godsend in the early days of the pandemic.” Situated just down the block from 11th and Pine, she says the grant carried SugarPill through six straight weeks of near total closure as limited capacity shopping and curbside pickup were halted during this summer’s Capitol Hill protest zone. “It provided me, most importantly, with a little extra time to think about my next move, and to do the horrific work of applying for every other kind of assistance with a slightly less paralyzing sense of panic,” Schwartz said. Continue reading →

Driver busted for DUI in five-car E Pike collision

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(Image: SPD)

Police say a driver was busted for DUI and taken to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries in an incident Tuesday night that left cars scattered across the street and sidewalk along E Pike at Bellevue.

SPD and Seattle Fire were called to the scene of multiple crashed vehicles just before 8:30 PM and found one of the smashed up cars on the sidewalk resting against the wall of the First Covenant Church. Cars including a silver Subaru SUV were scattered across the area but other occupants reported only minor injuries, police said. There were no reported injuries to pedestrians or bikers in the busy area. Continue reading →