New bike lanes have finally been added to E Union, making this route connecting Capitol Hill and the Central District a little safer for everybody using the street.
Crews finished installing the new markings, parking areas, and lanes this week after years of planning and back and forth with the community. Continue reading
One year after the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota and the start of months of protests in the city, Seattle is taking stock of what has changed and marking the days of unrest.
CHS looked back here at the first days of Black Lives Matter protests that began in Seattle in the days after Floyd’s murder, leading to weeks of clashes on Capitol Hill between protesters and police, the abandonment of the East Precinct, and the formation of CHOP.
This week starting Memorial Day, another small but important chronicler of the Capitol Hill protests will be back in the neighborhood as Omari Salisbury and TraeAnna Holiday of Converge Media will return for a week of broadcasts from near 11th and Pine where the Seattle media service captured crucial scenes from unrest including the fateful “pink umbrella incident” still echoing through the ranks of Seattle Police leadership today.
Salisbury tells CHS the live Converge Returns to The Hill shows will focus on honoring the important efforts at change. Continue reading
Here are the top stories from this week in CHS history:
(Image: CHS)
Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park remained a center of life through the pandemic but the energy level has increased starting with Friday’s reopening to the general public of the Seattle Asian Art Museum. But demand to see the overhauled museum and a limited schedule means you’ll need to wait a bit longer if you didn’t already make plans for reserving tickets when CHS reported on the planned reopening.
Currently, online reservations are booked up through June with the first openings coming in the last weekend of the month. SAAM remains at limited capacity, open Fridays through Sundays, 10 am–5 pm. Timed tickets will be sold online only, and future dates will be released on a rolling basis every Thursday.
The June 30th deadline for fully reopening the state and lifting COVID-19 restrictions on capacities will also hopefully bring more opportunities to visit.
Most people have never seen the overhauled and expanded Seattle Asian Art Museum in person. The Volunteer Park museum shuttered in mid-March 2020 as COVID-19 numbers climbed. Only weeks earlier that February, the building had reopened after three years of closure and construction to overhaul and expand the museum.
CHS reported earlier on the museum’s reopening plans here.
Learn more at seattleartmuseum.org.
Spring Harvest with vegan feta and spring peas with a Spruce Dirty Gibson on the side.
Capitol Hill is reopening and there is symbiosis on Bellevue Ave.
Finch and Pine, the seasonal Pacific Northwest cafe, is one of the newest dining spots in the neighborhood and its horseshoe counter is ready for a steadily growing number of indoor diners. Like most of us, new owner Sara Moran saw her life change during the pandemic. For her, dreams of owning her own restaurant were suddenly on fast forward.
“I thought I was going to have more time,” Moran said. “I knew I had to do something. The next step was to find a place. I came in here for coffee one day and heard it was for sale.”
CHS told you here about the new project in the former Cafe Barjot space from Capitol Hill food and drink veteran and first time owner Moran whose vision for a restaurant of her own was partly shaped by her time in the kitchen at the dearly departed Sitka and Spruce and her hope for “a symbiotic relationship with the community, the farmers, the fishermen” that come together to create a menu. Continue reading
(Image: cleanhandscollective.org)
A pandemic has come and nearly gone and Seattle has finally put some cash behind simple but ingenious solutions to help people keep their hands clean in the city.
Seattle Public Utilities this week announced it will split $100,000 from the Seattle Water and Waste Innovation Fund for grants to power two solutions for public hand washing stations in the city.
The Real Change and Clean Hands Collective “Street Sinks” project will receive $60,000 “to implement its street sinks model in areas where they are most needed: near encampments, food distribution locations, and recreation and public gathering places. Real Change newspaper vendors will help construct and maintain the sinks,” SPU said. Continue reading
It has taken several years, but 12th and Boren finally has enough pavement for anything less than the suspension of a rally car. Looking south, the PacMed building, home to Seattle Central’s health training programs, is in the distance, as new construction on Boren expands the skyline. Bailey Gatzert Elementary sits to the east and Jucivana to the north sits doing its smoothie and coffee thing — along with a bar and fresh squeezed cocktails added during the pandemic — at the intersection of 12th, Boren, and Yesler.
9’s is a regular photo series with a simple premise. CHS visits a corner of the Hill twice — once at 9 AM and again at 9 PM — to capture the scenes of the neighborhood in motion. Have a space you’d like us to feature? Let us know in comments.
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Graffiti on the emptied 15th Ave E QFC (Image: CHS)
Federal recovery funds will power a proposed $128.4 million Seattle Rescue Plan.
Mayor Jenny Durkan and Council budget chair Teresa Mosqueda are announcing the proposed spending plan for federal COVID-19 recovery funds Thursday afternoon.
Responding to “the most pressing needs facing Seattle,” the proposed Seattle Rescue Plan outlines spending millions across Seattle’s recovery needs including homelessness, small business and nonprofit recovery, and community support for neighborhoods. Durkan and Mosqueda’s proposal also includes spending on community and mental health needs, education equity, employment training, and reopening city services.
Housing and Homelessness — $49 million proposed: As we come out of this pandemic, we will continue to prioritize our commitment to growing affordable housing while also increasing investments that provide immediate aid to those living unhoused. Seattle’s Rescue Plan will help more than 750 households by moving more than 450 households into safer spaces in 2021, create 300 new permanent homes in 2021 and 2022, and invest in tiny home villages. Continue reading
(Image: King County)
Developers have filed early plans for a new seven-story mixed-use building at the corner if 14th and Union where a cluster of food and drink businesses has already faded away over recent years and one of Capitol Hill’s remaining light industrial spaces will be turned over to the ongoing demand for new housing in the neighborhood.
This corner of Capitol Hill redevelopment will play out in a slightly different order than most. This time, bars, restaurants, and the craft distillery that called the property home in recent years moved away before the plans for demolition arrived.
According to the early permit filings from Euclid Development and the Capitol Hill-based architects and Board and Vellum, the former La Panzanella bakery property recently home to businesses including Oola Distillery, gay bar Union, Restaurant Zoe, and Bar Sue will be demolished to make room for a seven-story, 80-unit mixed-use apartment building, with commercial space at street level, and underground parking. Continue reading
District 3 representative Kshama Sawant was joined by two of her fellow Seattle City Councilmembers Monday in signing a letter calling for condemnation of Israel’s strikes on Gaza in the renewed conflict with Palestine and announced plans to introduce legislation that would ban Seattle Police from “engaging in training with Israeli military and police.”
Sawant’s office announced Councilmember Lisa Herbold (District 1, West Seattle/South Park) and Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda (District 8, Citywide) joined Sawant in signing the letter. The six other councilmembers including mayoral candidate and council president Lorena González did not. According to Sawant, the council’s Tammy Morales and Dan Strauss said they would draft their own letters. Continue reading
