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To get ready for Pride, City of Seattle will brighten Pike/Pine rainbow crosswalks and Black Lives Matter mural — UPDATE: Capitol Hill in-person Pride celebrations planned for late summer and October

A Pride tradition is scheduled to start this week on the streets of Pike/Pine. Crews from the Seattle Department of Transportation will be out to restore the neighborhood’s rainbow crosswalks. The round of street maintenance will also mean a cleaning for the E Pine Black Lives Matter mural added to the street during CHOP.

The SDOT activity will brighten up the elleven rainbow crosswalks up and down E Pike and E Pine as well as include work to refresh the large BLM mural just south of Cal Anderson Park.

UPDATE: Organizers have announced Seattle Pride celebrations will take place in October. Another celebration focused on Capitol Hill will happen later this summer.

(Image: CHS)

SDOT is notifying area residents and businesses about the work with a mailer and says the effort will involve “short-term daytime lane and partial intersection closures” on Thursday and Friday if the weather cooperates.

CHS reported here on a similar round of rainbow maintenance in 2019.

Inspired by the 2015 installation of the rainbows around Pike/Pine to mark the neighborhood as a center in Seattle LGBTQ history and culture, Community Crosswalks can now be found across the city including the “Poem Dazzle” crossings on Melrose.

The colorful Black Lives Matter mural, meanwhile, grew out of last summer’s protests and is now being maintained as a permanent element of the E Pine streetscape. The Seattle Department of Transportation expects the mural will require periodic refreshes over the years. The street’s flow has also changed for good with slower, shared lanes of traffic replacing curb parking along with new stop signs to keep speeds down in the busy pedestrian area.

SDOT has been busy around this area of Pike/Pine. Earlier this month in a $14,000 project, department crews removed the concrete security barrier and fencing placed in the street surrounding the East Precinct at 11th and Pine during ongoing protests.

While Seattle’s Pride festivities will again be online this June amid ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, organizers are planning a safe, in-person celebration later this summer on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, you can help celebrate Pride and neighborhood pride on Saturday, June 6th by taking part in the annual Cal Anderson Park clean-up:

Taking Pride in Capitol Hill
Sun Jun 6, 9 am – 1 pm
For over a decade now, spring means volunteers taking to the streets and sidewalks of Capitol Hill for a little spring cleaning. Six years ago, PrideFest became a partner and we converted the event to a pride kickoff. We’re rebranding to better reflect the event but it’s the same event you’ve come to love! We may have to limit numbers depending on what public health requires but at the very least we expect masks will be required. We provide breakfast, lunch, and cleaning supplies and we’ll tell you where you and your team will go.

More in-person events on Capitol Hill and across the city on Saturday and Sunday, October 9th and 10th are also being planned, Seattle Pride said this week:

Seattle Pride — the organizers of the Seattle Pride Parade and Seattle Pride in the Park events — today announced plans for an in-person LGBTQIA+ event in the fall, following last week’s announcement that the state would be lifting its COVID-19 restrictions by June 30 in accordance with CDC guidelines, and that group gatherings without face masks and physical distancing would once again be allowed. With the theme All Together Now, Seattle Pride is planning a fall reunion to remember — and while it will be of smaller in scale than a parade or festival, it will provide a much-needed boost of queer solidarity and energy. While the City of Seattle has not yet resumed the permitting of mega parades the likes of the Seattle Pride Parade or Seafair Torchlight Parade, which attract hundreds of thousands to the streets of downtown Seattle, Seattle Pride believes that after more than a year spent physically apart, Seattle’s LGBTQIA+ community is eager to safely come together again in person.

More details on all the Pride planning can be found here.

 

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Christopher Peterson
Christopher Peterson
2 years ago

I wish that they would make a few of them trans colors too.

trailrunnr
trailrunnr
2 years ago

on the original rainbow flag, the individual colors did not represent any one group, rather the rainbow colors as a whole meant everyone of every stripe. There were no trans colors, or black colors, or gay colors. Only lately do I see the more identity-centric “where’s my color, I feel excluded”.

slider292
slider292
2 years ago
Reply to  trailrunnr

Thank you.

The Ghostt of Capitol Hill
The Ghostt of Capitol Hill
2 years ago

Agreed. I wish there was a color for Black transwomen in particular as well.

MarciaX
MarciaX
2 years ago

Blue is also a color on the Trans flag (along with pink and white), so you can consider the blue stripe a “Trans color” on the crosswalks. I do.

Another J Seattle
Another J Seattle
2 years ago

The second week of October is hardly “later this summer”. It’s not even summer!

RWK
RWK
2 years ago

True, but usually the weather is pretty good until later in October.