Thanks to reader sbhopper for the pictures from the scene
Seattle Fire was able to quickly knock down an apartment fire with limited damage Friday afternoon in Broadway’s Casa del Rey building.
A major Seattle Fire Department response filled Broadway with emergency vehicles during the response as Seattle Police blocked the street to motor vehicle traffic and public transit. Continue reading
The “Poem Dazzle” crosswalks are returning
The city says it has made progress responding to community feedback to address safety improvements and design mistakes at the key Melrose Ave connections in the work to complete the overhaul of Pike and Pine between Capitol Hill and downtown Seattle.
CHS reported in May on members of Central Seattle Greenways calling out the dangerous situations and half-measures taken during the construction process as the Office of the Waterfront and the Seattle Department of Transportation completed construction of the $17.45 million project meant to boost bicycling and pedestrian activity and create connectivity between downtown and Capitol Hill as the routes along the arteries are transitioned to one-way traffic .
“We are seeing that the adjustments we have been making during construction are improving things right now and address many of the concerns we have heard,” the city said in an update on the work this week.
CSG member Cory Hutton has been especially effective with an ongoing campaign via the @streetcrafting social media account to document the issues — and the solutions. How much has the city and SDOT depended on Hutton? They used @streetcrafting photos to document their progress.
The city says it has begun its response to the calls from the Central Seattle Greenways group to improve the intersection of Pike, Melrose, and Minor Ave including improvements made to the intersection and traffic signals. The city also says a new concrete island will be built to better protect people walking, rolling, and biking. Continue reading
Capitol Hill has a lot going for it over the mansions of Medina.
In a June interview with Time Magazine about the philanthropist’s life after divorcing the world’s fifth-richest person, Melinda French Gates sounds quite a bit like the rest of us when it comes to describing what she loves about her new life in the city:
“I live in a neighborhood. Now I can walk to little stores. I can walk to the drugstore, I can walk to a restaurant,” she says. “I absolutely love it.”
Where is this lovely slice of city living? Capitol Hill. Business Insider reports that French Gates purchased “a cottage in the North Broadway neighborhood of Seattle weeks before the former couple filed for divorce in 2021” for $1.2 million. Continue reading
RapidRide G :) pic.twitter.com/4qI822pAUW
— jseattle (@jseattle) June 26, 2024
It was unlikely to come up in Thursday night’s presidential debate but you can thank Joe Biden. The new federally-backed RapidRide G bus rapid transit line finally has a launch date: September 14th.
The Urbanist was first to report the date as King County Metro is preparing for the first service on the 2.50-mile, 10-station Madison route and scaling up its operations and driver schedule to meet promised levels of service: “incredibly frequent service,” as the Urbanist says, including a bus every six minutes between 6 AM and 7 PM Monday through Saturday.
The G Line will operate 23 hours a day, from 5:00 AM to 4:00 AM between 1st Ave downtown and MLK Jr Way in Madison Valley with stops across First Hill and Capitol Hill along the way. Continue reading
Seattle City Light says more than 4,000 customers around the areas above I-5 on the western edge of Capitol Hill and swaths near E Thomas were without power after a Thursday afternoon outage attributed, sadly, to “Bird/Animal Contact.”
SCL reports the outage began around 2:15 PM and says it expecting service to be restored by 8:45 PM. Typically, the city’s restoration estimates are conservative and power can be restored much earlier depending on the damage being repaired.
You can view outage information and track updates at seattle.gov/city-light/outages.
UPDATE: The outage was already reduced to fewer than 2,000 customers just after 3 PM.
UPDATE x2: SCL reported service was restored just before 8 PM after repairing a final downed wire near 15th and Thomas.
Two transformer fires were reported around the time of the initial outage. Seattle Fire was called to a pole fire reported at 15th and Thomas just before 2:15 PM and a second in the 300 block of Summit Ave E at 2:16 PM as the grid absorbed whatever failure resulted from the animal incident.
CHS reported here in June about the remaining areas of Capitol Hill where utility lines have not yet been moved underground by city work and redevelopment to improve service reliability and help avoid long disruptions.
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Pride in the Park from the air as Volunteer Park got the 2024 Pride season off to a solid start earlier this month
As the city prepares to mark Seattle’s 50th Pride celebration with Sunday’s annual downtown parade, Capitol Hill will again be busy with events marking the neighborhood’s importance in queer history and community. Here is a look at the Pride 2024 weekend ahead. Happy Capitol Hill Pride.
FRIDAY JUNE 28th — TRANS PRIDE SEATTLE: The city’s celebration of Trans Pride will take another turn in Volunteer Park this year after moving into the park last year to mark its 10th anniversary. While the performers have increased in stature and social media status, organizers at the Gender Justice League have continued a grassroots ethos, forgoing corporate sponsorship, and sustaining the annual rally and party “to honor and carry the torch of our Transcestors who originated Pride as a means of both resistance and cultural communion.” You can view a list of scheduled performers and speakers and learn more about Friday’s event here. — More info on the CHS Calendar
SATURDAY JUNE 29th — PRIDEFEST CAPITOL HILL: This is the big street festival and fair in Cal Anderson Park you’ve been waiting for. Organizers are back in 2024 with plans to close Broadway from John to Roy, turn Barbara Bailey Way into a festival street, and fill Cal Anderson with Drag Queen Storytime, a pet drag show, and the PrideFest Capitol Hill Dance Party with C89.5 DJs to close it all down. — More info on the CHS Calendar
SATURDAY JUNE 29th — SEATTLE DYKE MARCH: The annual Dyke March is moving back onto Broadway as organizers have grown their group into the new Seattle Dyke Alliance with a mission that extends beyond the popular march. After moving into Volunteer Park last year, the march is getting back to its roots and marking its 30th year with a rally from 5 to 7 PM in the Seattle Central plaza followed by the traditional march through the neighborhood and up Broadway to mingle with the PrideFest festivities. The march echoes with the decades of fights for rights and safety in the community. No worries, the Dykes on Bikes will also be on hand. “This is a protest – no police escort,” organizers write. “Know the risks, see you there.” — More info on the CHS Calendar
JUNE 29th AND 30th — PRIDE WEEKEND — Varies!: Capitol Hill’s Pride weekend parties and beer gardens along Pike/Pine and Broadway have grown in scale with streets closed to traffic and multiple stages. As usual, Sunday’s big parade takes place downtown.
A scene from the 2023 PrideFest street festival on Broadway
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(Image: Cosmic Ice Cream)
By Nova Berger/CHS Intern
Cosmic Ice Cream is a Seattle favorite known for its eye-catching treats that taste as good as they look. The bright blue truck has become a familiar sight in Volunteer Park, drawing crowds with its Instagram-worthy sweets and providing sweet treats in the massively popular public green space.
Their unique approach and vibrant branding have made a splash on social media, particularly on TikTok. “Photographed by thousands,” says Sabrina Tissot, co-owner of Cosmic Ice Cream with her husband, Shane Tissot.
The truck offers classic staples like root beer floats and vanilla swirl, but the real highlight is the create-your-own menu. Customers can personalize their ice cream with a variety of toppings, all made with locally sourced and organic ingredients. Cosmic Ice Cream also offers special cosmic-themed flavors, a changing seasonal menu, and even dog treats.
Designers by trade, the Tissots used to own the Fremont boutique Wish. When the pandemic forced them to close as their landlords decided to sell, they turned their eye to other artistic endeavors. Inspired by Sabrina’s first job as an ice cream vendor, they wanted to bring something beautiful to the city’s food truck mix. Continue reading
The 2023 launch CARE team (Image: City of Seattle)
(Image: City of Seattle)
Mayor Bruce Harrell is getting a federal boost in efforts to address public safety concerns in the city and the first expansion of Seattle’s growing force of non-police first responders could be rolled out in neighborhoods across Capitol Hill and the Central District including areas that have been most challenged by street disorder like upper Pike/Pine.
Harrell proposed Wednesday that $1.9 million in federal funding should be used to power an expansion of the city’s policing alternative Community Assisted Response and Engagement team that will increase the size of the department and expand it to citywide, seven day a week service starting with an expansion including Capitol Hill and the Central District.
The Seattle City Council will take up the proposal as part of its mid-year budgeting efforts.
In September, CHS reported on the launch of what Harrell called Seattle’s “third public safety department.” The small, $1.5 million CARE team pilot program was hoped to help be the start of bigger changes to how the city responds to mental health and drug crisis 911 calls. It included funding for only six responders and has been hampered by limitations on the types of 911 calls it is allowed to respond to. Continue reading
Cupcake Royale’s top-selling cupcake, The Gay (Image: Cupcake Royale)
The exit of a Capitol Hill newsstand will make space for the return to Capitol Hill of Cupcake Royale.
The Seattle-area cupcake chain announced it is taking over the small E Pike space formerly home to Big Little News. Pike/Pine LGBTQ nightlife entrepreneur Joey Burgess and Tracy Taylor, the general manager of nearby Elliott Bay Book Company, ran the unique magazine and champagne shop for three years but even the guidance of one of the most experienced booksellers in the city and the head of a neighborhood family of bars and restaurants couldn’t make the concept stick.
The magazine and news shop closed in May. Continue reading
Four protesters arrested in the winter of 2021 for marking the East Precinct with anti-police messages in chalk and charcoal were awarded $680,000 by a jury last week in a federal civil rights lawsuit that has played out over years of injunctions and appeals.
Lawyers for Derek Tucson, Robin Snyder, Monsieree de Castro, and Erik Moya-Delgado argued the Seattle Police Department and officers Ryan Kennard, Dylan Nelson, Alexander Patton, and Michele Letizia violated the group’s First Amendment free-speech and peaceful assembly rights over the temporary anti-police messages scrawled in chalk and charcoal around the East Precinct and on cement barriers placed outside the facility at 12th and Pine in the wake of the 2020 protests. Continue reading
