2023 should have been a year of recovery. Squeezed between the city and the country regaining their footing out of the pandemic and the coming dumpster fire of the 2024 presidential election, 2023 probably should have given us more time to rest. But life in the big city never really slows down. The year brought massive public safety issues and an important political race of our own to the neighborhoods around Capitol Hill and the Central District. There were also tragic losses. It wasn’t all grey. There were also big new starts and a few nostalgic goodbyes. Here are CHS’s most important stories of 2023.

View survey results

• PRIDE PLACE OPENS: Pride Place, a 118-unit, affordable, LGBTQIA+ focused senior housing and services development, opened on Broadway… neighboring Neighbours.
• NEW GLO’S: After three decades on E Olive Way, Glo’s arrived in its new home above Capitol Hill Station — a space three and a half times bigger and much improved over the original. Even in the big expansion and fancy new digs, owners Julie Reisman and Steve Frias continue to proudly work the line. Meanwhile, the diner became a symbol of Capitol Hill’s changing labor environment as its workers agreed in a neck and neck vote to reverse efforts to organize as a union.
• HOLLINGSWORTH WINS AS SAWANT STEPS ASIDE: She began the year with a MLK Day announcement. Joy Hollingsworth — a Black, queer, Central District cannabis entrepreneur and community leader — was running for the District 3 seat on the Seattle City Council. Weeks later, incumbent Kshama Sawant announced she would not seek reelection ending her decade-long run at City Hall. In 2013, the Seattle Central and Seattle University economics professor included a promise of a fight for a $15 minimum wage in announcing she would take on incumbent Richard Conlin for his seat on the Seattle City Council. A decade later, she is leaving office after that successful upset and a string of political victories that included overcoming an attempted recall in 2021. The $15 now victory came first in 2014 — though it would take years for the city’s required wage to reach that level. A push for rent control followed but fell by the wayside in 2020 when the city’s shifting political tides put the effort to tax large employers on the frontburner. The pandemic sealed the deal. By that summer, Seattle had a new payroll tax and Sawant, another victory like $15 an hour — a far left movement translated into a version palatable at Seattle City Hall. Her run of success on those largest initiatives came to an end at City Hall this year as she was preparing to step down from office. In July, Sawant’s final bid for rent control in Seattle fell short at the council. She will now focus on Workers Strike Back, her nascent campaign to form a new leftist national party. Hollingsworth, meanwhile, flipped Seattle’s most progressive district and cruised to victory with a moderate platform focused on public safety, equity, and economic opportunity shaped by her life and family history in the Central District.
• A DEADLY YEAR IN CAPITOL HILL’S CORE: Seattle’s murder rate spiked in 2023 to more than 9.5 per 100,000 people — double the mark five years as surging gun violence has continued to rise after spiking during the heights of the COVID pandemic. The East Precinct including Capitol Hill and Central District was the scene for seven of those killings, SPD says. The East Precinct has been responsible for about 17% of the city’s homicides over the past five years. This year, the precinct will account for around 13% of the city’s record total. But a clear core of deadly circumstances formed in the busy area around Broadway, Pike, and Pine where most of the precinct’s homicides occurred.
• DRUGSTORE SHUTDOWNS: The failures of drugstore chain giants hobbled by massive federal and state opioid lawsuits threw into the question the future of pharmacies in neighborhoods like Capitol Hill. Rite Aid shuttered the Harvard Market Bartell Drugs and also its store at Broadway and E Olive Way to end the year in a cloud of confusion and frustration for workers and customers who found their prescriptions switched to other struggling big chain providers who somehow remain open. The Harvard Market shopping center hopes to attract a new retail or service tenant for the former Bartell space. What comes next for the historic Broadway Theater marquee and building where the Rite Aid operated since the 1990s is less clear.  The 1911-built, more than 5,000-square-foot building has been owned for decades by the Limantzakis family as part of commercial holdings across the city but is prime turf for redevelopment catty-corner to busy Capitol Hill Station.
• HONEYHOLE’S SOUR END? While Glo’s new chapter represents a happy story of growth for a Capitol Hill food and drink classic, the 2023 story around the HoneyHole was a sadder tale. First came the implosion under new, inexperienced ownership. Then came the sudden disappearance of the would-be sandwich hero who had stepped up to take over the struggling icon. Employees — and HoneyHole fans — were left in the lurch. Here’s hoping 2024 brings happier HoneyHole news.
• 

  A sign posted at the 12th Ave RGB (Image: CHS)

  RACHEL MARSHALL: The death of Capitol Hill food and drink entrepreneur Rachel Marshall stirred reverence and heartache as her family revealed the 42-year-old died from liver failure caused by excessive drinking brought on by depression during the pandemic lockdowns. “Rachel died from hepatic cirrhosis caused by chronic ethanolism,” the family’s statement read. “In other words, she drank too much for too long, and her liver stopped functioning.” The creator of Capitol Hill-born Rachel’s Ginger Beer and the co-founder of neighborhood dives Montana and Nacho Borracho, Marshall is survived by her partner Adam Peters and two children. “To know Rachel on any level,” they said, “meant having someone in your life standing at the ready to scoop you up in her arms and shower you with all the love, affirmation and belonging your own heart could hold.”

• KRISTA NELSON: 2023 also saw the passing of another Capitol Hill food and drink matriarch as Hot Mama’s Pizza co-owner Krista Nelson passed away after a long illness. “To the customers she was the one most likely making your pizzas on the late night weekend shifts,” the E Pine pizza counter’s announcement read. “Many good times had by all in those ‘good old days.’ Her contribution to the restaurant cannot be understated. She was the glue that held us all together.”
• 

  Horace Lorenzo Anderson, Jr.

  CHOP MURDER CASE: The search for justice in the killing of 19-year-old Horace Lorenzo Anderson, Jr. on the edge of CHOP in June 2020 reached a milestone in 2023. Marcel Long, also a teen at the time of the murder, will have credit for time served and also will serve three years in community custody as part of his 14-year sentence after pleading guilty to the murder. Prosecutors say Long, then 18, shot and killed Anderson at 10th and Pine in a June 2020 fracas after what witnesses said was a night of gambling and fireworks as crowds gathered and the CHOP zone took shape amid Black Lives Matter demonstrations, community meetings and film screenings, and art. The murder and the militarized response by police who had abandoned patrols in the area and swept in as Anderson was being treated by camp medics on the Rancho Bravo patio sent a shock through the city. Tensions rose quickly around CHOP as increased security and firearms began to appear as SPD leadership and then-Chief Carmen Best made inflammatory statements to the public that further heightened tensions. A week later, 16-year-old Antonio Mays, Jr. was shot and killed and a 14-year-old boy riding with him suffered critical injuries on a night of driveby fears and uncertainty including the stolen jeep speeding across Cal Anderson and through the protest camp before a confrontation on 12th Ave that ended in bloodshed. Days after that, then-Mayor Jenny Durkan ordered Seattle Police to sweep the camp. There have been no announced arrests and no charges in the Antonio Mays, Jr. killing.

• BLACK LIVES MEMORIAL GARDEN CLEARED: An artifact of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle was cleared from Cal Anderson Park. In the final week of the year, the city made good on the parks department’s plan to clear the Black Lives Memorial Garden. Seattle Parks maintained the garden’s plots had to be removed for a planned “turf restoration” project in the park’s grass bowl area that officials said is needed “to host gatherings and large events” as part of its “intentional design as a natural amphitheater and proximity to electrical and water hook-ups.” Seattle Parks said it offered to work with the Black Star Farmers group that helped shape the initial garden to find a new, more appropriate location. The garden’s supporters have maintained that the space should remain as a reminder of the protests and a community element in Cal Anderson Park. Seattle Parks says the removal of the garden including clearance of encampments in the park, reportedly the 76th time the park has been cleared by the city.
• 12th AND MERCER STANDOFF: While Seattle tries to sort out how to address concerns about public safety while also making real and substantive changes to the way the city polices itself, a February incident illustrated some of the neighborhood’s attitudes about the Seattle Police Department as bystanders intervened and an East Precinct officer backed down in a heated situation at 12th and Mercer.
• RANCHO BRAVO ESTA MEURTO: Viva Teto’s Cantina where the staff and the menu haven’t changed much.
• CULTURA AND MASSIVE LAUNCH: A new generation in the Capitol Hill nightclub scene emerged as Cultura Seattle brought Latin and international DJs to E Pike while Massive fired up the former R Place building for a new era as an “avant-garde club catering to the queer, allied and music-focused community” and embracing “an electrifying fusion of underground dance music, captivating performances, and visionary shows.” Meanwhile, iconic Capitol Hill gay dance bar Neighbours found new ownership on Broadway and all-ages venue Cafe Racer rebooted with a new partner to try to establish stronger financial footing in 2024 and beyond.
• BEER DEALS: The Capitol Hill brewing community saw some big changes in 2023. Beer giant Anheuser-Busch In-Bev sold off assets including E Pike-based Redhook Brewery in an $85 million deal that puts “Leading global cannabis-lifestyle and consumer packaged goods company” Tilray in the beer business with brands including Shock Top, 10 Barrel Brewing Company, Widmer Brothers Brewing, and the Redhook Brewlab. Meanwhile, a much smaller deal took place on E Union where Seattle microbrewer Stoup took over the Optimism brewery and beer hall.
• ROAD WORK: As far as Capitol Hill-area streets went, 2023 was about the work that will hopefully pay off in 2024. Madison has been tore to hell and back for the RapidRidge G bus lane project that has included a full overhaul of infrastructure and streetscapes between downtown and Madison valley with a planned opening next fall. Work also began in 2023 on the year or so project to change Pike and Pine to one-way streets with protected bike lanes below Bellevue Ave.
• PEDESTRIAN DEATHS: 80-year-old was struck and killed by a hit and run driver while crossing Madison near the Safeway in February. There have been no announced arrests. On the other side of the Safeway block in November, Mario Osoteo was struck by a driver while crossing 23rd Ave. The 46-year-old died a few days later in the hospital. The driver in that incident remained at the scene.
• KEEP DENNY BLAINE NUDE: Not every Seattle Parks decision in the area in 2023 seemed short-sighted. Officials listened to a wave of public feedback and calls from hundreds who showed up at its public meeting on the project to back off a plan to add a $500,000 kid’s play area paid for by an anonymous private donor at Denny Blaine beach, a space that has been a popular summer getaway for the area’s queer and nudist communities.
• VIVACE SIDEWALK BAR: After 35 years, Vivace remains part of the neighborhood with its Broadway cafe but, in 2023, the craft coffee pioneer decided to step away from the challenges of operating its Broadway sidewalk bar. Growing neighborhood coffee (and books!) presence Fuel Coffee has stepped in and now runs the vaunted caffeine counter.

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍