Author Archives: CHS

Happy birthday, RapidRide G

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(Image: King County Metro)

By Matt Dowell

Happy first birthday to Madison’s RapidRide G, a.k.a. the G bus, the G line, or just The G.

While the one-year anniversary or the line’s start was overshadowed by the city’s whipsawing on its transit planning around a single-block near the G, the reshaping of the Madison corridor deserves a look back and a look forward as the line begins its second year of service between the waterfront, First Hill, Capitol Hill, and Madison Valley.

“In the last year, Metro provided more than 49,000 service hours on the RapidRide G Line, helping spur tremendous growth in ridership,” a Metro blog post celebrating the bus rapid transit line’s first year reads.

Metro says the G Line is now “the 12th busiest route in our system,” averaging around 6,300 riders every weekday — about half the totals projected as the line was first being designed before the pandemic reset traffic and transportation habits across the city.

Metro says that early surveys indicate riders enjoy the G more than regular Metro routes and that it’s boosted bus usage across the Madison Avenue region: “Three routes, the 10, 11 and 12 — those most closely aligned with the G Line corridor — when combined with the new G Line, have seen weekday ridership grow by over 80 percent!”

Transit riders are enjoying the fruits of a project that, by the time buses started running, was three years of construction plus nine years of planning in the making. The line cost $134 million including $60 million in federal funding and was Metro and SDOT’s most ambitious bus rapid transit project to date. It required an overhaul of Madison Avenue traffic patterns and the addition of dedicated bus lanes along most of the 2.5 mile route in order for buses to arrive every six minutes, as promised.

The duration and impact of the construction along the diagonal arterial brought some infamy to RapidRide G long before it turned one, made worse by a number of visible snafus: streets paved, torn up, repaved; orange metal plates at some stations that linger to this day (SDOT says they’ll be removed soon).

Lewis

Jordan Lewis, a Capitol Hill resident hoping to cash in on the buzz and the frustration, dressed up as an under construction RapidRide G line station for Halloween last year.

“The long, protracted construction process was the only thing that people along Madison talked about,” said Lewis. “It was such a topical thing.”

Lewis now rides the G downtown to work each day and considers the project worthwhile. But not everyone in the neighborhood does. After traffic alterations on Madison that streamline bus flow, many drivers find themselves in a Derek Zoolander-like predicament: they can’t turn left.

Some Capitol Hill businesses feel this has cut them off from their customers, hurting revenue. Continue reading →

‘That Gay Cribbage Guy’ — Club 29 brings Capitol Hill players together with ‘a very personal, family game’

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(Image: Club 29)

By Domenic Strazzabosco

On the third Wednesday of every month, in the back section of E Pike’s Elysian Capitol Hill Brewery, queer cribbage group Club 29 meets to play the centuries-old game. With roughly two dozen attendees, the players gather for a few hours in a round robin-style, many also enjoying a bite to eat or a draft beer from the local brewery.

Tim Maass founded the club almost three years ago after he noticed a friend from a gay dodgeball group posting about the table game on Instagram. He recalled thinking to himself, “Wait, other gay millennials play cribbage?” Maass then posted on social media, asking if others he knew played, and instantly got enough comments to coordinate a meetup. A friend offered space at their restaurant, Otter Bar & Burger in Eastlake, where the group originally formed.

Last fall, a TikTok featuring the group’s custom rainbow board quickly accumulated over 40 thousand views and culminated in another monthly Seattle meetup, as well as one in Tacoma and another in Everett. The Seattle locations now include Elysian Brewing and Baja Bistro in Beacon Hill on the first Tuesday.

Going on three years since his first Facebook post, Maass has only missed one meetup, and now considers the unofficial title “That Gay Cribbage Guy” to be the best he’s ever had. Continue reading →

Middle College High School comes to Capitol Hill

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(Image: Seattle Central)

By Matt Dowell

Families with high schoolers seeking a collegiate head start have an option back in the neighborhood for the start of the 2025-2026 school year. Middle College High School, which offers Seattle Public School system students a tuition-free college education as part of their four-year high school program, has relocated to Seattle Central’s campus after a year in Rainier Beach.

At Middle College High School, classes of around twenty students spend their 9th and 10th grade years earning high school credits. In their 11th and 12th grade years, they enroll in Seattle College’s Running Start program where they begin earning college credits and potentially an Associates Degree while they finish high school. Though any SPS student can attend MCHS, their primary aim is to “increase the college success of students that are the first in their families to attend college, those impacted by systemic racism and/or those impacted by poverty.” Continue reading →

With two Capitol Hill stylists ready to make their own space, Mac and Milo’s Barbershop opening on 15th Ave E

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Mac and Milo’s (Image: CHS)

By Domenic Strazzabosco

A duo of Capitol Hill hair stylists are ready to set out on their own after building careers in the beauty industry’s mix of chain salons and rented chairs.

Alyssa “Aly Mac” McCowan and Myles McGehee are now ready to open their own three-chair studio on 15th Ave E, aptly named Mac and Milo’s Barbershop.

“I knew I always wanted to get up to the Hill for my business,” McGehee tells CHS. “I wanted to be in a part of the city where people actually live, not just the place where they come in and out of for work.” Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Century Ballroom is now the Reverie Ballroom — Its bar? The Art Table

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(Image: Reverie Ballroom)

Raav (Image: Reverie Ballroom)

By Matt Dowell

A major facelift is underway inside the 117-year-old Odd Fellows Building south of Cal Anderson. This year, Hallie Kuperman stepped away from the building’s Century Ballroom and its accompanying bar-restaurant The Tin Table after 28 years of ownership.

Century is now called Reverie Ballroom and its new ownership has spent the summer renovating the building’s marvelous dance halls. But what happened to The Tin Table?

Sander Raav, nine-year bar manager there, has assumed ownership and plans to reopen under the name The Art Table this fall. Along with the name change, he’s got a few changes in the works. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill Community Post | Pedestrian hit by car at 13th & Cherry — Calling for witness information

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From a friend of the victim

On Thursday, August 7 around 4 p.m., a resident of Seattle’s Central District was struck by a vehicle in the crosswalk at the intersection of 13th Avenue and Cherry Street. The victim, an Asian man in his 40s, sustained serious injuries including a broken ankle that required surgery, a broken shoulder, and a head laceration. The driver stopped, exited the vehicle, and is believed to have called the ambulance that arrived on the scene, but at present the driver remains at-large with no information currently available from authorities. The victim is calling for any information from the community.

 

CAPITOL HILL COMMUNITY POSTS 
Have a Capitol Hill related issue people should know about? Anybody can post on CHS. Contact [email protected] to learn more.

 

The vehicle is described by the victim as a golden-ish, light brown car that approached Westbound on Cherry Street and did not stop as it drove through the crosswalk at 13th Avenue. The driver is described as a slender White male, approximately 5’10” and approximately 50-60 years old. Continue reading →

Sign of the (medieval) times — Capitol Hill’s old Canterbury Tavern to be split in twain

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Preliminary renderings of the planned overhaul — the developers warn the ideas are “placeholders” and the design could change

The Fredonia building (Image: Meriwether Partners)

By Matt Dowell

Do you long for the Capitol Hill of old? When Amazon was for books and knights and dragons ruled?

Sorry, but the old Canterbury is about to be split — in twain.

Meriwether Partners, owners of the 118-year-old, three-story, 12-unit Fredonia building on 15th and Mercer, plan a renovation of the ground floor’s old Canterbury space. They’ll divide its 5,000 square feet in two distinct commercial units.

“The old Canterbury/Meliora space is quite large for an in-city restaurant these days,” said Joel Aslanian from Meriwether.

Meliora, which replaced The Canterbury in 2023, was unable to fill seats and closed within a year. Searching for a replacement, Meriwether found a couple potential tenants but nothing panned out.

Meriwether hopes the overhaul of the legendary pub will match both the current economic realities of the neighborhood and the latest in commercial tenants’ desires. Continue reading →

Spruce Street School will bring its kindergarten and elementary kids to First Hill in $22M project on Madison

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Spruce Street has been educating Seattle city kids for decades (Image: Spruce Street School)

The school’s future Madison home (Image: Spruce Street School)

By Matt Dowell

The private Spruce Street School is building its future on First Hill in the midst of the neighborhood’s mix of hospitals, medical facilities, and high-rise apartment towers.

The $35,000-a-year school of about 110 K-5th graders purchased the building in 2019 for $15.15 million as part of a long term plan to make it their “forever home.” This summer, the school applied for a construction permit to begin a $7 million renovation of the Madison at Summit building, though they don’t plan to relocate from their current address at 914 Virginia Street on the edges of South Lake Union and downtown until 2028.

School officials declined to comment on the project.

“By 2035, Spruce Street School will be the highest quality, most financially accessible K–5 independent school of its kind in the Seattle area – able to admit children who would thrive in our educational program and community, regardless of their families’ ability to pay,” the school says of its future. “In addition, we will continue to be distinguished for our unique program and excellent teachers.”

The urban campus will include the 20,000-square-foot classroom building plus the building’s roof which is planned to be developed as an outdoor play area and a massive underground parking lot.

The permit states that work will occur on all three levels of the property, which is currently home to Salal Credit Union and ATI Physical Therapy, plus another school, Seattle Academy. Continue reading →

Pho for us? Pho 4 U is back at the base of Capitol Hill

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(Image: Pho 4 U)

With reporting by Toni Guy, CHS Summer Intern

Displaced by the economics of a growing Capitol Hill block and with a family lineage connecting it to some of the neighborhood’s earliest pho providers, Pho 4 U has returned to Pine in a new space just across from its previous home.

CHS reported here in early 2024 on the “unfortunate, but amicable” business changes that came to Pho 4 U’s former block as San Francisco-based real estate company Prado Group transformed its Pine facing edge after it acquired the property for $5 million. The changes marked the end for Machiavelli as well as its neighbors Pho 4 U and Lan Hand-Pulled Noodles. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill Community Post | After a hate crime runaround by SPD, here is why we need queer-led safety on Capitol Hill

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From Tim Marshall/Resident
On Friday, July 11th, 2025, around 6:40pm, I was about to cross a marked crosswalk on East Olive Way, heading home after a workout at a local gym. This is a notoriously busy crosswalk, and several cars blazed through the intersection before it was safe to cross. A dark-colored sedan approached as I stepped out and the sedan continued without pause, so I stepped back. I was annoyed, so I flipped off the driver. For reference, I am a 35-year old cisgender white man who is visibly queer. I would describe myself as an assertive pedestrian, one who routinely sees drivers ignore crosswalks, and feels empowered to communicate my urge for drivers to be cautious in my neighborhood. The driver returned the finger after driving for half a block. I was amused at the driver’s reaction, a man in his early 20s, and I performatively blew him a kiss. This is a rarer reaction of mine, and is intended to de-escalated a tense situation. I crossed the street alongside a queer couple in their 40s, assuming the event had passed. I passed CC Attle’s, a longstanding queer establishment on Boylston Ave, and continued walking south towards home. I passed a handful of bar goers and fellow pedestrians, fiddling with my phone.

 

CAPITOL HILL COMMUNITY POSTS 
Have a Capitol Hill related issue people should know about? Anybody can post on CHS. Contact [email protected] to learn more.

 

I made it three quarters down the block before I noticed the same dark colored sedan parked in front of me. The driver approached me sternly, eyes narrowed, asking me a question I could not hear over the music roaring through my headphones. I popped out one earbud, offering a placid ‘what?’ before he squared up in front of me and punched me between the eyes. I fell to the sidewalk, landing roughly on my right arm, and he continued to punch me and kick me in the front and back of my head, yelling “don’t you ever blow me another kiss, faggot”. After maybe 30 seconds of blows, he turned around and taunted “are you going to blow me another kiss, faggot?” I was stunned, shouted an expletive, and after threatening me again with clenched fists, I retreated, shouting “I’m sorry!” I quickly pulled myself to my feet. An Amazon driver cautiously approached, asking “are you okay?” Panicked, I blurted out “yeah!” and kept walking. I passed another woman who met my eyes and then sheepishly looked back to her phone. Continue reading →