Here are the top stories from this week in CHS history:
2023
Customers: Capitol Hill Bartell Drugs store set to join wave of closures — UPDATE
Author Archives: CHS Staff
Art notes: Mister Michelle moves in on E Pike, maps return to Capitol Hill Art Walk
(Image: Mister Michelle)
There is a new art space in the heart of Pike/Pine. Meanwhile, thanks to a small bit of city funding from the Capitol Hill Arts District, Thursday’s November edition of the Capitol Hill Art Walk will feature the return of a vital feature for any art walk — paper maps!
Art walk coordinator Laurie Kearney says there will be a limited number of maps available for pick up at venues for the November walk — and more at future walks.
You can find an online map and listings of November highlights at capitolhillartwalk.com.
For a new venue to check out, artist Mister Michelle has opened a studio inside the 112-year-old 1100 E Pike building: Continue reading
Capitol Hill’s Pedersen is new Majority Leader in the Washington State Senate
Capitol Hill’s Sen. Jamie Pedersen (D-Seattle) will be the new Majority Leader in the Washington State Senate.
State Democrats elected Pedersen to the post Monday. Pedersen joined the Senate representing the 43rd District including Capitol Hill in 2013. He was first elected to the State House of Representatives in 2006.
Pedersen is set to lead a Democratic caucus that is positioned to gain another seat from November’s election. Continue reading
It seems like the Capitol Hill Christmas Dive Bar comes earlier and earlier every year
Friday night, Capitol Hill’s Christmas Dive Bar reopened its pretty paper-wrapped doors:
Joey Burgess and Murf Hall of Burgess/Hall, husbands, business partners, and owners of many of Capitol Hill’s most recognized businesses, including Elliott Bay Book Co., Oddfellows/Little Oddfellows, Queer/Bar, and Cuff Complex, dreamed up the idea for their pop-up dive bar and together brought their vision to life.
“Welcome back to your second home for the holidays where every square inch is a sensory explosion into the Christmas spirit,” said Murf Hall, co-owner of Burgess/Hall and huge Christmas buff. “ Continue reading
Seattle considers more design review changes that could cap number of meetings, create quicker, cheaper process, and let more buildings go without review
The most recent new major development to open on Capitol Hill, the Capitol Hilltop Apartments hit a design review bump in 2020 (Image: Studio Meng Strazzara)
Seattle is continuing efforts to simplify its design review program while trying to maintain opportunities for community members to help shape buildings rising around the city. Changes in state law now have city officials looking at a new round of updates that need to be in place by next summer.
The Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections is collecting feedback on proposed reforms to the program that could include changes that would please developers and affordability advocates who say the process is too slow, too unpredictable, and too expensive.
The city says it is considering a roster of updates including “limiting projects to only one public meeting, streamlining the Design Review process to be quicker and less costly for applicants, and reducing the number of projects that are required to go through Design Review.”
You can take a survey on the process and possible changes here.
The current basic framework of the design review program is required for most new larger buildings and includes public notice with the ability for neighborhoods to comment on the appearance of new buildings, and City of Seattle Staff and volunteer Design Review Boards who review new buildings to make sure they meet design guidelines. Continue reading
This week in CHS history | Hollingsworth wins, Bartell Drugs closes, Barca says goodbye, The Woo! Girl of Capitol Hill
Here are the top stories from this week in CHS history:
2023
Customers: Capitol Hill Bartell Drugs store set to join wave of closures — UPDATE
What people on Capitol Hill said when CHS asked about the election
With reporting and photos by Alex Garland
Morgan – I’m shocked. I thought most people had understood the choices more clearly, and that that people maybe in public spaces weren’t comfortable, but in their hearts, they knew that here’s something more important to be chosen here. So I’m I’m sort of dazed and confused after this. Valencia – I’m disillusioned and sad. Felt like we’re headed to hell in a hand basket. I mean, I’m sorry for lack of better words. It just, I don’t know. I just, I kind of agree with Morgan. I really, kind of felt like people really knew the stakes. And I thought that women especially, and you know, men, women that raised them, and you know what? I mean, they have sisters, they have moms, they have, I mean, all of that, but they just would know that this what the right thing was. And it just, I’m just bewildered to talk. I can’t believe it. It’s, I mean, at the same time, it’s like, I’m not surprised, but I still am really surprised, because I really had a hope that we were going to do the right thing.
There are many ways to try to explain this week’s election results and the victory of Donald Trump. Geopolitical trends. Inflation. Turnout.
How to explain what we are all feeling is something else. CHS spent some time after Election Day talking with people out and about on the Hill about what happened Tuesday and how they feel about it. Many weren’t ready to talk. Some were mad. Some cried. Some crowed.
There have been reports of MAGA supporters making a show of their happiness with strange actions like walking into Capitol Hill coffee shops and loudly announcing the election’s results. Or the video of the guy driving around a mostly empty Capitol Hill yelling with glee that Donald Trump is “your president.”
CHS didn’t find anybody like that in our interviews. But we did find a few neighbors ready to say what they are feeling. The rest of us are still sorting it out. Hopefully you find some connection — and, maybe, some answers — in their words.
Nancy – Not great. Not good. I think it’s different, because it’s not so much that it’s a surprise anymore, but it’s still. It is almost more hurtful to know that people are choosing to elect the same person after everything that he accomplished in his four years and everything that he has threatened to do over the last four years, I also was so much more excited about the candidate than I was in 2016 I was actually really excited about the platform that the Democrats were running on. I think there’s more at risk because of the things he accomplished in 2016 like abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and everything that he has threatened to do and done, the fact that we are choosing to go back to that it is like getting pushed down when you’re already down. It was already unbelievable to me as that he was running again, especially because he’s a convicted felon. I think it just speaks to the level of dissatisfaction that people feel as Americans, I think that obviously Trump is not the answer, but for the people that are hurting and that they’re experiencing poverty and they’re experiencing crisis, he has manipulated them to believe that he is the answer and that he is looking out for the common American person. Obviously, we know he isn’t, but I think it just speaks to the level of crisis and despair that people are experiencing, and the level of manipulation that he has achieved with Americans, especially white Americans and white men.
No light rail this weekend between Capitol Hill and SoDo as work continues to finally open Sound Transit’s 2 Line in 2025
(Image: Sound Transit)
It has been the longest of public transit waits for Sound Transit to finally fully open its 2 Line connecting Seattle to the Eastside. This weekend will bring another round of work to prepare to connect the lines:
In order to perform work connecting East Link to the existing 1 Line, Link light rail will be temporarily suspended between Capitol Hill and SODO stations from 10 p.m. Friday, November 8 through the end of service Sunday, November 10. Normal operations will resume at the start of service Monday, November 11. During this time, crews will be commissioning a new signal house and communications system that will enable the connection of the 1 and 2 lines. Sound Transit will provide Link Shuttle buses to transport passengers. The buses will run approximately every 10-15 minutes and stop at all stations between Capitol Hill and SODO. Passengers traveling southbound from Capitol Hill station will have to get off the train and take the shuttle, reconnecting at SODO station if they are continuing to travel south. The same will be true for passengers heading north through SODO station. Link trains will be running approximately every 15 minutes between SODO and Angle Lake and between Lynnwood and Capitol Hill.
Good vibrations? WSDOT says construction underway for seven-year 520 Portage Bay Bridge and Roanoke Lid project
Design concept for a new bridge over Portage Bay
Just as the Montlake Lid project is laying down its final layers of landscaping bark, the Washington Department of Transportation says construction began this week for SR-520’s Roanoke Lid and Portage Bay Bridge project:
Beginning the week of Nov. 4, crews will start piledriving in Portage Bay to build the temporary work trestle and future westbound Portage Bay bridge. A work trestle is essentially a temporary platform that crews need to build so they can construct the permanent bridge. This will be the first of six piledriving “seasons” allowed on this project. Each season lasts from September through April. This first season – from November 2024 through April 2025 – will be the most significant season of impact piledriving work. The following seasons will have less piledriving – and some seasons may not drive piles at all.
The bridge work is a long process. The state says crews will use two methods to install or “drive” the piles. The first method uses a vibratory hammer to “vibrate” the piles into the bottom of the bay. The second method uses an impact hammer to strike the piles like a hammer into the base of the bay: Continue reading
Student demonstrators holding election ’emergency rally’ in Cal Anderson
A student-led demonstration planned before Election Night’s surprisingly convincing Donald Trump victory will rally in Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park Wednesday night.
Organizers from University of Washington Students for a Democratic Society and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization announced the demonstration Tuesday.
Wednesday as Kamala Harris conceded, the organizers said protest groups would meet Wednesday in the Capitol Hill park to “chant, mourn, and hear speeches about the political situation and upcoming period of instability.”
Organizers are planning for students to gather in the University of Washington quad before joining others on Capitol Hill. The rally in Cal Anderson is scheduled to begin at 6 PM.
Wednesday’s planned demonstration follows Election Night arrests on Capitol Hill as a small group of black bloc protesters marched on the East Precinct and were vandalizing and spray painting graffiti in areas of Cal Anderson and on nearby buildings. SPD was quick to move in on the group, making multiple arrests and breaking up the march within an hour of its start.
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