Author Archives: Lena Friedman -- CHS Intern

About Lena Friedman -- CHS Intern

Lena Friedman was born and raised in Capitol Hill and studies psychology at Whitman College. She covers news for Whitman’s student paper, The Wire, during the school year and enjoys singing a cappella, running a food instagram @sweetnseattle and reading memoirs during her free time. Find her on Twitter @LenaSFriedman or email her at [email protected].

Seattle Design Festival 2020 brings a ‘BEECON’ to 22nd Ave, new Black artist mural to Everyday Music

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In a summer of cancellation, design lives on in Seattle and across the Central District and Capitol Hill. With the start of the annual Seattle Design Festival this week, organizers took a step beyond moving things to a virtual gathering celebrating creativity and form by bringing elements of the festival to every part of the city — including 22nd and E Olive St which is set to buzz with a temporary “BEECON” installation.

Put on by architecture firms Design in Public and AIA Seattle, this year’s festivities will look quite different from the multi-exhibition, site specific setup of years past that attracted thousands of visitors.

“I’m actually really excited about how this has forced us into the communities in a dispersed way,” festival organizer Annalee Shum said, “but in a way that can potentially have a lot of meaning for our community members.”

Beginning on Saturday, local artists and organizers will unveil exhibitions across Seattle — including three around the Hill — alongside a host of virtual events centered around this year’s “About Time” theme, which “asks how design can help us all respond to the urgent issues facing our society — racism, poverty, public health, and environmental stress among them.”

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15 – SUNDAY, AUGUST 16: The “BEECON/BEACON” art installation will tackle the theme of time as it relates to the coronavirus crisis and Black Lives Matter protests of recent months. “The idea of a street installation was sort of our way of inviting people to pause in all of this and to create a moment of reflection or engagement or curiosity,” VIA Architecture’s Solaja Ratcliffe said. Continue reading →

Dining in the street may be the future of Capitol Hill food and drink — at least for the rest of Seattle summer

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Let’s trade parking for places to sit and enjoy some pizza (Image: Harry’s Bar)

As King County nears the two month mark of the so-called “Phase 2” of reopening and restrictions on indoor dining have tightened  — with seating limited to members of the same household and scaled back bar service — dining al fresco seems to be the best way to enjoy your favorite reopening restaurants. Unfortunately, many Capitol Hill and Central District restaurants and cafes don’t have outdoor space. To help, the city has begun a free, “streamlined” process of offering six-month outdoor café and street closure permits.

UPDATE: So far 27 Capitol Hill restaurants have applied for temporary outdoor café permits compared to just 8 Central District businesses, according to the Seattle Department of Transportation, and nine Capitol Hill businesses — and none in the Central District — have shown interest in street closure permits.

“[W]e are preparing to do targeted outreach to small businesses on specific streets in high priority areas to ensure this information is available and accessible,” SDOT’s Brian Hardison said. “To avoid perpetuating existing inequities in the neighborhood, we’re working to ensure that we meet the needs of both businesses and residents.”

Some smaller, fast-moving examples can be found along 15th Ave E. Olympia Pizza III and adjoined Harry’s Bar are some of the first Capitol Hill spots to start outdoor curbside dining.

Owner Harry Nicoloudakis said building the sturdily fenced-in island — also known as a “streatery” — was an easy decision. Continue reading →

A small program to help Capitol Hill and Central District businesses through COVID-19 has 150 applicants — and 20 grants to give

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Frame Central is taking appointments

The federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program officially ended on Saturday and — to give you a sense of how this is all going — progress on a new package of COVID-19 economic relief is stalled in the other Washington. In comparison to the trillions of dollars being debated in D.C., $2,500 isn’t much but a new relief fund from the GSBA for the Capitol Hill and Central District is hoped to bring some small measure of financial relief to a handful of shops, restaurants, and small businesses. And there is hope to grow the program to help more.

“Capitol Hill didn’t just have to deal with COVID and anything related to that but also the protests, the riots, teargas, CHOP — there were so many different layers that the business owners have to work through,” the GSBA’s Ilona Lohrey said.

GSBA, Washington’s LGBTQ and allied chamber of commerce, is launching this project using a $50,000 donation from Comcast. GSBA will divide the donation into 20 grants of $2,500, but Lohrey told CHS they hope to raise funds to double that number and provide 40 grants. The first round of grant-giving will focus on businesses in Capitol Hill and the Central District and, in particular, LGBTQ, BIPOC and women-owned businesses. Continue reading →

As Tigerly Ox heads north, new shave ice spot Kakigori Dessert Cafe moves in on E Madison

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Image: Kakigori Dessert Cafe

A new dessert spot has moved into Vietnamese eatery Tigerly Ox’s former home bordering Capitol Hill and the Central District at 22nd and E Madison.

Kakigori Dessert Cafe is now open and bringing Thai, Japanese and Korean fusion to E Madison with uniquely flavored sweet toasts and milk-based shave ice — like bestseller mango and sticky rice bingsu.

Owner Day Anujornrapan, who also runs Thai fusion restaurant Thai by Day in Edmonds with his family, saw the E Madison location as ideal for rolling out Kakigori’s creative dessert menu and says the pandemic heightened motivation to get the business up and running.

“I think life is too short and if you have a passion, do it — just follow your passion there,” he said. “That’s why I decided okay, this is my passion, I want to do it. I want to create a happiness to people.” Continue reading →

11th and Pine had a communal piano for a week — Now it’s gone

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As the City of Seattle looks to permanently incorporate some of the art and energy of CHOP in Cal Anderson, one element that appeared in the area after the protest camp faded has gone missing: a communal piano.

The piano, situated in front of the southeast entrance of Bobby Morris Playfield, was reportedly purchased for $22 from 11th and Pike’s Out of the Closet thrift store and then placed on the street corner for public use, according to local resident Teri McClain who first came across it on July 30.

“I bought a piano for the city and someone FIXED IT! A full 88 keys functioning on 11th and Pine,” the reported “owner” of the large musical instrument known as Sundae tweeted.

McClain told CHS she thinks the piano was a positive asset to the community, allowing her to connect with strangers and support them with pizza and chocolate as they played.  Continue reading →

RIP Nate’s and its family of good eats at 13th and Jeff

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Nate’s in happier times

Nate’s Wings & Waffles, Happy Grillmore, and the Central District Ice Cream Company — a trio of joints co-owned by Darren McGill that made 13th and Jefferson a busy spot for soul food and good eating — are permanently closing up shop as the COVID-19 crisis drags on, adding to the list of Capitol Hill and Central District businesses unable to recover amid the pandemic.

When the coronavirus hit and companies like Amazon and Redfin pulled out of office catering orders, the 13th and Jefferson sister restaurants could no longer stay afloat.

“it was like one thing after another,” McGill said. “It wasn’t just because of COVID — that was the main underlying cause but rent increase, food cost increase, everything was going up and then this happened and it was like the last straw.” Continue reading →

In effort to ‘memorialize CHOP’ and improve Cal Anderson, community talks gardens, art, and lighting

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(Image: CHS)

Following the central role Cal Anderson Park played in this summer’s Capitol Hill protest zone, Seattle Parks and Recreation is working with design firms to make some long term changes to the park — changes that could include a permanent home for protest art, a community garden program and a revival of CHOP’s “Conversation Cafe” in some form.

Wednesday night marked the first of a series of public meetings held by Seattle Parks in concert with DLR Group and HBB Landscape Architecture to narrow down how the park will change.

“The protests of the past couple months have required that we begin a conversation about how Cal Anderson can better service the community and more firmly speak to our values,” Andy Sheffer of Seattle Parks said at the zoom meeting. “The 2020 Cal Anderson project is about receiving ideas, developing ideas and piloting ideas for new programming elements.”

A second, daytime session is planned for Thursday starting at noon.

The project has a three part process with public meetings and surveys intermixed. While the first and current step is about “setting the stage and collecting ideas” according to Sheffer, September’s part two will focus on testing ‘the viability of ideas based on site constraints, opportunities and interests,” and October’s part three will revolve around “potential implementation of pilot projects and long term strategy around bigger action items.” Sheffer says Seattle Parks plans on designing and rolling out these pilot projects in late October or November.

In the hours after the July 1st police raid and sweep that cleared the protest camp and the area around the East Precinct, Mayor Jenny Durkan said she intended to “memorialize” CHOP with art and permanent features in Cal Anderson.

Although the City of Seattle is facing a $300 million budget deficit this year likely to continue into 2021 and the budgeting process for this project has yet to begin, Seattle Parks spokesperson Rachel Schulkin told CHS that Seattle Parks is “committed to making it work.”

Seattle Parks and the design consultants put forth three initiatives up for preliminary live polling at the meeting: a gardening program in line with the Black Star Farmers garden plots, retaining CHOP artwork, and forming a “conversation corner” reminiscent of CHOP’s “conversation cafe.”

Other things CHS heard at the meeting: Continue reading →

Reopening: Capitol Hill’s Office Nomads leads way in figuring out what COVID-era coworking means

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(Image: Office Nomads)

The new world of COVID-19 brings drastically changed landscapes for many Capitol Hill businesses. Born on Boylston 13 years ago, “Seattle’s original coworking community” Office Nomads has left its street behind and transitioned online after closing its office space at the end of July.

“The thread that binds all of our members is that they can work from anywhere,” Office Nomads co-owner and founder Susan Dorsch said. “All of our members prefer to work together and to work in a shared workspace, I do as well, but what we’re doing right now is not about preferences. What we’re doing right now is about safety.”

Office Nomads has long served as a hub for remote workers seeking a communal working environment — including students, entrepreneurs and freelancers — at its Boylston Ave spot. Since the business began in 2007, a burgeoning scene of coworking spaces has emerged on the Hill. But coworking’s day appears to have been a short one. COVID-19 has snuffed out thousands of jobs here and sent thousands more into a semi-permanent “working from home” lifestyle. Office space and social distancing just don’t mix. Continue reading →

Kaiser Permanente not pulling back on $400M Capitol Hill campus overhaul despite canceled headquarters project

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Kaiser Permanente is working on a $400M overhaul of its Capitol Hill campus planned to finish by 2022 even after the company announced its pullback on a $900M Oakland headquarters project.

Not-for-profit healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente began the process of renovating its 15th and John Capitol Hill facilities about two years ago. The campus, formerly known as Group Health, was acquired by the company back in 2017.

CHS spoke with Kaiser Permanente in the fall of 2018 about its plans for remodel, centering around improving out-patient medical care while not expanding the size of the facility. Continue reading →

Reopening: Live theater during a pandemic — Some turning to live-stream, others on pause

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1984 at 18th and Union (Image: 18th and Union Theater)

When the pandemic shuttered Seattle’s theaters and playhouses in March, the Central District’s 18th & Union was in the middle of an adaption of George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.” By the third week of production, it became clear the venue had to close.

“I think we were lucky that we at least got three solid weekends in before closing,” actor K. Brian Neel said. “I know a lot of theater artists who had to close shows right before opening or right towards the end of the rehearsal process and that would’ve been frustrating.”

According to state reopening guidelines, live entertainment falls under Phase 4 — the final stage — and King County has lingered in Phase 2 for over a month now. As cases rise across the county and Washington rolls back phased reopening, theater companies and accompanying venues are tasked with adapting live theater to an online format or staying closed indefinitely.

And for those planning to reopen in some capacity with live actors, performances will look markedly different.

Theaters reopening or not?
18th & Union is planning to live stream shows out of its space this fall with up to two cast members six feet apart. Producing director David Gassner says the venue has multiple shows — yet to be announced — lined up for September, and the studio is setting up with cameras and other necessary equipment.

“There won’t be any stage combat, there won’t be any kissing, there won’t be any touching — so we’re having to choose the kind of shows that we present knowing that those are the constraints,” Gassner said. Continue reading →