Another issue to listen to the Garfield kids about: ‘one lunch’

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(Image: @ezells_chicken/@

Students at Garfield High School have more on their minds than the potential restoration of a campus cop program.

They’re thinking about lunch and the daily midday rush of gathering with your besties for 30 minutes of downtime and brain fuel.

Monday, Garfield kids will be part of a district-wide protest of a decision this school year that has ripped some of that friend time apart. It’s about more than running across the street to the infamously busy lunch line at Ezell’s.

“Seattle Public Schools sent an e-mail to families about the new two lunch schedule,” an update from the @onelunchsps social media account about the planned Monday lunchtime protest reads. “It ignores everything students have been saying.” Continue reading →

911 | SFD handles smoky Richmark Label dumpster fire

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Thanks to a CHS reader for the picture of the fire scene

See something others should know about? Email CHS or call/txt/Signal (206) 399-5959. You can view recent CHS 911 coverage here. Hear sirens and wondering what’s going on? Check out reports from @jseattle or join and check in with neighbors in the CHS Facebook Group.

  • Dumpster fire: Seattle Fire responded to a smoky dumpster fire near Cal Anderson Park Sunday morning before the flames could spread to the adjacent Richmark Label factory at 12th and Pine. Firefighters arrived at the fire in the dumpster in the Richmark parking lot off 11th Ave around 8:20 AM and quickly knocked down the flames but not before smoke filled the area. There were no reported injuries and damage was limited. We’re checking with SFD for what caused the fire. Continue reading →

Pikes/Pines | The gall of it all — These strange, beautifully weird growths make benign houses for Capitol Hill gallformers

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A previous year’s gall on a Thimbleberry cane. The holes are where the occupants left when the gall matured. (Image: Brendan McGarry)

Do you ever go outside to get something from your vegetable garden and stand up a half an hour later in a haze of naturalistic wonder? My partner calls it distracto-boy, and suggests I have ADD — which may be a good moniker and a not impossible diagnosis. Mostly I just think I have (a largely) undivided attention for nature.

My most recent spiral was initiated by several large bumps on the stems of the Thimbleberries, Rubus parviflorus, I planted in our yard a few years ago.

Despite trying to train myself to not lose my mind whenever I see a blemish on anything I’m growing (because mostly this is just a good sign that a plant is being used by other species around it), I couldn’t help but feel an initial bit of horror. I knew these bumps were galls, but I didn’t know if this was a death knell for the Thimbleberries I’d been lovingly watching grow over the past three years. Continue reading →

This week in CHS history | Capitol Hill golf club arrest, RapidRide G arrives, vax cards in 2021

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Wingate marches in a 2015 rally (Image: CHS)

Here are the top stories from this week in CHS history:

2024

 

SODA and SOAP — Seattle City Council approves return of exclusion zones including new Capitol Hill ‘Stay out of Drug Area’


Continue reading →

Mintish Coffee House brings Palestinian heritage and community connection to Capitol Hill

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Brothers Nano and Mahmoud Farajallah and friend Abdullah Alabed

Capitol Hill has a new gathering spot. Mintish, a Levantine-inspired coffee shop on Harvard Ave E, represents both a business venture and a cultural bridge for brothers Mahmoud and Nano Farajallah and friend and business partner Abdullah Alabed.

The cafe is now open at 515 Harvard Ave E in a space that the owners transformed themselves from what was once the last vestige of legendary Capitol Hill hangout Bauhaus.

Mahmoud Farjallah, who was born in Seattle but raised in the Middle East, returned to Washington 12 years ago to study accounting at the University of Washington. His friend Alabed grew up in Jordan. Both are Palestinian-American, and their family story reflects the displacement many Palestinian families have experienced over generations. Nano was in Dubai during the interview with CHS.

“My dad was born in Gaza,” Mahmoud Farajallah explained during the shop’s soft opening week. “Unfortunately, I never went to Palestine, but it always grew up with me.” Continue reading →

Seattle’s Palestine Will Live Forever Festival comes to Volunteer Park

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After debuting last summer, Seattle music festival Palestine Will Live Forever is coming to Capitol Hill this weekend at the Volunteer Park Amphitheater.

Launched in 2024 by DJ Gabriel Teodros with an event in Seward Park, the second year of the benefit festival is scheduled to include appearances by Macklemore, Prometheus Brown, Fem Du Lit, and more. Continue reading →

Reminder: Speak now or forever* hold your peace on Seattle’s 20-year growth plan

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Friday brings a day of public comment and debate over a roster of 100 proposed amendments as Seattle finalizes a new growth plan hoped to more equitably distribute housing development across the city.

CHS reported here on the proposed plan and Seattle City Council amendments.

Friday’s council proceedings led by District 3 representative and comprehensive plan committee chair Joy Hollingsworth will include two sessions of public comment broken into remote and in-person periods: Continue reading →

Unicorn Staff Fire Relief Fund will help ‘artists, bartenders, security, kitchen crew, and management’ while repairs continue

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Capitol Hill’s much-loved circus bar the Unicorn remains closed and under repair following water and smoke damage from a fire in its neighboring building in July. A community fundraiser has been launched to support its workers:

The business is working to recover, but Unicorn remains closed as we restore the space. While the doors may be shut, the world continues to move forward, leaving so many without work. Drag artists, bartenders, security, kitchen staff, and management are all in limbo as the wait continues.

Continue reading →

In key vote, King County Council committee moves plan for $56M Broadway Crisis Care Center forward with promises on public safety and oversight

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The former Polyclinic facility

There will be no emergency pause in the legislative process around funding the planned $56 million Broadway Crisis Care Center. Officials Wednesday said time is already on the side of answering public safety concerns and putting important new resources in place before the center’s planned opening at Broadway and Union in 2027.

Questions about millions of dollars to be paid to a real estate firm intermediary in the sale agreement also need to be answered.

But there is urgency for people struggling with mental health in the city. “There are very few places in King County they can walk into. Because of this, they are suffering in our streets,” committee member and King County Executive candidate Girmay Zahilay said Wednesday before the votes.

Wednesday, the King County Council’s budget committee approved a raft of ordinances to set up the fund that will pay for the acquisition and operation of the new levy-powered mental health crisis center at Broadway and Union part of a planned $1.25 billion network of five facilities across the county.

The votes keep the process around the planned center on track as key deadlines arrive in the purchase agreement with UnitedHealth Group’s Optum subsidiary. The county’s Department of Community and Human Services said previously a purchase and sale agreement was put in place for the former Polyclinic facility in January with hopes of closing the deal by the end of summer.

CHS reported here on a call for a pause on the legislation from a group of area property owners and businesses.

Wednesday’s votes followed a public comment session dominated by the concerns raised by the group around public safety at the planned center near Seattle University and just a few blocks from the private Seattle Academy middle and high schools.

Questions were also raised about the project’s outreach process and a millions of dollar fee being paid to a real estate firm in the middle of the dealings. Continue reading →

The Central District’s latest historic landmark is a synagogue that became a church on E Fir

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(Image: Tolliver Temple Memorial C.O.G.I.C)

A Seattle City Council committee will start the final steps for E Fir’s 1929-built Tolliver Temple Church of God to become the Central District’s latest official landmark. The building was first used as a synagogue and later as a Christian church in the predominantly Black neighborhood, reflecting the changing communities in the Central District over the years.

The council’s neighborhoods committee is slated to take up legislation Thursday to finalize the landmarks board’s 2023 decision granting the old church protected status. Continue reading →