Tag Archives: cal anderson

Capitol Hill Garage Sale Day 2025 is… next week

Posted on by
Reply

Sunday, August 17th will be a fun day in Cal Anderson Park and around the neighborhood as “Seattle’s longest running community-wide garage sale” returns. Yup, it is time for Capitol Hill Garage Sale Day:

The Capitol Hill Garage Sale returns Sunday, August 17th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Cal Anderson Park! This annual event is Seattle’s longest running community-wide garage sale and regularly features over 100 people selling their treasures in Cal Anderson Park in addition to many independent garage sales at homes across Capitol Hill.

Continue reading →

‘Your Voice Matters’ — Police Commission seeks ‘community members impacted’ by Seattle Police crackdown on Cal Anderson May 24 protest

Posted on by
3

The Seattle Community Police Commission is seeking accounts of the experiences of demonstrators and park-goers caught up in the SPD response to protests against an anti-trans and reproductive rights Christian rally in Cal Anderson in May.

“Your experience can help inform our work and ensure community perspectives are part of upcoming reviews and policy recommendations,” the flyer being sent to LGBTQ community groups reads.

The Saturday, May 24th Christian rally ended with police moving on demonstrators protesting the event from On Fire Ministries, a Spokane-based religious group that has grown under Christian fundamentalist pastor and former state representative Matt Shea and is supported by anti-LGBTQ religious activist Sean Feucht. There were multiple arrests but no significant charges made against demonstrators. Continue reading →

Mayor proposes adding SPD surveillance cameras around Pike/Pine, Garfield High School

Posted on by
15

Harrell last week in Seattle’s Real Time Crime Center (Image: City of Seattle)

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell is proposing legislation that would bring Seattle Police Department surveillance cameras to Capitol Hill’s Pike/Pine nightlife district.

CHS first reported on the plan in December as Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess included the proposal during a public safety meeting with the neighborhood’s business community sparked by ongoing challenges around street crime and drug use around the Broadway-Pike/Pine core and Cal Anderson Park.

Last week in a press conference to tout the success of SPD’s Real Time Crime Center, Harrell’s office said the mayor backs an expansion of a pilot program that already has cameras along Aurora Ave, 3rd Ave, and in the International District to include areas around Cal Anderson and Pike/Pine.

The mayor’s office is also backing expansion of the 24×7 surveillance program to include the area around Garfield High School where the city and the district are spending thousands on security upgrades and community services to counter deadly gun violence that has marred the campus.

Garfield is also being considered for a pilot program beginning this fall that would pay for a Seattle Police School Engagement Officer on the campus.

The Harrell administration says it recently proposed legislation to the Seattle City Council that would expand “the geographic areas where City CCTV cameras can be installed, including public streets and sidewalks around Garfield and Nova High Schools, the Capitol Hill Nightlife District, and the SODO Stadium Area,” according to a statement from City Hall.

“The legislation also authorizes the RTCC to view and record SDOT traffic cameras at select intersections and along major arterial roads in the city,” the mayor’s office adds. Continue reading →

‘Let the people have rat’ — Work party restores Cal Anderson Park mural

Posted on by
19

A symbol of Capitol HIll’s “Hot Rat Summer” has been restored — partially — on the historic Cal Anderson Gatehouse.

Dedicated neighbors, artists, and two members of the Seattle City Council gathered on the hottest day of the year so far to restore the surprisingly radiant rat mosaic after the city painted over it in what some are calling a bureaucratic blunder and others see as an act of erasure.

“It’s such a beautiful mural that’s taken so many hours,” said Bug, a Vegas transplant new to the city, who showed up solo to help uncover the piece. “Just to cover it up, like, out of spite? It didn’t make sense to me. Especially in a city that’s so filled with art.”

Bug, who said they first saw the mural on Instagram and later learned it had been painted over through Reddit, wasn’t the only one moved to act. Other dedicated mural appreciators were there. “I just came and did it on my own,” Bug said. “This is the second time I showed up to uncover it.”

The mosaic mural was painted on the side of the landmarked Seattle Public Utilities Gatehouse building above Cal Anderson’s reflecting pool. It has became a source of neighborhood pride in the spunky expression of a neighborhood dedicated to having a good time despite any hard times and challenges. That made it all the more surprising when city crews painted over it.

Seattle City Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth and Alexis Mercedes Rinck joined residents Wednesday to help gently scrub the white paint off the rat. Continue reading →

2025 sit in a park watching free music, dancing, and movies season is underway around Capitol Hill

Posted on by
1

This weekend brings the 2025 edition of the now two-day Capitol Hill Block Party music festival to the streets of Pike/Pine. Its arrival marks a different sort of fun in the sun milestone on Capitol Hill. Free music and movies season is in full swing. Plus, if you want a free block party, you can head up the Hill for the 15th Ave E Patio Party Saturday noon to 5 PM:

Enjoy the summer weather with a DJ, local food, lawn games, a patio lounge, and a beer/wine garden. Meet our neighborhood merchants, and enjoy all that 15th has to offer!

Here is the rest of the summer freebie schedule around Capitol Hill.

Center City Cinema at Cal Anderson Park
Movies start at 6:30 PM

  • July 18: “Shrek”

  • July 25: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”

Continue reading →

2025 Capitol Hill Pride Weekend: Trans Pride in Volunteer Park, PrideFest on Broadway

Posted on by
Reply

This weekend, there will be Pride celebrations across Capitol Hill even as challenges in Seattle, across the nation, and around the world cast their shadows. Two major celebrations will lead the way as Friday’s Trans Pride Seattle rally and party again fills Volunteer Park and Saturday’s PrideFest Capitol Hill spans five blocks of Broadway, Denny, and Cal Anderson Park. Both events are free to attend.

  • FRIDAY — TRANS PRIDE SEATTLE — 5 – 10 PM VOLUNTEER PARK: Friday’s event runs from 5 to 10 PM and will fill the Volunteer Park amphitheater stage with speakers and performers: Now in our twelfth year, Trans Pride Seattle stands as a radiant testament, honoring and carrying the torch of our Transcestors who originated Pride as a means of both resistance and cultural communion. We gather here in celebration of Trans life. To be Trans is to be powerful. In each of us is the power that comes from dreaming, from forging new paths, from becoming. We are not bound by the limitations of what is, but illuminated by the infinite possibilities of what we can create. What profound gifts we bring to this world. Our celebration is survival and our survival is celebration. We gather here in vibrant defiance of the violence, dehumanization, and political attacks on our lives. We gather because we dare to imagine—and demand—a world where all people can live truly, safely, and freely. Trans Pride is not just a festival. It is a declaration: We are divine. We are powerful. We are the past, the present, and the future. We are unstoppable. More: transprideseattle.org Continue reading →

Dodgeball DJ — How music and community helped Dan Gregory heal

Posted on by
4

Five years ago, Dan Gregory’s life changed forever when he was shot by the brother of an SPD officer during the 2020 protests on Capitol Hill. The trauma left deep scars, both physically and mentally, but through music, DJing, and an unexpected Capitol Hill community on the dodgeball court, he found a lifeline.

“Music Saved My Life”
For Gregory, DJing is survival.

“If it wasn’t for music and having an outlet, I probably would have offed myself,” he admits. “That was a lot to go through, and I’d still do it all over again if I had to, but music is how I process my emotions.”

Under the moniker DJ Danny G (formerly DJ oohchillem), Gregory has turned his pain into a magnetic force, curating sets that bring people together at everything from bus stop pop-up jams, homeless camps, or local taco stands.

Today, he brings music to the busy courts of Cal Anderson just blocks away from 11th and Pine and the center of where CHOP formed five years ago this month.

“I love how music can change an environment,” he says. “People come in stressed, and then the right song comes on, and suddenly everyone’s singing along. That energy is everything.” Continue reading →

No Kings, no arrests as 70,000 march from Cal Anderson Park

Posted on by
23

With reporting by Alex Garland

Crowds were measured by the mile Saturday as demonstrators marched from Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park in Seattle’s contribution to a weekend of “No Kings” protests across the nation.

Officials estimated more than 70,000 here stretched across one and a half miles of city streets Saturday afternoon as the demonstration flooded out of Cal Anderson onto E Pine and into the city headed for the Seattle Center.

it was one of the largest gatherings in the state since a sea of people stretched miles from Cal Anderson for the Women’s March in 2018.

Seattle officials were ecstatic to announce there had been no arrests.

The protest comes five years after the Black Lives Matter protests and the formation of the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone that filled the area around Cal Anderson in June 2020.

Meanwhile, twelve miles away in Tukwila, police and “an ICE Special Response Team” fired painful pepper spray balls at demonstrators seeking to disrupt an “Intensive Supervision Appearance Program” check-in. Continue reading →

‘No Kings’ protests planned for Seattle include rally in Cal Anderson Park amid heated clashes over federal immigration enforcement — UPDATE: Wednesday night bulletin

Posted on by
61

UPDATE: Hundreds filled Cal Anderson Wednesday night in a protest against ICE and the Trump administration. The demonstrators marched to the downtown federal building where the protest continued into the night (Image: Alex Garland/CHS)

Cal Anderson’s place as a gathering space for free speech and defiance against the Trump administration in Seattle will be on display this weekend as “No Kings” protests are planned across the country Saturday.

Crowds and energy will be split in the city. Many groups and organizations are planning a Saturday noontime rally in the Capitol Hill park before a march to the Seattle Center. Other groups have centered on the University of Washington for their demonstrations.

UPDATE 5:00 PM: SPD’s East Precinct Crime Prevention Coordinator has issued a bulletin to businesses and community groups about protest activities expected in the area Wednesday night. “It is likely unaffiliated small groups intent on committing violence and/or property damage will attempt to embed themselves un this rally,” the SPD bulletin reads. We have posted the full statement at the end of this report. UPDATE x2: East Precinct Captain Jung Trinh has clarified that the bulletin was issued by the city’s Office of Economic Development, not the precinct.

Continue reading →

Seattle Office of Inspector General announces Cal Anderson ‘May 24’ review

Posted on by
3

The Seattle Office of Inspector General has announced it is conducting a review of the Seattle Police Department’s attempted crowd control actions and arrests against protesters in Cal Anderson Park demonstrating against an anti-trans Christian group’s rally in May.

Issues beyond policing like why the group was issued a permit in the first place for the May 24th concert and rally in the popular Capitol Hill park could also be part of the investigation conducted by the OIG component of Seattle’s police oversight system.

“The review will also include examination of broader City functions that may have contributed to the negative outcomes,” the announcement reads. Continue reading →