Far from the crowds wandering the quad at the University of Washington is a Capitol Hill street that also blooms beautifully in spring.
21st Ave E — just north of Aloha and south of Prospect — is home to one of Capitol Hill’s best blooms of cherry blossoms. The old trees line a couple blocks and draw small crowds of their own to swirl feet through the pink and white drifts and take pictures. Continue reading
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Gen. Isaac I. Stevens died at the age of 44 leading Union troops at the Battle of Chantilly
For decades, families and staff at Stevens Elementary School have talked about hopes of detaching the North Capitol Hill school from a figure with a fading place in the state’s history and to give respect back to Duwamish and Indigenous Peoples.
Now, some 167 years after Isaac Ingalls Stevens finished his term as the Governor of the newly formed Washington Territory, organizers at the school feel 2024 is the year to finally make change.
“When people finally realize that their school and the name ‘Stevens’ is actually Isaac Stevens, and as kids learn in history about Isaac Stevens, they would question why they are named after this person,” Michelle Martine, a first grade teacher at the school, tells CHS. “There has always been a push to change the name, but it has never felt as right as it does right now.”
Martine said renaming has been a conversation with children and families who come through the school. A petition was launched earlier this month and currently has a total just under 100 signatures in favor of a proposed name change to Red Cedar Elementary.
The organizers spent much time, effort and thoughtfulness researching, listening to and learning from Indigenous Peoples to uncover the perfect name. Continue reading
A breezy and wet Saturday afternoon left more than 5,000 customers in the dark around northern Capitol Hill and Eastlake.
Seattle City Light said about 10,000 customers were out across the city as of just after 3 PM Saturday.
For the Capitol Hill area outage, the cause of the failure was still being investigated but Seattle City Light said crews had been dispatched for repairs and restoration.
SCL provided a service restoration estimate of 10 PM — though it’s not clear how the department generates its predictions without a cause already determined.
UPDATE: City Light says it has restored power to some for the Eastlake area outage and that it expects full restoration by around 7:15 PM. It is blaming a tree for the failure. One report described a tree falling on wires near the Colonnade park under I-5.
UPDATE x2: SCL says the outage has ended:
The outage on north Capitol Hill/Eastlake affecting approximated 2,800 customers has been restored. We thank our crews for their work and for your patience as we continue to restore power across our service area.
You can check for updates via mobile at seattle.gov/city-light/outages.
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District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth will be joined by officials from the mayor’s office and the Seattle Police Department at a community meeting next week on Capitol Hill to discuss ongoing efforts to address public safety concerns.
The Tuesday, February 20th meeting follows a session held last month in the Central District as Hollingsworth has pledged to host monthly community gatherings around the district to address concerns ranging from deadly gun violence and drug overdoses to day to day property crime and street safety.
“Most of the email we get in from our email box is public safety,” Hollingsworth told the Central District crowd last month as the first-term councilmember and her office staff fielded questions and concerns from attendees, tried to offer some information and solutions, and pledged to continue listening to the issues. Continue reading
North Capitol Hill’s Jubilee Women’s Center has reached a year of change. After celebrating the organization’s 40th anniversary last fall, 2024 is hoped to bring a new executive director to the nonprofit. The 18th Ave E center originally opened its doors in 1983 and is believed to be Seattle’s first transitional home that supports women healing from trauma, poverty, domestic violence and crises.
Elizabeth Richmond, development director and fundraising lead, spoke with CHS about the 40th year milestone and transition to a new leader. Although Richmond is new to Jubilee having joined the center in October, she is passionate about the organization’s mission.
“We really lean on our values, we really believe in empowering women,” Richmond told CHS, adding that Jubilee’s tagline has become, “rebuilding lives one extraordinary woman at a time.”
Jubilee is a two-year transitional housing program that offers resources and holistic services to assist residents with stabilization and self-sufficiency. When women first enter the program, the organization ensures that their basic needs are met, like establishing care for physical and mental health, case management to determine individual goals, resume and job search support, among others. Richmond said Jubilee has a strong base of supporters that go all the way back into the twentieth century, and she values the strong ethos of the Capitol Hill neighborhood giving back to the community. Continue reading
In an effort to bolster community resilience and preparedness, residents of Capitol Hill gathered for a neighborhood emergency drill Sunday organized by the North Capitol Hill Emergency Hub.
The event is part of volunteer-run efforts across the city trying to form a patchwork but still strong network of community plans and resources for how to keep neighborhoods safe and working when natural disasters and emergencies strike and people need to depend on each other.
The event, held in a Seventh Day Adventist Church’s parking lot at 13th and E Aloha, aimed to simulate the response to a major disaster when conventional communication channels might be down. Jessica Closson is the volunteer manager for the North Capitol Hill Hub.
“We are a group of neighbor volunteers who set up at our hub location and we practice how we would respond if there was a major disaster when all communications are down,” Closson said. “We have processes we are always trying to improve to make our response effective, so we practice and make sure we learn how to do the best job.” Continue reading
The Wishing Tree in happier days when CHS visited in 2016
(Image: CHS)
Jane Hamel, friend and “owner” of Capitol Hill’s wishing tree, woke up on a July night to crashing and chaos outside. The neighborhood landmark — an E Galer tree not far from the Volunteer and Interlaken Parks that held the wishes and hopes of the community and passersby — had been vandalized and the wishes, destroyed.
With the old wishing tree sign stolen and the wishing bench shattered, Hamel is now growing plans for the tree’s revival with new hopes powered by the community.
It has only been a few weeks without the wishing tree but it can feel longer when you think about why somebody would want to to do damage to something so simply good. Hamel doesn’t think that way.
“Instead of focusing on 20 minutes of bad behavior — I made some stupid decisions when I was 18 or 20 — I’d rather focus on the eight years we’ve had, so much love down there,” Hamel said.
“I want to let the community be more involved because it is their tree. It wouldn’t be here if all these individual people had not spent all that time,” Hamel said.
The community wants to be involved, too. Continue reading
(Image: O Maki Rolls + Teriyaki)
Delivery and takeout friendly sushi rolls and teriyaki are joining a cluster of North Capitol Hill restaurants.
Plans for a “togo” version of Greenwood-born O Maki Rolls + Teriyaki are taking shape for the 10th Ave E space formerly home to the last Capitol Hill stand of Amante Pizza, the one-time E Olive Way joint notorious for its obnoxiously flashing signage. Continue reading
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Residents were told to remain in their homes and stay inside during the long overnight search involving police officers in vehicles, on foot, and a K9 unit.
SPD says the suspect is a 58-year-old man. He was taken into custody after running and hiding from officers over the course of a two hour search starting around 10 PM:
Police from multiple precincts flooded the area to search for the suspect. Officers soon found the car in the 1100 block of 15th Avenue East, and saw the suspect get out and run in between two houses. Police contained the area and began searching for the man, who continued to run and hide on several properties. Just before midnight, officers tracked down the suspect and – after a brief negotiation – took him into custody.
King County Sheriff’s Guardian One helicopter unit was not staffed on the holiday weekend and was not available to help during the search. SPD borrowed thermal imaging equipment from Seattle Fire to help in the search, according to East Precinct radio updates.
Police said the suspect was to be booked into King County Jail on two counts of attempted homicide and one count of attempted burglary. Continue reading
North Capitol Hill’s freeway lid will complement Montlake’s, but not until 2030
By Ryan Packer
With work well underway in Montlake adding a new freeway lid that will also sit under a newly reconstructed Montlake Boulevard, the Washington State Department of Transportation is still progressing forward with its plan to complete what it calls the “Rest of the West” projects. Earlier this year, WSDOT announced that the schedule for completion of the segment of 520 over Portage Bay and the accompanying freeway lid at East Roanoke Street would be delayed by a year, with the opening date pushed from 2029 to 2030.
(Image: CHS)
When North Capitol Hill’s freeway lid is complete at the end of this decade, it will completely remake the street grid around E Roanoke Street, providing bike and pedestrian connectivity that just doesn’t exist now and stitching the city back together a little. 10th Ave E and Delmar Drive E will be joined together by an open space lid almost as large as Roanoke Park to the north of it. Pathways on either side of the central green space will allow people walking or rolling to take shortcuts across the lid. Continue reading
