If you are the type who wishes every day was Hilloween, it’s time to get excited. Sunday marks the start of costume and candy season on Capitol Hill with the annual Halloween Pet Parade in Volunteer Park:
Now, we just need Wednesdays. Capitol Hill’s Seattle Asian Art Museum has announced it is adding Thursday openings to its schedule making the Volunteer Park culture and art facility available for public visits four days a week.
The new schedule will begin Thursday, October 5th, SAAM says with the museum open Thursdays through Sundays for visitors. 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 →
A community group dedicated to helping Capitol Hill neighbors organize in the event of a major catastrophe will hold an emergency drill Sunday afternoon and is looking for volunteers.
The North Capitol Hill Emergency Communication Hub is part of a network of volunteer-run efforts around Seattle dedicated to emergency preparedness.
Sunday, the group will gather in the parking lot of the Seventh Day Adventist Church at 13th and Aloha to practice and spread the word about being ready for emergencies. Continue reading →
Seattle Fire investigators say a string of recent arson incidents includes an intentionally set fire in the garbage cans and dumpsters outside a Capitol Hill apartment building across from Volunteer Park.
The Monday, July 17th fire outside the Parkridge Apartments brought a Seattle Fire response just before 10:30 PM. There were no reported injuries and the flames did not spread to any adjacent structures. The Seattle Fire Marshal determined the fire had been intentionally set.
SFD says the fire was part of a string of suspicious fires across the International District, First Hill, and Capitol Hill that week in which fires were set to debris and in stairwells outside buildings. SFD also responded to a major two-alarm fire in a boarded-up First Hill apartment building on July 13th but the cause of that blaze could not be determined. Firefighters also battled another two-alarm fire on July 20th in the 1000 block of King St.
“The Seattle Fire Department’s fire investigators continue to work closely with the Seattle Police Department’s Arson and Bomb Squad to share information regarding the ongoing investigations,” SFD said about the arson string.
The department also posted tips for property owners to help “reduce the chance of an arson fire at your home or business.”
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When the Duwamish called it Whulshootseed — crossing over — woodland creatures were commonplace. In 2023, it’s a little more special to see a doe and a yearling on Capitol Hill.
Thanks to the neighborhood tipsters for the report on the two deer seen enjoying Volunteer Park. It isn’t clear when they arrived or for how long they are going to stay but they seem healthy and happy so far. One report says deer had been recently been spotted around I-5 so the leafy park seems like a much better alternative.
Seattle Parks said it doesn’t have any issues with the visitors. Continue reading →
Another Capitol Hill Pride has come and gone but let’s soak up a little more of the celebratory vibes and causes of June 2023 in the neighborhood’s annual festivities and rallies. Here is what it looked like on Broadway. And here is it what looked like in Volunteer Park as the Seattle Dyke March started on its path to a new era for the annual event.
CHS reported on the changes for the Dyke March as organizers looked to a new focus for the event beyond the annual march while also hoping to establish a new home for the gathering. Continue reading →
Ten years after the firstTrans Pride Seattle marched into Cal Anderson Park, veterans from that June night in 2013 and first-timers joined hundreds of people in Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park to represent the strength of the city’s TwoSpirit, Trans and Gender Diverse community and allies.
“For 10 years, we’ve never let anything stop us from celebrating Trans joy, life, and love—and this year is no different!,” the organizers at the Gender Justice League wrote. “In a year of 450+ proposed anti-trans bills, spaces like Trans Pride Seattle are more important than ever. TPS continues to honor and carry the torch of our transcestors who created Pride as a means of cultural communion and social dissent.” Continue reading →
Capitol Hill Pride weekend tradition the Seattle Dyke March is moving off Broadway into Volunteer Park to distance itself from the Seattle Police Department and to set a new course for its future role in the city’s LGBTQIA+ celebration.
“The Seattle police have a very, very long, long history of corruption,” organizer Jill Mullins tells CHS. “They don’t make a lot of people in the community feel safe.”
The Saturday, June 24 march will now begin in the park and pass along 13th Ave E, 14th Ave E, and E Mercer.
Organizers at Seattle Dyke March, the group that puts on the march and other LGBTQ+ community events, changed their rallying point of nearly 30 years for a mix of logistical reasons rooted around avoiding police involvement. Continue reading →
At the Burke (Image: Capitol Hill Cooperative Preschool)
There’s an alumni party coming up on Capitol Hill for generations of Seattle city kids.
After 70 years of helping little ones grow up into Seattle big kids, Capitol Hill Cooperative Preschool is closing its doors at the end of this school year due to low enrollment numbers. Its closure will be a challenge for some families but it is also a sign that things have changed when it comes to early childhood education in Seattle. Some of the older models like Seattle’s one-time robust community of co-op preschools are falling by the wayside.
“We are not alone in this struggle, as several other co-ops in the greater Seattle area are unfortunately closing for similar reasons,” Shannon King, CHCP chair said.
King says low enrollment numbers “have made it challenging for CHCP to continue operating.”
Those involved with the 10th Ave E school that shares a building with the Harbor Anglican Church just a short walk from Volunteer Park say the expansion of the Seattle Preschool Program through Seattle Public Schools and other community-based providers along with the expansion of Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program and Head Start has drastically increased childhood care and learning opportunities.
But they say families might also miss out on the co-op experience. The cooperative preschools model allows for kids to learn social, emotional and intellectual skills and for parents to improve their parenting skills, be involved in their children’s education, and form a community, co-op families say.
“It’s a great way to form a community really early on in your child’s life and receive a lot of support for the teachers and the parent educators,” teacher Elizabeth de Forest said. Continue reading →
If you are the type who wishes every day was Hilloween, it’s time to get excited. Sunday marks the start of costume and candy season on Capitol Hill with the annual Halloween Pet Parade in Volunteer Park:
