View by Time: |
Yup, within a five-minute bike ride of my Capitol Hill apartment, barred owls are in residence.
There is consternation and controversy regarding this species. According to the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society: The Barred Owl is non-native species to the West, including Western Washington. It has migrated across the continent into western U.S. forests from eastern states. Where the ranges of Barred Owls and Spotted Owls overlap, the Barred Owl has proven to be a more successful competitor that adversely impacts the Spotted Owl. Spotted Owl populations in Washington have been declining at a rate of 7.3% per year. On the Olympic... I always thought that you needed an ice cream maker to make ice cream. Not so! I’m not saying this recipe is a completely casual undertaking, given the daredevil feat of making a dark amber caramel. But once that's done, all you need are a pan and a fork and a bit of freezer space to produce a perfectly creamy scoop of Molly Moon's salted caramel ice cream at home. I remember a time, not so long ago, when it was more difficult to stumble across an ice cream shop on Capitol Hill. Hard to believe, maybe, now that they seem to be on every corner, but it’s true. I imagine that all of you began making your own ice cream at home in those dark days, as did I, and I see no reason to stop just because we now have so many excellent ice cream purveyors in the neighborhood. As everyone knows, there’s no such thing as too much ice cream. Luckily, just in time for summer, the new Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream cookbook makes this salted caramel recipe, and many others, available to home cooks on Capitol Hill and beyond. The book has all the classic and quirky flavors you've come to expect of Molly Moon’s. Scout mint? Check. Baby beet sorbet? Indeed. Honey lavender? Oh, yes. Salted Caramel Ice Cream 1/8 tsp. freshly-squeezed lemon juice
When the butter has melted, begin to add the cream and milk verrrry sloooowly. Seriously, slowly. The caramel will steam and bubble and some hard little caramel lumps may form. No worries, keep whisking, be patient, let them dissolve. When the mixture is smooth, remove it from the heat. Pour it into a shallow pan and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, at least an hour. Remove the cold creamy pan of deliciousness from the refrigerator and whisk in 1 Tb. (yes, 1 Tb.) kosher salt. Process in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions (I churned mine longer than a usual batch, about 35 minutes, because the salt makes this ice cream so soft). Or if you don’t have an ice cream maker (or if it’s busy churning another flavor already), leave the mixture in the pan and transfer the pan to the freezer. If you’re going the no-ice-cream maker route, stir the mixture thoroughly with a fork every half hour or so until the entire pan of ice cream is a uniform texture (at first it will freeze around the edges, then you will stir it up, then it will freeze around the edges again, etc.). When your ice cream is ready (it will still be quite soft), transfer it to a sealed freezer container and freeze at least four hours before serving. This ice cream never freezes very hard because of the salt content, so plan to serve and eat it quickly! Note 1: I thought that the saltiness of this ice cream was perfect. If you find the finished product too salty-tasting, however, serve it over a rich brownie or under a blanket of hot fudge. Now it’s perfect, right? Note 2: This magic no-ice-cream-maker method works better with this recipe than with others I’ve tried it with. Just a heads up in case you plan to use this method with other recipes: it always works, but usually the texture of ice cream made with the fork-and-pan system is icier/grainer than ice cream made with an ice cream maker. With this recipe, however, the results were indistinguishable. Capitol Hill Cooks is a home cooking recipe series featuring ingredients, ideas, and recipes from the neighborhood. Have a recipe you think we should share? Drop us a line at chs@capitolhillseattle.com. Em also writes about home cooking at emmycooks.com Previous Capitol Hill Cooks Posts Shawn- Broadway & Denny
Shawn had just returned from a backpacking trip through Turkey and Greece when I passed him on Broadway. You might see him on your next train ride down to Portland. He serves the drinks in bar car on the Seattle-Eugene route for Amtrak. More street style photos at www.itsmydarlin.com Here are the top posts from this week in 2011:
Here are details of a few issues the Seattle Fire Department and police tackled around Capitol Hill on Saturday. If you see an incident others should know about, send email to chs@capitolhillseattle.com, or call/txt CHS HQ at (206) 399-5959.
After a few false starts, Capitol Hill's first new dance club to open in years debuted Friday night to an enthusiastic crowd and with only a few reported hiccups. Is it hot in here or is it just me!?! It's me. Picture of the first Friday night at The Social and its little friend EVO Tapas Kitchen, below. The Social project is one of this year -- the Laura Olson-Chris Pardo-Alex Garcia-backed the Social and Broadway's Q Capitol Hill. This is how the Social's social media-savvy backers described their venture:
Early on, the Social gained some buzz for its plan to incorporate technology and social media into its experience. We don't know about the iPads but we noticed the club issuing drink coupons via its Facebook page. Kinda beats Groupon, no? The club has also walked a fine line around its positioning as a gay dance club. "Everyone is welcome at The Social!" Garcia told Seattle Gay Scene. "All people, gay or straight, will feel comfortable. We want it to be a place where everyone can come in with their friends and have a good time." We visited Todd Nordahl to talk about his food+drink component of the project here.
Thanks to CHS contributor Douglas McLaughlin for all of the pictures. His slideshow below will take you from an early evening at EVO into the night at the Social. This week, the crow learns that the "young" in "young republican" stands for "cupcake." What did you learn?
Do you have time to answer a few questions for CHS? Seriously?! I can just make something up? Country singer Toby Keith? You mean, like, ironically? Dunno… Somehow, I wouldn’t have pegged you as a Toby Keith fan. Wow. You don’t find a lot of Young Republicans working at cupcake shops on Capitol Hill. Good point. What are some of your favorite hangouts on The Hill? Okay, you don’t like the food. What about local bars, or cafes, or music venues? What do you like least about Capitol Hill? You have some strong opinions. What do you like best about working on the Hill?
Why did you pick this neighborhood? Has it lived up to your expectations? Do you have a favorite restaurant in your ‘hood? What do you think is the sexiest place on the Hill? What do you do for a living? That’s adorable.
Are you an artist yourself? I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that you go to Burning Man. Are you a Seattle native? What brought you here? What do you do for a living? This place is known for its beer selection. Are you a big connoisseur of the hops? Continuing Education in Beer is not a bad job perk. So I have to ask -- and I promise CHS readers this is the last time I’ll ever use this question -- Beers: Marry, Boff, Kill. Go! The hard-to-get aspect isn’t good for a marriage. Marry? A good quality in a beer-wife. Kill? When you’re not working, do you have any favorite haunts on the hill? What do you like best about working on Capitol Hill? Thanks to Suzi Pratt for the picture of Joseph! Previously from CHS Crow: The Seattle Art Museum has commissioned a new Capitol Hill mural on the side of The Stumbling Monk. We've seen what it will look like. It will look like a pretty cool ad for Seattle Art Museum. Weirdo's work is worth checking out. And, if you do, there's a big social media contest with a page or so of rules that you can enter to win tickets to SAM.
The Seattle barstool urban environment theory of Liz Dunn and her Melrose Market as catalyst for development and reshaping Capitol Hill might have something to it. Or maybe Dunn just went first. The early work to create a new 115-unit apartment building with 1,100 square feet of retail behind Melrose Market got started Friday at the base of Capitol Hill. With construction underway at Bellevue and Pine, and the process starting on the plan to develop Melrose and Pine, the 2010-born Melrose Market will be at the center of a rapidly changing lower Pike/Pine. Add to that mix the mixed-use 1519 Minor project the demolition is creating space for. The developers behind the seven-story mixed-use building planned to tower above PIllars dog park started filing paperwork on the project way back in 2005. With the economic ups and downs, a plan to "revitalize" the existing office building was scrapped and developer Gerding Elden moved forward with the project designed by Perkins Will architects. The project will have parking for 30 vehicles, a "green" roof and is targeting LEED Gold certification. Following demolition, expect construction of the new project to begin in about a month with at least a year of construction time to complete the dramatically colored building.
This Sunday, Capitol Hill-based contemporary jazz dance company 3rd Shift Dance presents Whacked! A Night of Killer Dance at Velocity Dance Center. An evening of brand spanking new dances featuring choreography by Alyza DelPan-Monley, April Torneby and Xaviera Vandermay including the world premier of Whacking Walt. 7pm Featuring 3SD, Fusion, and Electriq Dance. This all ages version is suitable for viewing for ages 10 and up. 9pm Featuring 3SD, DASS Dance, and Xclusive. For this ages 21 and up showing we will be launching our Cans for Cans program. Bring a can of food for Northwest Harvest and trade it for a can of PBR to sip on during the show!
Tickets available through Brown Paper Tickets. $5 advanced, $10 DOS exact change only
(Yes, there are multiple parks projects in the works for our area. However as Capitol Hill, already the densest neighborhood in the NW, continues to get denser, it would be wise to capture all the Green Spaces we can) For immediate release May 18, 2012 Contact: Karen O’Connor, 206-684-8020 Email: karen.o’connor@seattle.gov ...
(Yes, there are new parks in the works, but our area is the most dense in the NW, and getting denser, so we should capture as much open space as we can) 2012/2013 Parks and Green Spaces Levy Opportunity Fund For immediate release May 18, 2012 Contact: Karen O’Connor, 206-684-8020 Email: karen.o’connor@seattle.gov Proposal...
If you're well schooled on Capitol Hill history, you know these origin stories: David Denny began selling and leasing John Nagle's property along Broadway in 1880, and James Moore developed the Capitol Hill area near Volunteer Park after 1900. We're going to talk about the period in between, a piece of early streetcar history that has not been chronicled. A Ridge Too Far Before all of that civil engineering madness Seattle was Pioneer Square, surrounded by mudflats to the south, a rise culminating in Denny Hill to the north, and a ridge running from Brooklyn (University Bridge) all the way south to Orilla (I-5/405 interchange). Some smart landowners who had visited San Francisco decided to put a cable car up and over First Hill and Second Hill, and down the back side to Lake Washington -- the Lake Washington cable car on Yesler Way. 1887. Next over the ridge was the Madison Street cable car, up over the peak of the hill and again all the way to Lake Washington. 1890. Investors on James Street decided to try something different. They ran a very short cable car from Pioneer Square just up to Broadway. From there, several small streetcars headed to parks to the north (Broadway) and south (Beacon Hill) on the ridge, as well as out to beaches on Lake Washington (Madrona). They called the system the Union Trunk Line. It was paid for by Seattle investors for the growth of Seattle, and everything down to the wheels was built in Seattle. 1891.
The Photograph We're looking at the cable car portion of UTL on James Street. Notice how the ground below it is a wide wood road, and not just rails? The cable ran below that, pulling the car up towards the powerhouse at Broadway. The James cable was built from January to May 1891. A photo of this same car -- #12 Spokane -- just a few feet up the road with all of the same passengers in the same attire was printed in the October, 1891 edition of Street Railway Review. Definitely 1891. Besides the streetcar, two buildings are visible in this scene at the intersection of James and Broadway. Up on the right is the old powerhouse, which was destroyed in 1960 to create James Way, the curved connection between Broadway and 12th. You can step on over to Central District News to read an installment of CD Rewind about that. So we can skip that topic. On the left is Castlemount, one of the few named homes in Seattle's history. It was the first mansion on First Hill, in a peaceful setting that was pretty much ruined by the construction of the junction of Union Trunk Line's branches. Paul Dorpat already covered the house and it's owner, G. O. Haller in Now & Then Vol. 2, and has posted it to HistoryLink. So we can skip that topic, too.
The Broadway Branch We care about the north spur of the Union Trunk Line. Called the Broadway branch or Broadway line, it ran to City Park and the Masonic cemetery. You know them as Volunteer Park and Lake View Cemetery (discussed in this Re:Take). The streetcar ended at Lynn Street -- then known as Havens -- at the northern boundary of the City of Seattle. Capitol Hill was hardly settled at all, and more than a decade away from being called "Capitol Hill." In the 1890 directory, the Masonic cemetery is simply described as "East side Lake Union near north end Broadway." And it was still half-wild, as the Street Railway Review illustrates:
A 1954 Seattle Times article even related the tale that the conductors carried rifles to protect themselves from cougars. Union Trunk Line had a vision to change that sylvan image. Today the city is building a separated bikeway on Broadway. UTL wanted something much more dramatic, a streetcar boulevard:
It's not clear how much of the boulevard was actually built. But the article goes on to describe ornate brackets planned for the electric poles. You can see that they were actually installed: one of them is in the center of our picture, with "UTL" monogrammed on each side. Although David Denny had been busy leasing and then selling John Nagle's land along Broadway, there is little available evidence of any sort of community on Capitol Hill before the Union Trunk Line opened access. I'll Have My Name in Lights
There was a long list of men involved in the financing, construction and operation of the Union Trunk Line. Reviewing the Articles of Incorporation, the city franchise agreement, newspaper articles, and other sources reveals a confusing array which makes you wonder who was really running the show. The Street Railway Review helpfully focuses on the officers: E. F. Wittler, president; James D. Lowman, secretary and manager; Joseph F. McNaught, vp; R. R. Spencer, treasurer. Lowman was a nephew of Henry Yesler, and managed his affairs after 1886. This included a large property north of Roy Street along Broadway. Lowman and Yesler are also listed along with McNaught and Leigh S. J. Hunt as the four men who wrote loans to the Union Trunk Line to subsidize the creation of the Broadway branch. McNaught was a successful lawyer who was even more successful in real estate. Outside of his Seattle investments, he created the city of Anacortes and built and sold wheat farms on the Palouse. Hunt was the owner of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and later got rich (again) with a literal gold mine in Korea. While living in Germany he decided to get involved in large-scale cotton farming in Egypt. He made headlines by falsely claiming that Booker T. Washington was going to help settle workers with a "back to Africa" campaign. While we're on the subject of restless men with kooky stories, it would be a shame to not mention Ernest Hussey. Hussey was a consulting engineer in Seattle, who took the job of General Superintendent of the Union Trunk Line in 1892 when Andrew Jackson moved on. Hussey was born in 1865 on his father's merchant sailing ship off the mouth of the Saigon River in French Indochina. At the age of three he was shipwrecked with his father for six months in Brazil after their ship burned at sea. He spent his formative years in Yokohama, Japan and left for Boston a couple of years after the Satsuma Rebellion. In Massachusetts he apprenticed under several civil engineers, learning his trade on the job. All of these men were Seattle pioneers™. Through their investment and efforts, Broadway steadily developed and grew. In 1893's financial panic, though, many of them lost their Union Trunk Line holdings along with their fortunes. One of the men waiting to profit from their loss was Marcellus Harwood Young. Young Man, 'Cuz You're In a New Town His name does not appear in any known document from the creation of the Union Trunk Line. Suddenly, though, in 1893 he became president, taking that spot from Wittler. One clue is a 1907 lawsuit, which described him as the holder of Henry Yesler's loan to the Union Trunk Line, and explained that Lowman had sold much of Yesler's real estate holdings under financial pressure. Possibly Young acquired other control of UTL and stepped in to lead the company during the financial collapse. In 1899, UTL was one of the first companies to sell out to Seattle Electric Company. Jacob Furth methodically purchased every streetcar in Seattle for the national power and rail conglomerate Stone & Webster. UTL was one of only two SEC acquisitions to never enter bankruptcy, a testament to Young's leadership. Young stayed as one of the executives at SEC, and oversaw the rebuilding and partial dismantling of UTL. The rails were upgraded, and new cars put into service. SEC took advantage of the municipal regrade of Pike Street to run rails directly from downtown, up Pike and north on Broadway, alleviating the need for a transfer at the top of the James Cable. This discontinued streetcar service from James to Pike, commencing a century-long gap in rail connection between the two hills. The city bought out SEC in 1919, and streetcars disappeared from Broadway entirely in 1940. But let's save the Pike-Broadway streetcar story for another day.
Viking Ship Burial His daughter Josephine Young married Thomas Fransioli in 1901. They lived in a couple of apartments and then built a house in the north Broadway neighborhood (now Harvard-Belmont) when their first child was born. The birth of their second, Thomas, Jr., spurred them to hire a nanny and maid. They were living every young mom and dad's dream. It got even better. In 1909, Grandfather Young gave up on Beacon Hill. Maybe he wanted to spend more time with his grand kids now that he was retired. Maybe his old house was inaccessible after the destruction of the ridge to Beacon Hill during the Dearborn and Jackson regrades. Whatever the cause, he built a mansion a block away from his daughter at Broadway and Prospect. It's condominiums now. It's also on page 146 of Classic Houses of Seattle, written by Seattle Central's Caroline Swope.
Soon after moving to North Broadway Young crossed paths with Joseph Glasgow, a character from the very first CHS Re:Take, Hidden Stories of Love. In Bagley's History of Seattle, the pinnacle of Glasgow's career is described as the defense of one Peter Miller. Miller had been convicted of burglaries and murder in and around Seattle and Tacoma. Glasgow had all of the convictions overturned, arguing that Miller had confessed under duress. One of the homes burgled was Young's brand new mansion in June of 1909, during the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition. It was the first of Miller's crimes that resulted in conviction. Sadly, M. H. Young did not live to see Miller convicted of the burglary for the second time. Young died in January, 1913, and Miller was reconvicted in September, 1913. But Young died in marvelous fashion. Here was a man that led the Union Trunk Line for almost a decade, and himself lived on and commuted on the line for his entire time in Seattle. Even if he wasn't involved in its construction, he was pivotal to its success. So it is poetic the way that Young died. He spent the evening with his daughter Josephine Fransioli, playing cards at the home of his friend Howard Thomas at Broadway and Columbia. Around midnight they walked to Pike and boarded the streetcar for the ride home. He and Josephine chatted idly. Suddenly Young gasped and leaned back in his seat. He was dead almost immediately of a heart attack. Addendum: He Did What?
We already know the streetcar was built in 1891, not 1895. The quote comes straight from the usually-reliable Don Sherwood park history file, so I don't blame the city. But did Young really name Beacon Hill? Here's what HistoryLink has to say:
The Don Sherwood document listed is a source for the article. The only other trustworthy source is Clarence Bagley. In 1916's History of Seattle, Bagley erroneously listed M. H. Young as one of the founders of the Union Trunk Line. Bagley said, "On November 10, 1891, the Union Trunk Line was organized by J. D. Lowman, M. H. Young, E. H. Wittler and associates." The date is wrong. Wittler and Lowman along with a host of other important Seattle men funded, built and operated the Trunk Line. But, Young doesn't enter the UTL paper trail until 1893. So we can't trust Bagley. M. H. Young did not build a streetcar line connecting Beacon Hill to downtown. But did he really name Beacon Hill? The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods Beacon Hill Historic Context Statement puts it this way:
In his obituary in 1913, his family says he moved to Seattle in 1890. Various histories of Seattle say that he moved here in January, 1890. He didn't move to Beacon Hill until about 1894. The name of the company he represented in Seattle was New England Northwestern Investment Company, not that variant. It's strange that in a citation-heavy document, no source is listed for information about Young. This is extremely suspect. But did he name Beacon Hill? You Have No Reason to Believe There should be an easy paper trail if it was Young. During 1889 or 1890 he would have needed to make a major marketing splash with a large real estate development. Otherwise, why would they put "Beacon Hill" on the front of the Union Trunk Line streetcars in 1891? Getting Closure What is completely clear and certainly not up for debate is that the Union Trunk Line was pivotal in developing Broadway from Volunteer Park to First Hill -- as well as developing north Beacon Hill and Madrona. In 1891 these far-flung pastures and woods were suddenly directly connected to the heart of the city. It was the birth of the neighborhoods we know and love. Special thanks to Richard Wilkens for sharing UTL documents. Also to the rest of the nascent Seattle Street Railway Historical Society (email seattlestreetrailwayhistory@gmail.com for meeting info). Thanks to Dotty Decoster for spotting the historic photo. And of course SPL and SMA. In case you missed them, here are the last few Re:Takes on CHS:
Local history expert Rob Ketcherside shares his vision of the past and present with his Re:Take series of works on CHS and other Seattle sites.
We've been hearing a lot about changes coming for the Capitol Hill Block Party starting with this July's 2012 edition. One of the new additions apparently will take the form of an arts program at the three-day festival curated by Ghost Gallery's Laurie Kearney. This week, Kearney began circulating information on a fundraising effort to help provide stipends to artists participating in the Block Party visual art program. You can learn more about the drive and its $10,000 goal here: indiegogo.com/GhostArtBlockParty We're told Kearney is hoping to be able to organize sponsorship support, grants and possibly financial support from the festival's backers to augment the artist stipends. And, while the program's components are nearly set, there will also be a need for more artists to help contribute to projects like a planned graffiti wall. 2012 marks the third year of the expanded three-day format for the Block Party. Bigger names performing this year include Neko Case, Major Lazer and Diplo. Organizers have marketed the festival as "the final" Capitol Hill Block Party with allusions to the Mayan 2012 apocalypse and, possibly, the transitioning nature of the event as it matures into a bigger business and more significant component of Pacific Northwest summer culture. Here's the full statement on the Block Party art program fundraising effort. Kearney has her work cut out for her. The first -- and only -- contribution made as of this posting far is 25 bucks from yours truly.
Friday is Bike to Work Day, and there will be bike commute stations set up all over the region to give people passing by a little boost or a place to rest. Many commuters will make their way to City Hall for an 8 a.m. rally. For more details on Bike to Work Day festivities, see this post over at Seattle Bike Blog. Stations around the neighborhood include one on Seattle U's campus, Stevens Elementary, Top Pot at Lakeview and Belmont and Eltana Bagels at Schemata Workshop on 12th Ave. A map from Cascade Bicycle Club is below.
Unlike the plans for the soon-to-be-former state liquor store at 12th and Pine, the Broadway store has faced a more uncertain future -- there might be a more lucrative way to put the property to use than joining the new era of privatized spirits retailing on Capitol Hill. The Washington Liquor Control Board announced this week that the winning bidder for the rights to the Broadway store has backed out on his bid making the store one of 18 in the state heading for another auction one week before the June 1st rollover to the new way of doing booze business:
Earlier, CHS reported that the rights to the store at 400 Broadway E had been won with a $255,000 bid by a man named James Hasty . CHS has attempted to contact Hasty to find out more about this plans -- and find out if he's the same James Hasty as the NFL great and Bellevue business man -- but we our messages were never returned and the Broadway property's owner say it had been fielding inquiries from "non-liquor store" tenants about the space. The winning bidders in the state auction only acquire the right to sell liquor at the existing store or at a nearby location within a one-mile radius. While acquiring the state store rights could put the winner in the unique position of being able to operate a smaller-than-10,000 square feet liquor store in the heart of a major city, there is concern the spirits retailing business might not be as lucrative as it has been in the past with QFC across the street and many local bars and restaurants transitioning to the new booze economy. The Broadway store did more than $2.9 million in gross sales in fiscal year 2011, according to the state. While it's not clear if no deal could be brokered between the landlords and Hasty, CHS was told by the winner in an auction for another Seattle store that the 2nd Ave location's buyer ended up backing out because he couldn't settle on a lease with that location's owners. We've checked in with the 400 Broadway E property owners to see if we can learn more about the situation and will update if we hear back. UPDATE: No leases have been signed for the space, CHS has been told, and landlords are open to working with the winning bidder should one emerge from the upcoming live auction. Unlike employees at 12th and Pine who will retained, the new owner told CHS, the state liquor store workers on Broadway will, of course, lose their jobs if the space transitions into a new area of business. In the meanwhile, you can add one more Capitol Hill store to the roster of those planning to deal booze in the post 1183 world. Last week, Central Co-op announced that its board had decided to apply for a spirits retailing license following a community process to gauge the cooperative members' interest in adding hard liquor to the E Madison grocery's offerings. There's already a lot going on around Capitol Hill this weekend -- but let us know if we're missing your special event. You can always add items to the free CHS Events Calendar here. Don't forget to stop by the Bite on Broadway on Sunday, the first big event for the Broadway Business Owners Association. Thursday 5/17
Saturday 5/19
What follows below was written by a number of students seeking recognition and permission from their high school to form a LGBT club on campus. I was fortunate to have interacted in and out of the classroom with a number of the kids seeking this recognition. Jill Wenger is ready to unveil the new home of her Totokaelo, a Seattle-founded fashion brand and store that has just completed its move from Western Ave to Capitol Hill's 10th Ave. The store neighboring Elliott Bay Book Co. will open its doors for the first time Thursday at 2p. Wenger told CHS last month that the new Totokaelo will expand on the fashion and style provider's years of retail experience on Western and online:
Expect the 10th Ave space to also feature a new line of furniture. In March, Everyday Music completed a move across the street from the space now inhabited by Totokaelo. The retailer joins Elliott Bay and will neighbor Oddfellows Cafe and fellow retailer NuBe Green. Around the corner in the Odd Fellows building, Molly Moon's has put its plans to expand into the former Flora and Henri shop on hold. Meanwhile, 10th Ave lost a tenant in February when sex club Tribe/Basic Plumbing abruptly closed down. In our recent discussion with Totokaelo's Wenger, the CEO also addressed the store's price point:
You can learn more at totokaelo.com. UPDATE: CHS stopped by but were told no photos of the space until some larger fish in the global media pond get their turn (rhymes with Blue Cork Limes). Here's a glimpse of the front and a sad little sidewalk shot. Look, shoes!
Sitting in his 14th floor downtown Seattle office, Dick McCormick pulls out packet of paper he printed and stapled himself. “Appearing on the Presidential Ballot of Washington State” is splashed across the front page. “It's not easy running for president,” he says, dropping the packet onto his desk with a thud. Dick McCormick isn't a wacky billionaire or egotistical blowhard – that would at least make his 2012 run as an independent candidate for president a little less confounding. Despite the odds, this 48-year Capitol Hill resident and financial adviser seems really normal, and really serious. “Usually the first question I get asked is 'are you serious?' The second is 'do you think you can win?' And the third is 'yeah, but do you really think you can win?” His answer is a definitive and defiant yes on all accounts. Full disclosure: CHS would not have heard of McCormick's run for the highest office in the land if not for his decision to launch a lavish CHS advertising campaign supporting his candidacy. We won't disclose his expenditure but you can see for yourself that our standard ad positions top out at $300 a month. We will say we were not paid to run this article and, in the spirit of equal time, we'll extend offers of interviews to other competitors in the race at any time.
On June 23 McCormick is holding his official nominating convention in Volunteer Park. Seattle wedding rockers/crooners The Dudely Manlove Quartet will perform. Apparently, you really do need a convention. Here's a civics lesson quickie for the day: In Washington state, candidates who want their name on the ballot must hold a convention to gather verifiable signatures from 1,000 registered voters (Democratic and Republican nominees are automatically placed on the ballot). If he makes the ballot, McCormick would then have to win a majority of the vote in the general election to win the state's 12 electoral college votes. Of course, that's just Washington state. McCormick has made no formal effort to make the ballot in any other state, meaning he would need to launch one hell of a viral video to garner write-in votes across the country. McCormick says he's confident he'll get the 1,000 signatures, but if he doesn't he would pursue a write-in strategy in Washington. McCormick's brother, who lives in Tennessee, is running as his vice president. McCormick, owner of McCormick Capital Management, has never run for public office, never had aspirations to be president. So why would a 65-year-old financial advisor with a secure retirement just around the corner bother with a practically impossible run for the nation's highest office? War is one reason. McCormick says opposing foreign wars have been a defining issue for him since he marched against the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Fighting the gridlock of the two-party system is another. McCormick brands himself as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. In his personable, folksy style he touts simple, a-political solutions and admonishes the “tyranny” of the two major parties. He supports full marriage equality for gay couples and civil rights protections at the federal level. He wants a universal health care system and cuts in social security to keep it fiscally solvent. He's a states-rights proponent and wants to take a match to the tax system (see his mock explosion video of 14 reams of paper, representing the length of the U.S. tax code). McCormick says he hasn't voted for president since the 1980s, except his vote for Barack Obama in 2008 because of the president's anti-war position. McCormick says Obama's failure to extract the military from the Middle East was another major reason behind his decision to run. “He did not do what he said he would do. I've been very disappointed by his escalation of the wars.” McCormick admits he's up against some heavy odds and lots of money. Since registering with the Federal Election Commission last year, his campaign has received around $6,000 in donations. By comparison, President Obama's campaign raised $43.6 million last month alone. “My wife says if I lose, I have to pay all the money back,” he says. Aside from some, ahem, small web advertisements, McCormick's PR has consisted mainly of videos of speeches posted to his website and a song written by his neighbor. His geographical base is primarily situated along 18th Ave., where a few neighbors have put up campaign signs.
“I originally moved to Capitol Hill when it was the cheapest place to buy. Nobody wanted to live there, the houses were falling down, and the houses were all condemned around us.” Long before the Bauhaus building squabble, McCormick was fighting to retain historic charm on Capitol Hill. While on the Capitol Hill Community Council in the 70s and 80s, McCormick says one of the biggest fights was to protect the large brick apartment buildings at the southwest corner of Volunteer Park. He was also active when Broadway's electrical wires went underground and the “dancing feet” hit the sidewalks. He recalled the story of an old man walking into a Capitol Hill Council meeting in the 1970s, asking to name the play field in Cal Anderson Park after Bobby Morris. “You ask 'well, who the hell is Bobby Morris?' It turns out this guy's best friend at Broadway High School was Bobby Morris … and this is what he wanted to do in honor of his friend … The Parks Department said if the Capitol Hill Community Council doesn't have a problem with it, we don't have a problem with it. We were pretty easy going.” Sometimes, the local news business is just about being in the right place. Wednesday afternoon, CHS took a few minutes to enjoy a Little Uncle lunch in the triangle park in front of the under-construction and super-green Bullitt Center at 15th and Madison. Then CHS left. Not long after, we're told, "dozens of F.B.I., secret service, and Seattle Police officers" arrived -- and so did the president of Bulgaria. According to people familiar with the details of the visit, Rosen Plevneliev included a visit to the construction site for the greenest commercial building in the world as part of a "NATO Summit trip to Chicago." We're told he was the former Minister of Construction and is very interested in green building and spoke on the need for human behavior change to meet ambitious and important energy efficiency goals. The Bullitt project is working toward a late 2012 completion and was most recently approved to include a massive solar array in its green plans. The University of Washington integrated design laboratory and Northwest headquarters of the Green Building Council are slated to join the Bullitt Foundation in the low energy building. Meanwhile, if like Plevneliev, you have an interest in things "eco," you'll want to mark your calendar for May 29th's Capitol Hill Housing forum on creating a Capitol Hill "EcoDistrict" --
Maggie Thorpe is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory. CHS is proud to feature the work of promising young journalists provided by the lab. The bright and colorful pop tunes thump away. The sounds are familiar, but have a unique rhythm. They encourage listeners to sway to the music. Eventually something becomes apparent: “Wait, this isn’t English!” For those who are unfamiliar with the increasingly popular music from Asia, it is most likely K-pop -- Korean pop -- or J-pop -- Japanese pop.
“I’d been toying around with the concept of a J-pop/K-pop dance party, primarily because I wanted to see if there was a thriving fan base of people in that particular genre of music,” said Reese Umbaugh, also known as DJ Bishie. “I’ve known Alex Thomas, DJ BabyLoveCrash, for years and knew she really loved Japanese music and culture, and I met Allen Huang, DJ Hojo, and immediately sparked up a conversation about K-pop with him, and it all just kind of came together from there.” The monthly event was born in the Alibi Room near Pike Place Market, but it outgrew that location, organizers said. With the power of word-of-mouth and the Internet, JK Pop Night has steadily been gaining fans. The niche fan base was what attracted the DJs to collaborate, mainly because of their frustrations in trying to share the foreign music. “We were tired of bombarding our friends with links to video and dancing in our chairs at work, so we decided to reserve a space for a dance night. And then another one. And then another one. Really, we don’t see a reason to stop,” said Hojo. “I would dance every day in my car and apartment to K-pop, wishing I could show off these sweet moves in a club,” said BabyLoveCrash. “I resigned to myself that I would have to save up to dance in a club in Korean one day, although they probably wouldn’t play the exact songs I wanted to hear.” The DJs guarantee that there will be an even mix of fresh songs and classics with plenty of remixes. While Bishie and BabyLoveCrash focus more on K-pop, Hojo will focus on J-pop. “J-pop has been a secret love of mine for forever,” said Hojo. “Right now, the electro-pop and dance music scenes in Japan seem to be really firing on all cylinders, doing stuff that’s really unique compared to the rest of the world.” J-pop and K-pop’s influence in the United States is growing. Earlier this year, Girls’ Generation, one of the front-runners for K-pop, performed on “The Late Show with David Letterman.” With little to no promotion in the U.S., K-pop has even been charting on the U.S. Billboard. “I see a small, but devoted fan base growing bigger and bigger as K-pop and J-pop gets better and better,” said Hojo. “It’d be amazing to hear stuff like Big Bang right next to Rihanna on Top 40 radio, but I’m not holding my breath for that." Of course, fans of J-pop and K-pop should definitely come to the event, but for casual listeners and those who have not heard of this genre before, Bishie said, “JK Pop! Nights are really fun, unpretentious, and you’ll see a lot of uncontrollable dancing. We just want people to have a great time, and I think that our efforts show.” So get your kawaii clothes on and do an aegyo pose and get ready for, as DJ Hojo calls it, “the best night of the month.” Are you a fan of an outside-the-mainstream DJ night on the Hill that others should know about? Let us know in comments. The Monster at the End of this Book, today, of course has an app. CHS is fairly certain it can produce as many giggles as the original. There's a celebration of stories like that and the people who love them this Saturday at Elliott Bay Book Co. Here are the details on the First Book Seattle Read-a-Thon sent to us by Tamara Bunnell:
Day-of Reading Schedule: 11:10 AM Poet Daemond Arrindell reading Where The Wild Things Are The investors who swooped in after financial troubles made one prime Pike/Pine development opportunity available earlier this year have decided to double down in the neighborhood. The Arizona-based Wolff Co. announced Wednesday that it has purchased the Sunset Electric building at 11th and Pine for $6.7 million. The developers plan to continue the approved mixed-use project started by seller Pryde Johnson which faced foreclosure on the property. “We believe very strongly in the quality of the Capitol Hill neighborhood and are excited to be a part of the effort to bring some of its more historic buildings back into service for the benefit of the entire community,” Tim Wolff said in a statement on the purchase.
The ambitious project will incorporate a facade of the old Sunset Electric factory where the 11th and Pine poster wall stands today. The Sunset Electric project will include 89 residential units above the restored auto row building with two-floor tall commercial spaces at ground level and underground parking for 33 vehicles. The building is Pryde Johnson purchased the building for $2.9 million in 2006. Its development project began the public design review process way back in summer of 2009. With the six-story project's land use permit approved and valid through March 2014, Wolff can pick up where Pryde Johnson left off and carry the Weber Thompson design forward. The Sunset name refers to a manufacturing company that called the 1916 building home for a time. It is also known as the Spray King building and was once home to Winton Motor Co., according to neighborhood activist Dennis Saxman. The project was planned to be part of the city's Priority Green Pilot Program. We published this series of artist renderings of the project here. Wolff now has two major investments at play within blocks of each other in Pike/Pine. Last month, CHS reported on the $14.9 million purchase of the old BMW facility between Pike and Pine where the developers are planning a mixed-use apartment building that will incorporate the old facility's brick facade. Both projects are now part of what is being called an "unprecedented wave" of development in the Pike/Pine neighborhood that is putting zoning and preservation laws to the test. As with the 714 E Pike project, the developers have again created a site intended to provide information on the 11 and Pine development and collect feedback. You can find it at 11andpine.com.
9:37AM
-
-
UPDATE
-
Here's the full statement from the Wolff Co.
6:43AM
-
-
UPDATE
-
Here's a cool picture from King County records of the property in a former incarnation:
|

















































