Dear Santa,
We have been a very good neighborhood this year. We mostly didn’t do too many bad things though there was a little bit of graffiti here and there. We cleaned our plates and finished our lattes and helped keep the drains mostly clear. We didn’t do a great job keeping the sidewalks free of ice — but it’s not because we didn’t want to (please see requested gift #2). For the most part, we spent the year celebrating in the streets and being very, very good to each other.
Here is what Capitol Hill would like for Christmas this year. Please also read the comments for more.
Love,
CHS
- Conservative noise variances to keep light rail construction quiet during the wee hours of the night.
- Snow shovels that we will store away for a decade.
- Money for the parks at Summit and John and the one up on 16th Ave. Sorry, city says you can’t just give us the benches.
- A new lease for buddies at Neighbours.
- New homes for Crave and Monsoon.
- Magic anti-economic-downturn beans for the Hill’s small, indie businesses. And, if you’re feeling generous, some of the big ones too.
- A mild winter.
- New gloves.
I want Santa to tell me why you can hear the train whistle so well on Capitol Hill? It is a beautiful sound which welcomed me to Capitol Hill on the first night I was here. This evening I was at Broadway & Highland and it was crazy loud.
Even weirder, my friend in Montlake can hear it too on the back side of the hill (E Lynn St. near the arboretum).
My best guess is that it comes from where the tracks cross the road at the foot of Wall St., Broad St. etc. — almost 2 miles away.
We are actually due north of the train station. The sound echoes up and around from down there.
Let’s hope that they won’t be needing to toot any train horns when light rail passes under our hill!
Peace
I noticed how well you can hear the train whistle too. I live at the top of the hill and can hear it (right now even) all day and all night, but only during the fall/winter. It’s a lot more humid then, which helps the sound come rolling up the hill.
Dear Santa,
I have been a very good neighbor this year and would be delighted if you could fulfill the following requests.
Please magically disable all of the car alarms on cars parked in the QFC parking lot and destroy the back-up beepers on the delivery trucks so that we may sleep through the night.
Please help the angry red-faced drunk man that harasses people on 15th to sober up and turn into a really nice guy.
I’d also like the trio of cute little birds to return to the trees outside my window in the spring!
And could we please have a street car that starts at 15th street and travels down Roy to connect to the SLUT in South Lake Union so that I no longer have to spend an hour on buses to go 2 1/2 miles to work?
Please make the kitties of Capitol Hill unappealing to raccoons and coyotes so that we will no longer be haunted by the fliers of missing fuzzy buddies.
And give Volunteer Park Cafe a delivery bicycle so that we no longer have to leave our beds to eat pear cardamom muffins.
Thx!
I wonder that sometimes too! I grew up near a set of tracks and it’s almost soothing to me.
“Please help the angry red-faced drunk man that harasses people on 15th to sober up and turn into a really nice guy.”
That’s a great wish.
“Conservative noise variances to keep light rail construction quiet during the wee hours of the night.”
Careful — this sort of NIMBYism will delay construction. I want them to balance speed with concern for neighbors. If we insist on ultraconservative noise abatement, construction will be (a) more expensive and (b) take longer. Why throw up blocks when Seattle’s finally getting serious about rail? Please don’t do that.