The city is doing maintenance work on the floor of the Garfield Community Center this week, so it will be closed until Saturday. From the community center’s Facebook page:
For more information, call 206-684-4788.

The Central District’s most important street sure is the subject of a lot of planning these days.

The 23rd Avenue complete street project has been meeting with stakeholders and the public to gather feedback on a big repaving and redesign project spanning the entirety of the Central District from Madison to Rainier. While that project is primarily focused on the street itself, the 23rd Ave Action Plan will focus on reassessing the area around each major commercial and cultural node along the street: Union, Cherry and Jackson.

In short, the 23rd Ave Action Plan is a project led by the city’s Department of Planning and Development to create guidelines and a community vision for the future of the CD’s most active areas. Rather than a broad update to the existing Central Area Action Plan (last updated in 1998), the 23rd Ave Action Plan aims to focus more specifically on these key areas.

The project hopes to create “a vision that respects the culture so that when that new development comes in it respects that vision,” said DPD’s Quanlin Hu. An outreach team with liaisons who speak all the major languages represented in the neighborhood have already started meeting with stakeholders, and the first big “community workshop and resource fair” is scheduled for Saturday morning at Garfield Community Center (will be from 9 a.m. until noon).

While the Action Plan is different than the complete streets project, which is led by the Department of Transportation, both teams have stated a desire to work together and build on each project’s work.

The goals of the Action Plan are somewhat vague and will be developed and refined during most of 2013. Here’s the project purpose: Continue reading →

Image from the Serenity Funeral Home website

Services for the young man shot and killed at 25th and Norman March 29 will be held today (Tuesday) and Wednesday, according to an obituary published on the Serenity Funeral Home website.

K’Breyan “KB” Clark would have turned 20 in two weeks.

The visitation will be from 6–8 p.m. Tuesday at Restoration Bible Church in South Seattle. The funeral service starts at 11 a.m. Wednesday at 28th and Jackson’s Tabernacle Baptist Church. He will be buried at Sunset Hills Memorial Park in Bellevue.

From the Serenity Funeral Home website:

K’Breyan ‘KB’ Clark was born on April 23, 1993 and called home on March 29, 2013. KB attended Meeker Middle School, Duncanville High School (TX) and received his G.E.D. in June of 2010. KB played all sports but excelled in basketball and played on many AAU teams. More recently, KB fell in love with driving, buying and fixing cars. On January 29, 2012 KB’s life changed with the birth of his son, K’Breyan Deshawn Clark, who he loved immensely. Continue reading →

Photo from the Ambassel website

Ambassel Ethiopian Cuisine & Bar at 12th and Jefferson was shut down in early march for public health violations following allegations that several people contracted E. coli after eating there.

Though public health records show the restaurant has addressed the issues, Ambassel is now facing a lawsuit from two people who say they fell ill after eating there in February.

According to Seattle-King County Public Health records, the issues discovered during an early March inspection included:

• Improper methods used to prevent bare hand contact with ready-to-eat foods
• Food contact surfaces used for raw meat, poultry, aquatic foods, or ready-to-eat foods not thoroughly cleaned and sanitized
• Hands not washed as required
• Inadequate hand washing facilities
• Proper Consumer Advisory not posted for raw or undercooked foods
• Food worker card not available or current, new food workers not trained
• Thermometers not available or used as required to evaluate temperature of potentially hazardous foods Continue reading →

Hamann, pictured here (right) during an October 2012 bout at Garfield Community Center, brings home National gold this week. Photo by Truman Buffett

Two women boxers with former ties to Cappy’s Boxing Gym at 21st and Union took home the gold at the USA boxing championships over the weekend.

Jen Hamann is a rising star who has has been training with Arcaro Boxing (see this post describing their tough work together leading up to the championships). She brings home the featherweight gold.

Garfield grad Queen Underwood, who fought in the 2012 Olympics, continued her success in the ring, bringing home the lightweight gold.

From USA Boxing:

The featherweight division had the most competitors in the women’s field and the two females left standing on Saturday faced off in the final round bout. Jennifer Hamann (Seattle, Wash.) and Rianna Rios (Alice, Texas) boxed for gold in the fifth bout of evening competition. Hamann claimed the first title of the event for the host state, winning a 2-1 decision over Rios to win gold.

One of the most highly anticipated bouts of the night was contested in the women’s lightweight division as 2012 U.S. Olympian Queen Underwood (Seattle, Wash.) battled reigning featherweight world champion Tiara Brown (Fort Myers, Fla.). The momentum swayed between the two elite fighters throughout the eight minutes of competition with both boxers landing strong clean punches. With the strong local support from her sister, nieces and nephews decked out in their Queen Underwood t-shirts, the 2012 Olympian won a split decision victory over Brown, 2-1, to claim her sixth USA Boxing National Championship title.

Kurt Cobain Memorial Bench,
uploaded by samirdiwan.

On the 19th anniversary of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain’s death at his Lake Washington Boulevard home, the Seattle PI has published a stack of never-before-seen photos from the day fans and media from around the world descended on the neighborhood to learn about Cobain’s suicide.

The greenhouse where Cobain shot himself April 5, 1994 was demolished four years later. However, a bench in Viretta Park next door to Cobain’s former home continues to serve as a destination for visiting fans paying their respects to the grunge icon.

Some fans, who volunteer to keep the park clean and maintained, are still pushing for an official memorial of some kind in Viretta Park.

Cobain would have turned 46 in February.

Of all the major recordings Nirvana made, this one is my favorite: Continue reading →

Liquor license notice posted on the door.

For those neighbors still mourning the demise of All-Purpose Pizza at 29th and Jackson, your despair may not last much longer.

Several readers have alerted CDNews recently of activity at the space, including a liquor notice for Central Pizza. Seattle Met tracked down the folks behind the business: Eric Ellsworth, Ellie Rose, Steve Scalfati and chef Mike Eagan.

With ties to Belltown Pizza, the crew is planning a pizza-centered bar and restaurant with sandwiches, specials and pizza-by-the-slice.

Oh, did I mention drinks? They’re replacing the All-Purpose Pizza kids’ area with a bar with drinks “at a decent price point,” Rose told Seattle Met.

So why that space? From SM:

According to Rose, the partners have spent a few years looking for an ideal location and didn’t want to pay the high rents that come with heavily trafficked locations like the Pike/Pine corridor. They also didn’t want to charge the sort of prices required to pay those rents. She also noticed that this pocket of the Central District (okay, technically by our internal map a few blocks into the Leschi neighborhood) lacks “a place for the neighborhood where people can actually meet each other.” The nearby Starbucks at 23rd and Jackson is always packed, she says, and here “you can have a cocktail instead of a mocha.”

Read more…

Golden Wheat Bakery has been slinging coffee, pastries, cakes and fresh bread at 29th and Cherry for one month as of Monday.

To mark their second month, the bakery has a new sign in its front windows (created with help of a supportive customer) and the bakery told CDNews they have plans to expand their menu in the near future.

“The neighborhood has been so supportive,” said barista Sam, noting that residents have helped spread the word via CDNews and other neighborhood networks.

Goods are baked fresh in-house daily, and they are working to expand their offerings to include more options like salads and sandwiches. Continue reading →

If the state legislature does not take action to help King County Metro avoid a massive budget shortfall on the horizon, several Central District bus routes could face revisions, reductions and complete cuts, Metro said Monday.

Among those on the chopping block for full deletion: The 27, 211EX and 84 (night owl). Essentially every major route in the CD could face changes and reductions in service, including the 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, and 43. The 48 might be at least partially slit into two routes (north and south of UW), and the north segment would experience cuts.

Officials said Monday that funding shortfalls could mean Metro faces up to 65 routes eliminated and up to 86 routes potentially reduced and revised — about 40% of the system.

The release of the threatened cutbacks comes as legislators in Olympia consider a statewide transportation funding package.

Here’s a list of routes on the chopping block, from Metro: Continue reading →

Filmmakers will talk about Garifuna April 19

The 2013 Langston Hughes African American Film Festival is getting ready to launch a week of screenings, premieres and chats with established and up-and-coming black filmmakers.

For the first time, all films will be screened in the renovated and reorganized Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute at 17th and Yesler.

The festival gets under way April 13 and runs through April 21. Tickets are on sale now and cost $10 for adults ($5 for youth and seniors), or you can buy passes starting at $50.

Here’s the full (long) press release:

The Langston Hughes African American Film Festival (LHAAFF), a keystone program of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, celebrates its 10th anniversary with a nine-day festival featuring over 50 feature-length and short films, 35 of which are either world or Seattle premieres. Black film luminaries from across the nation will convene in Seattle from April 13 to 21. Many films are either shot in the Northwest (The Blank Canvas) or directed by Northwesterners (Ali Allie, Elijah Hasan). For the first time in the festival’s history all activities will take place at the newly renovated Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute (LHPAI) and record attendance is expected.  Details on all films, including show times and press photos, are available at langstoninstitute.org or by calling (206) 684-4758. Continue reading →