If you don’t have any friends and family to spend Thanksgiving with this year, the Twilight Exit has got your back:

Broadcast Coffee is open for limited hours:

Some area grocery stores have limited hours:

Madison Market

until midnight Wednesday

Thanksgiving: 7a – 2p

Safeway Madison

regular hours 5a-1a

Trader Joe’s

Thanksgiving: Closed

Grocery Outlet

Thanksgiving: Closed

Promenade Red Apple

Open Thanksgiving from 7a – 7p

Liquor stores

Thanksgiving: Closed!

What else is happening in the neighborhood this Thanksgiving? Let us know in the comments below. Also, what are you thankful for in your neighborhood? I’ll go first: All of you!

The power is out for over 4,800 customers in north Squire Park, Capitol Hill and South Lake Union, according to the Seattle City Light outage map:

As of 12:10 p.m.

The outage is causing headaches for some, including the Seattle Central Community College Board which is currently holding a meeting to discuss kicking Occupy Seattle off campus:

But others, like Tougo Coffee on 18th are taking the outage in stride:

We’ll update as we learn more.

Emergency responders were called to a parking lot at 34th and Union in Madrona around 6:30 a.m. this morning. We are still working to find out more, but a tipster sent CDN a photo from the scene.

The tipster said a body was taken from the scene by the coroner, and SPD was taking pictures of a white Toyota 4Runner.

We will update as we learn more.

One year ago today, Joe LaMagno was inexplicably killed with an axe on a snowy Union St near 15th Ave. The alleged killer, Michael LaRosa, has been in custody ever since and is still awaiting a decision as to whether he is fit to stand trial.

From our sister site Capitol Hill Seattle:

On the morning of November 22, 2010 as the first flakes of a Thanksgiving week snow storm fell on Seattle, a surreal and horrible scene unfolded at the corner of 15th Ave and Union. In the front yard of a home at the corner, the body of Joe LaMagno laid on the ground and was slowly blanketed by the snow where, just after 10:30a, the 14th Ave boarding house resident was murdered with a hatchet in a brutal attack.

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26-year-old Michael LaRosa was taken into custody after a brief chase less than 10 minutes after the attack. Police say he didn’t know his 58-year-old victim who had been reportedly walking home after a trip to the Madison 7-11.

A psychiatrist report later would document the accused attacker’s schizophrenia and mental illness. The Stranger reported on LaRosa’s family’s attempts to get the man help in a health system with fewer and fewer resources to help people like him.

Today, LaRosa remains in custody and stands charged of the LaMagno murder and the equally random killing of another man on the street the day before. His defense lawyers and state prosecutors agree — LaRosa’s doctors need more time to determine if he is fit to face trial for the murders. The case is scheduled to resume in January.

Here’s a roundup of robberies in the neighborhood in recent weeks, according to police reports.

November 21, 25th and Marion

A man walking at 25th and Marion told police that two men came up behind him around 8:15 p.m. and threw him to the ground. He felt a metal object pressed against his back, which the suspects told him was a gun.

The suspects demanded his property, and he told them there was money in his coat pocket. The suspects removed his coat and took it. It’s unclear from the report if they took his whole coat or just his money.

The suspects then fled in a vehicle. The victim was unable to give a description of the vehicle or the suspects.

November 13, Jackson and Rainier

Two people were assaulted after chasing a group of smart phone robbers off a bus at Jackson and Rainier, according to the police report. The victims told police that they were on the bus around 6 p.m. November 13 when a group of people stole her smart phone and exited the bus.

The victim and her brother chased after them, but they were assaulted and did not recover the phone. From the police report:

The stolen phone had the “Find My Droid” app installed, so police were able to track it to a location near 24th and Charles in Judkins Park. Police approached a group of males near the area they thought matched the description. One of the alleged suspects took off running and was eventually apprehended. However, the victims said the people detained were not the suspects.

Police arrested the man who ran for obstruction.

November 10, 23rd and Cherry

A man was left with a fractured jaw after three men jumped him around 11:15 p.m. near 23rd and Cherry. The victim had visited a friend who worked nearby and had just crossed the street to the northwest corner of the intersection when the three suspects approached him from behind and threw him to the ground.

Two of the suspects then repeatedly punched him in the face, and one of them may have been wearing brass knuckles.

The suspects made off with $451 in cash, as well as the victim’s eyeglasses and ID. He was left with a fractured jaw and was taken to the hospital by an ambulance.

Urban farming collective Alleycat Acres has signed a lease for its second farm in the Central District, this time on the east side of MLK between Cherry and Columbia (JohnS posted about this earlier).

The lot has long been vacant, and the collective hopes to turn it into an active community farm similar to the one at 22nd and Union (remember how that lot looked just two years ago?). The group also has a farm on Beacon Hill, making this their third space since forming in late 2009.

The new farm will also be just a couple blocks south of the Green Plate Special farm at MLK and Union. When that farm went in, we joked that there were still a few vacant lots in the area that did not yet have urban farms. Soon there will be even one fewer.

From Alleycat Acres:

For the past month, we’ve been working with the neighbors of the property and the owner discussing how we could all move forward with this 7,200 square foot parcel. Today, we all came together to make it official —  and a 3rd farm was officially born at 12:30 PM.

The property is located at the northeast corner of MLK and Cherry, a couple blocks away from our 22nd + Union space, and just a few doors down from our friends at Green Plate Special.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be working on all the details of moving forward with this space. Be on the look out for community meetings so we can gather ideas + interested parties to come up with the official groundbreaking work party.

A huge thank you (and high ten) to Henery (our property owner) and Kiki (our neighbor) for believing in the work that we do. Many harvests await!

In other Alleycat Acres news, they have opened up registration for their spring fundraiser bike ride called Streets & Beets. It’s $15 if you register before December 15, and $25 after that. They are aiming to raise $25,000 during this year’s ride, which will allow them to pay some staff to keep the farms humming.

Members of Occupy Seattle have taken over an empty duplex at 23rd and Alder and plan to occupy it indefinitely, according to the Occupy Seattle website.

Occupy protestors say the house has been abandoned since the previous owner passed away, and that the group debated what to do with the space. Some even suggested “forming a work party to rebuild it for the community.”

According to the King County, the house is owned by Sander-Boman Real Estate Denmark West, who purchased the building in 2006 for $425,000. It was built in 1961 and renovated (at least partially) in 2008. Since then, work has stopped and it has been issued a series of DPD warnings including one noting the property was “open to entry via broken front window & crawl space” and another documenting “junk in yard includes mattresses, electronic equipment, bed frame, carpeting, furniture & other items.”

The house is across the street from Garfield High School.

Last week, two men were arrested as protestors attempted to occupy the Horace Mann school building.

Occupy Seattle is under increasing pressure to find better living arrangements for participants camping on the Seattle Central Community College Campus on Capitol Hill.

From Occupy Seattle:

Independent participants of the Occupy Seattle Movement have decided to indefinitely occupy an abandoned home in the Central District on the corner of 23rd Ave and E. Alder and are currently calling for support.

The occupiers came to the home during their march for the National Day of Action against State Repression of the Occupy Movement called for by the General Assembly in Oakland. They first marched past the juvenile detention center on 12th Ave and then reached the abandoned home.

A neighbor said banks took the home after the previous owner died several years ago and it has been uninhabited since.

Several occupiers in front of the home made speeches. They addressed how predatory lending, rent hikes, property taxes on homes, and police harassment have driven the working and middle class black community from the neighborhood. This has allowed banks, developers and other gentrifiers to move in.

After the speeches an ad-hock assembly decided to occupy the home and brainstormed ideas including forming a work party to rebuild it for the community.

In other Occupy Seattle news, Mark Root-Wiley posted earlier about an Occupy Seattle march down Yesler around 3:30 p.m. Marchers were chanting “Whose streets? Our Streets!”

When Xenobia Bailey lived in Seattle, her name was Sherilyn. In the 70s, she left town to study art in New York. Now, her work is on display at the Northwest African American Museum in an exhibit called Xenobia Bailey: The Aesthetics of Funk.

In an interview with The Stranger, Bailey describes her life growing up in the neighborhood, being raised in Yesler Terrace, going to Garfield High School and styling hair at 34th and Union. From the Stranger:

 Before college, nobody thought she was much of a student. At Garfield High School, art class consisted of students out in a cold trailer drawing their own hands—all year. Bailey stopped going.

“In college, that was the first time in my life I ever got an A or a B,” she says. “I’d been a D student when I graduated high school.”

At the University of Washington, “the whole world opened up to me.” She discovered ethnomusicology, the study of music and culture from around the world. She followed it with tailoring and millinery at Seattle Central Community College while costume designing at (now-defunct) Black Arts/West. And she did hair.

“It was this little barbershop on 34th and Union,” she says. “I saw a picture of these braids and said, I could do that.” She rented a chair and charged $15 a head—until her customers started defecting to a newcomer downtown, a Nigerian woman who charged $10, was faster, and could do all kinds of traditional braids. Bailey befriended the woman and left the hair business. “I learned: I’m not gonna do African ever again. I’m gonna do African American.”

Read more…

A burglar stole a flat screen TV from a home near 18th and Alder November 14 while the owners were in bed, according to the police report.

The TV owner’s son told police he was lying in bed some time before 12:30 a.m. when he heard a noise coming from the living room. He went to see what was happening and saw a man with their TV.

The suspect yelled, “I’ll fucking kill you,” and fled.

From the police report:

When it opened in August, the Beehive Bakery was big news for the troubled corner at 23rd and Union. After years of being shuttered, the old Philly’s Cheese Steak building was finally occupied again.

But just a few months later, the bakery has closed, citing a lack of foot traffic and city rules that prevented them from opening the shop’s drive-through window.

“It’s a great corner for car count,” said Jane Collins, who operated the kosher bakery and coffee shop with her husband Ken. But the shop was only getting about 40 people per day, which is not enough to keep it going.

“We had a lot of fun, and all the customers who came in were so nice,” she said. “If we had a full breakfast, lunch and dinner going, it would be different.”

They had hoped to use the drive-through window when they started plans for the bakery, but the old permits had lapsed and new city rules designate the corner as a pedestrian area. After a lengthy re-permitting process, which delayed the bakery’s opening, Jane and Ken found out that drive-through windows are no longer allowed. So they had to go forward without it.

Before the bakery opened, the building had been vacant ever since the 2008 murder of Philly’s owner Dejene Berecha inside the shop. The shooter, Rey Alberto Davis-Bell, was found guilty in 2010, but the space had remained closed.

Work is still underway to do some weatherproofing to the building, as they have been in the process of removing the building’s old awning and stucco siding to reveal the building’s 60s retro design. A window was also accidentally broken in the process, but a replacement pane is on the way. In all, Eisenberg said the building will get finished off a little more than it is right now.

In the long-term, property owner Ian Eisenberg is hoping the corner will be redeveloped into a mixed-use residential and commercial building. But like a similar plan for the vacant lot catty-corner from the Bakery, funding for such projects is stalled.

In the short term, it’s unclear how quickly the property will be occupied again.

“I don’t want to sign a long-term lease with anyone because it’s a potential development site,” said Eisenberg. “Now it’s a decision I have whether I want to lease it long-term or shutter it like the property across the street.” But Eisenberg said changes for the intersection are coming.

“I’m more encouraged now than ever for the future of the intersection,” he said. “It’s just a matter of when.”