As an outsider — I live just down the street in Capitol Hill — a community discussion on race in the Central District is best left to the community. I’m here to moderate. Please take a look at the discussion going on around a note posted by a CD neighbor named Gordon to one of our recent posts. It sounds like Gordon isn’t familiar with CDNews and found the site through a link to one of our stories on the Seattle Times site. It also sounds like Gordon has seen a lot of change:

My name is Gordon Curvey and I was born and I was brought up in the Central Area. My mom still lives in the house I grew up on (30th and Spring) since 1958.

I am bothered by this section in the Seattle Times because most likely (not for sure) it is written by someone who is white. I am a African American by the way.

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I am sorry to say that white folks have taken over the CD. Walking there dogs all over the CD. The culture of the CD is GONE. My black community I grew up in is GONE.

I used to go in Grocery Outlet of walk town Jackson St or Yesler St or Union St in the CD and would not see a white face. Now it is almost like walking in Ballard.

I am not a black racist folks. I am just bothered that my black community in the Central Area is GONE. I drive down 23rd and pass by Powell Barnett Park and see a sea of white families and there kids in the play area.

Again I would used to see ZERO white faces at Powell Barnett. Most whites in the CD hang to themselves with ZERO black friends. Again, whites have taken over the Central Area. I am tired of seeing white folks walking there dogs all over the CD.

It bothers THE HELL OUT OF ME. I wish the Central Area would come back to the black community and our culture I used to know.

It’s a tough comment to read and will probably be frustrating to many. I hope you can take it as others in the thread have — as an opportunity to talk about the history of the neighborhood in a constructive, realistic way. We’ve turned comments off on this post — but you’re welcome to add your voice on the thread where Gordon’s initial post was made. As we head into the New Year, finding ways to talk — and do something about — change seems like a healthy resolution.

Today as I sat at the light at 23rd and Yesler, as I often do, the sunlight bathed the restored houses on the NW corner.  From dilapidated dumps to art project to high quality affordable condos, the developers did the neighborhood a huge service.  When they were finished (maybe 7 years ago?) I was just hoping they were done right, not just a cosmetic upgrade.  So far, they seem to be holding up very well. 

This is one of my favorite changes in the neighborhood architecture in the last ten years.  What are yours?

View Larger Map

Despite a limping economy and a storefront that’s off the beaten path, 2010 has been a good first year for Charlie’s Flame Broiled Burgers. Owner Erika Urenda (pronounced yer-en-day) says that business has been pretty good. “We’ve gotten a lot of support from the community. We’d like business to be better, but we get what we get and we can’t complain.”

Manager Daniel Barraza is more enthusiastic about year one: “The first three quarters of the year went incredibly well. [Urenda] ended up buying another restaurant in Everett from what she made out of [Charlie’s].”

Reviews on Yelp and here on CDN have been just as enthusiastic. While some bad reviews indicate there have been rough spots, on the whole reviewers are big fans of the food and the friendly service. I certainly enjoyed chowing down on my Green Chili Burger (delicious even with veggie patty!) and shooting the breeze with Barraza while things were quiet.  While I’m sure my experience was skewed because I got dinner after the interview, my Yelp/CDN research indicates that my results aren’t far from the norm.

As I was walking up to the storefront from the bus stop on MLK Way and Judkins, I had an experience that many other customers have had before me: I wasn’t sure how much I could expect from a place that’s tucked back in a residential neighborhood in the first floor of a little clapboard townhouse. But like Barraza says, “People come in here and see a hole in the wall and don’t know what to expect. Once they try the burgers, they’re blown away.” Even if they aren’t, Barraza still wants to hear what they have to say, “I’m the type of guy, I like criticism. I tell them, call me back, tell me how it was. If something’s not right, we’ll fix it.”

Urenda and Barraza both indicated that there have been changes to the menu and the hours to better fit with the neighborhood. Charlie’s now opens at 10am instead of 5am, and during the winter they only stay open until 8pm instead of 9 or 10pm. They’ve also added beer and wine to the menu along with more specialty burgers, like the (tasty) Green Chili Burger and the Chili Burger with chorizo sausage chili.  Aside from these routine adjustments, there haven’t been any big issues for Charlie’s in year one.

The only trouble so far was a Deal of the Day special that was more popular than expected. “We did five [coupons] a day for a while, then in the last three weeks we got slammed. We ran out of food early every day,” says Barraza, “We got fifty of them a day, it almost shut us down!”

As if doing well during their first year wasn’t enough, the management of Charlie’s has some ambitious plans for 2011. A remodel is planned for early in the year to make the space more comfortable and inviting.

“We want to make it cozier, not this cafeteria style of dining room,” says Barraza, “We want to close off the kitchen, build divisions [around tables] and do individual drop lights for the tables.” If their neighbor CommuniTea has success getting its (newly) required hard liquor license so it can keep serving kombucha tea, Charlie’s will try and get an extended liquor license too. Urenda and Barraza are also looking into opening a second Charlie’s location. “We figured that if this works here, it’ll work anywhere, “says Barraza, “We’re looking to expand to another location on a main strip, maybe Columbia City.”

Charlie’s will be celebrating it’s first anniversary on January 2nd with free cake for customers as long as it lasts. There will also be wine bottle giveaways to the 1st customer and assorted numbers after that.

Aegis Living, an assisted living provider based in Redmond, is planning to build its first in-city development at 2200 E. Madison, across from the (former) car wash. It will be a six-story assisted living facility with partial below-grade parking. More details from this CHS post. See the architect’s Design Proposal on the DPD website for details about the project. The sketch here (a Madison Street view of the preferred option) is from that proposal.

 At 7 PM on Tuesday Jan 4, 2011, there will be an informal meeting for neighbors to meet with architect Wolf Saar and an Aegis representative and exchange ideas. Meeting is in the Elizabeth James House community room. Walk to the front of the building (109 23^rd Ave E) and enter through the wood gate just to the right of the front door (goes directly to the community room). This meeting was arranged by Andrew Taylor of the Miller Park Neighborhood Association and room use was donated by Capitol Hill Housing.

 At 6:30 PM on Wednesday, Jan 5th, the Department of Planning and Development is holding an Early Design Guidance Meeting, in Rooms 102/103 of Seattle Vocational Institute, 2120 S. Jackson Street.  At the early design guidance meeting, the applicants will present information about the site and vicinity.  The public may offer comments regarding the design and siting of a development on the subject site; and the Design Review Board members will also offer comments and identify those Citywide Design Guidelines of highest priority in developing the site.  Details are on DPD website.

Leave it to us to go looking in the shadows of the holidays but, admit it — when you go away for a holiday, somewhere in the back of your city-dwelling mind is the worry that your home or car is going to get broken into when you are away. Here’s a look at where the reported break-ins occurred this week. If anything, you can see the property crimes weren’t very widespread. Seems like thieves take holidays, too. Happy New Year!

Here’s a look at the CD burglaries reported in the past seven days. You can view incident details in the live map at SeattleCrime. One caveat: Not all break-ins are reported and it’s possible more haven’t been reported yet as people might still be out of town.

Meanwhile, here are the car prowls. A few people down around Swedish would like their old CDs, their registrations and their spare change back, please.

What was Seattle’s mayor doing at Washington Hall Tuesday night? Mike McGinn rolled out his office’s newly released Seattle Nightlife Initiative Community Report including strong support for later bar closing times and better late night transportation. We’ve pulled out some highlights and our takeaways from the report. Full report including survey results and feedback collected from various community meetings is embedded below.

• Interesting to note that the “Central Area/Squire Park” didn’t crack the top nightlife destinations for survey respondents even with the options in the area of 12th Ave and the in the Cap Hill convergence zone along Madison. When people think about nightclubs, they think “Capitol Hill.”
• “…more than 80 percent of online respondents agreed or strongly agreed that, ‘Extending service hours will make our streets safer.'”
• “Support for late-night transportation options other than driving was widespread. Nearly 90 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, ‘People would be less likely to drive under the influence if there were late-night forms of transportation like taxi stands and public transit available after bars close.'”
• One option visualized for the report is the friendly Night Owl Bus Service that would pick up drunk people up and down Pioneer Square, Belltown, Downtown and Pike/Pine and deposit them to far lung points like Ballard and West Seattle.
• Maybe the most straightforward, practical transportation solution in the report: Starting in April, pay parking stations will begin operating at 10 PM to allow drivers to pre-pay for up to two hours of morning parking time. The current meters don’t turn on until 4 AM to accept pre-pay.
• This 2,200+ pool of Seattleites is a confident bunch. Less than 15% said theyfelt unsafe on the streets at night.
• The survey respondents were also not highly concerned about noise as “only 6 percent of respondents reported having a significant problem with nightlife-related noise at least once per month. And 65.8 percent reported that they had never experienced this problem.” The report notes more concern about noise was voiced by attendees at the community meetings.
• Concerns about unfair enforcement at venues featuring live hip-hop acts and at gay and lesbian establishments were also documented in the report:

Online, many were concerned about the relationships the Seattle Police Department and Washington State Liquor Control Board have with gay and lesbian nightlife venues. Respondents asked that officers with pro-gay values be assigned to enforcement at gay clubs and bars, and that more effort be made to crack down on anti-gay harassment and street violence, particularly in Capitol Hill. In response to these concerns, the Mayor requested an audit of the Code Compliance team’s enforcements to be completed by the city’s nightlife coordinator.

• Finally, the report reminds that the city’s douchebag laws go into effect starting this weekend:

The Nighttime Disturbance Ordinance was passed by the City Council on August 2, 2010. It creates a new civil infraction for loud noise, threats or fighting that occur in a public place in a commercial or industrial zone between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. The noise provisions of the ordinance were approved by the Department of Ecology in November and SPD is currently conducting officer training on the ordinance. Enforcement will begin in January 2011.

Here’s the Seattle Times take on the update. Full report from the mayor’s office is below. You can view the complete survey results here.

Nightlife Report Final

We didn’t wake up to snow here in Seattle like those to the north and to the south but there’s still a chance we might see some flakes before Wednesday is done.

Cliff Mass says probably just cold today:

So today will be a difficult challenge. Our temperatures are marginal for snow at sea level. On the higher hills (above 300 ft) the chances of snow are increased and where precipitation is heavy the snow level could descend to sea level.

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So watch the radar. If the convergence zone revs up perhaps we might see a few inches near sea level in the central Sound. If not, this could be a big bust for snow lovers in Seattle. Again, this is NOT November 22! The ground temps are above freezing and air temps are above freezing. The road surfaces are not going to freeze, although slushy snow can be a bit slippery. And daytime and warmer temps are coming.

National Weather Service concurs:

Today: Rain showers likely before 4pm, then rain likely, possibly mixed with snow showers. Snow level 400 feet. Cloudy, with a high near 43. Light wind becoming northwest between 13 and 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Tonight: A 30 percent chance of snow showers before 10pm. Mostly cloudy, with a steady temperature around 33. West northwest wind around 6 mph becoming calm. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 39. Light and variable wind.

Our puggle is lost. She ran off during a robbery earlier today. She has her new Christmas collar on and thus no tags. Please keep an eye out. She’s very friendly and answers to Tesla.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn will discuss the latest updates for the Seattle Nightlife Initiative at a Tuesday night media briefing at Washington Hall.

SEATTLE NIGHTLIFE INITIATIVE UPDATE 

Mayor Mike McGinn will report Tuesday on the Seattle Nightlife Initiative, including input received through the public review process, status reports on the individual components of the initiative, and next steps. 

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LOCATION: Washington Hall, Lodge Room, 153 14th Avenue

TIME: 6 p.m.

The mayor’s meeting to launch the effort to overhaul the city’s nightlife laws was held on Capitol Hill in July. Last week, we noted the start of acting classes as the historical performance hall as another sign of its return to prominence in the community. You can notch this announcement as another good sign for the Hall — and also acknowledge that it might be a tough week for scheduling with so many still on holiday.

Washington Hall is located at 153 14th Ave.

We’ve focused a lot of attention this month on the effort of local landowners and business people to reinvigorate the intersection of 23rd and Union. The Seattle Times checked in this week with an elder statesmanwoman of the corner:

Gail Thompson knew she needed to make a decision. But which one could she live with?

Her choices were to keep running Thompson’s Point of View, the Central District restaurant her husband, Carl, opened in 1986. Or close it.

No one would have blamed Thompson for leaving. She’d just taken over the business in June after Carl died. Profits had run dry. Then there was the matter of location.

To Thompson’s right at 23rd Avenue and East Union Street sat an empty sandwich shop. Across from her: a liquor store. Kitty corner: a vacant lot.

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Kids often hung out by her restaurant, dealing drugs, causing trouble and scaring customers away.

There was little reason to think things would improve. But quietly, new life has been pumping into this decaying corner. more…

We wrote about Gail’s decision back in May, here. The Times takes a tour of 23rd and Union starting with Thompson’s and also talks to many of the people we’ve been covering in recent weeks. It’s a good snapshot of the situation and the opportunities. Give it a read to see what the rest of the city is hearing about the intersection.

Our recent coverage is here:

• Thompson’s Point of View suffers a loss, stays within family
• Coming soon to 23rd and Union: ‘more bakery than coffee shop’
• Union Street Business Group: Meet the people working to change 23rd and Union