Dear Neighbors

Please go to the attached link and vote.  American Express will be awarding $1 million dollars to one of these projects.  Several of the projects are in or near to our neighborhood.  The Urban League building, Washington Hall and others that may be of interest to you.  You can vote once a day until May 12th.  Also there are open houses to view these projects.

link to open house schedule:

http://www.preservationnation.org/partners-in-preservation/s

American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have selected twenty-five places of historic, cultural and aesthetic significance in the Seattle-Puget Sound area as participants for the 2010 Partners in Preservation initiative.

From April 15 – May 12, 2010, you have the opportunity to cast one vote each day online for the historic places that you care about. At the end of the voting period, the site with the most votes is guaranteed funding from a total of $1 million that American Express will give away to support the preservation of historic places in the Seattle-Puget Sound area.

While the top vote getter is guaranteed a grant, your votes will also help American Express, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and an advisory committee comprised of Seattle-Puget Sound area civic and preservation leaders determine how best to distribute the rest of the $1 million. The voting results, along with each historic place’s preservation and monetary needs, will be considered.

Partners in Preservation encourages you to learn more about the 25 eligible historic places and to vote early and often (once daily) from April 15 – May 12, 2010.

for more information:

http://www.preservationnation.org/partners-in-preservation/s

cheers,

Larry Holman

Happy Thursday from Seattle’s East Precinct:

Tonight, participating restaurants will donate a percentage of the proceeds from the day and/or night to Lifelong AIDS Alliance.

A handy list of nearby participating restaurants can be found at the Capitol Hill Seattle blog, http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2010/04/26/dine-out

The website doesn’t seem to have a list for the Central District, so hopefully people can add comments if they find some close to home.

Washington Hall, a historic building that has been the fulcrum of arts and culture in the Central District for over a century, has completed the first phase of its rehabilitation and is ready for its debut.  Here is the invite:

Historic Seattle and 4Culture invite you to celebrate at the Washington Hall House Party and grand re-opening, beginning May 1st, with an evening of food, drinks, and a line-up of vintage jazz, contemporary performance and hip-hop backed by a live band. Family-friendly activities continue May 2nd.

You may RSVP online and the organizers remind you to bring “cash to purchase Dante’s Inferno hotdogs, drinks and your very own Washington Hall t-shirt”.  Festivities begin at 7 pm on Saturday, May 1 and at 1 pm on Sunday, May 2nd.

And don’t forget that Washington Hall is in the running for $1 million in preservation funding. Vote! 

The building at 23rd & Cherry has been vacant for the last several years, ever since Dilettante Chocolates moved out in 2007. But plans for a new set of businesses to lease the space there never materialized in the weak economy, and as of this Monday the building has a new owner: Coyote Central, which provides classes on creative endeavors for middle-school age kids.

Claudia Stelle, Executive Director of the school, says that they plan to make the building their school headquarters, with offices for staff and new instructional space for some of their courses in things like animation, design & sewing, and acting. They’ll also be building a large new professional kitchen to accomodate their popular cooking and baking classes. Other classes in areas like glass-blowing and welding will continue to take place in professional work spaces around town.

The building is currently just a shell, so extensive construction will be required to be completed before Coyote Central can occupy it. They hope to start work within the next month or so, with construction continuing through early next year. If all goes as planned, that will allow the organization to occupy the new space sometime in the Spring of 2011.

Coyote Central currently operates out of a building in Madison Valley, in the 2700 block of E. Madison.

You may have noticed the tile artwork that decorates the exterior of the 23rd & Cherry building. It turns out that it is one of many public art projects around the neighborhood that has been produced by Coyote Central’s Hit The Streets program, having added it back in 1995. They’re also responsible for the Millenium Tree sculpture across the street on the corner of the Garfield Community Center.

Stelle told us that they’ll be looking for new ways to “plug into the Central District community” once they make the transition, saying they envision the space as “a resource for the whole community.”

The end of April draws near. Here’s all of the news from Seattle’s East Precinct:

We’ve completed an analysis of the last month of Burglary reports on SeattleCrime.com, and have found that $18,363 was stolen since the end of March. That’s almost the same level of burglaries we saw last month.

Here’s the details:

• 4/15/2010 – 1400 31st Ave – $2250 stolen – Suspect used a shovel to pry open a front door, stole a computer monitor
• 4/2/10 6:58 – 200 29th Ave S – Previously evicted tenants broke back in, offered police sex when they responded to investigate
• 4/18/10 11:27am – 1800 E Marion – $1505 stolen – Former employee broke into business and stole 20 checks, cashed 3
• 4/9/10 10:00pm – 900 21st Ave – Someone used a ladder to reach an upper story window, pull it off, rumage through doors, and then leave through the back door. Nothing taken
• 4/19/10 8:30am – 700 18th Ave – $1000 stolen – Laptop stolen from upstairs bedroom, possibly by someone using a ladder or an acquaintance who had a key
• 4/7/2010 10:31am – 1700 S. Main – $400 – Woman was sleeping when she heard several loud bangs, and found that someone hadbroken her bedroom apartment. Doesn’t appear that anyone entered the house
• 3/30/10 6:20 – 1700 S. Jackson – Man was asleep in his apartment bedroom when he heard a male voice outside the bedroom door. The door opened and a male voice said “Oh shit, there’s someone in here” and then ran out. Nothing else appeard out of place
• 4/2/2010 06:00pm – 2000 S. Weller – Home was broken into while owner was away fro several days. Nothing taken
• 4/12/2010 07:00pm – 2800 E. Madison – $3250 – Someone stole furniture out of the common area of a commercial building
• 3/29/2010 09:00pm – 800 33rd Ave – Detached garage was entered overnight and inside of vehicle ransacked, but there was nothing of value to be taken
• 4/21/2010 12:01am – 300 32nd Ave E – $250 – Someone forced security bars off of bedroom window, stole various items
• 4/12/10 8:00 – 100 34th Ave E – $300 – Suspect used a shovel to pry open a front door, stole a computer monitor
• 4/13/10 4:07 – 200 32nd Ave S – Man was asleep when he heard someone in apartment. He then saw multiple shadows and a man peaked his head around the corner. Something was whispered and they ran away. “Entry was most likely through an unlocked door”
• 4/2/10 6:58 – 200 29th Ave S – Previously evicted tenants broke back in, offered police sex when they responded to investigate
• 3/31/10 8:00 – 300 MLK Way S – Someone broke into back door of residence while owner was at work. Nothing taken
• 3/30/2010 6:28pm – 300 28th Ave S – Suspects tried to kick in front door but it was reinforced and held
• 4/13/2010 10:29am – 2600 S. King Alarm – was set off by someone breaking a window latch on the side of the house.
• 3/28/2010 08:07pm – 500 26th Ave S – $300 – Someone kicked in the front door, but suspects fled when the alarm went off
• 4/2/2010 09:00pm – 500 28th Ave S – $775 – Residents were away overnight and someone broke a window to enter the house, stealing DVD, playstation, and jewelry
• 4/1/2010 06:00pm – 700 MLK S  – $600 – Basement door of rental property was kicked in and a bike stolen
• 4/15/2010 3:00pm – 2800 S. Judkins – Woman found someone had damaged front door lock but didn’t get in
• 3/28/2010 08:17pm – 900 33rd Ave S  – $6503 – Residents were out of town when someone entered and stole a variety of expensive jewelry
• 4/23/2010 12:21pm – 1300 Lake Washington Blvd S – $1230 – Woman responded to call from her alarm company, and when she entered house she heard someone upstairs. She then saw them jump out and run through the backyard, and escape down the I-90 pedestrian tunnel. Entrance was made through busted-in basement door. Several laptops taken.

The Capitol Hill Seattle blog has an interesting post about the light rail I-5 closures. Olive way will be re-opened in May, and the north-bound Cherry Street onramp will be closed for 3 weeks in May.

http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2010/04/28/olive-way-exit-to-reopen-in-may

Jessica Hagy first rose to prominence through her authorship of the blog Indexed.  The blog features a collection of charts and diagrams hand drawn on 3×5 index cards that she has scanned online. 

In 2008, Time named Indexed one of the top 25 blogs of the year.  In addition, Jessica has contributed to the New York Times Freakonomics blog and has published a compilations of some of her work in Indexed Postcard Book.  

Jessica invites interested sketchers to come sketch/doodle with her tomorrow (wed 4/28) at Tougo Coffee at 11 am (bring paper she reminds you!).  

Springtime is bringing an uptick in construction activity around the neighborhood, even in blustery rainy days like today.

Here’s an update on three big projects:

Getting Started: The old buildings have been cleared off of the back side of the SCCC Woodworking School property at 24th & King, and construction crews are starting to turn over dirt in preparation to construct the new set of buildings there. And be careful! Signs say that there’s a $1,500 fine for damaging any trees around the campus.

First Floor Going Up: The Catholic Community Services housing project is going up quickly at 23rd & Main. The foundation is laid, and various pieces of the concrete first floor are already up. A worker on site told us that the first floor should be complete by early summer, and then 2 and 3 stories of wood-frame apartments will go on top of that.

Almost Finished: The expansion of Epiphany School is nearing completion on the outside. Crews were out today working on various landscaping features around the new bulidling, and it appeared that painting was underway inside. The school is on track to open to students for the 2010/2011 school year. Hard to believe that this time last year there was four single-family houses on that block.