May happenings

May 6 (Friday):  Families and friends of John J. McGilvra Elementary School are gearing up for a fun-filled Seis de Mayo McGilvra Mixer to be held at Pravda Studios (1406 10th Avenue). There will be dinner, dancing, and drinks at this "shakin' things up" fundraiser, which will benefit programs at the School.  The fun begins at 6 pm. Tickets ($30 per person, including dinner and a drink) are available online here.May 9 (Monday):  Night...

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Ropa Bella says sayonara to the Valley

Will return to the Park in MayAfter being in its Madison Valley location (2717 E. Madison St.) for only nine months, women’s clothing retailer Ropa Bella is pulling up stakes and returning to Madison Park.  In mid-May, the shop will be relocating to the space recently vacated by Maison Michel in the Villa Marina building (1928 43rd Avenue E.).   For over 20 years, Ropa Bella had been a Madison Park mainstay (first in Arboretum Court...

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Little dog gone

Please consider my heartfelt storyDear Madison Park Blogger,I have a story I was hoping you might consider putting in the blog to help me pass the word around and get support from our local neighbors.
 
I've been a resident here in Madison Park for almost a year and a half now.  I love my neighborhood and all the people who live here. It's a GREAT community!
 
My story is a sad and terrible one, but I’m hoping to bring light to an unfortunate...

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Gratuitous blogging for fun and profit

On Friday, the Madison Park Blogger celebrated its second anniversary as an alternative source of neighborhood news and information. During our 24 months of blogging, we’ve posted 370 stories, averaging just over 3.5 postings per week. At this point we’re flirting with a subscriber base of 300 readers and an average of almost 200 hits per day on the website itself.  It’s been gratifying to have this slow-but-steady growth in readership, which...

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Rating the neighborhood eateries

Nishino scores highestWhen it was announced that KeyBank would be moving into the neighborhood, filling space that was once home to three or more retails shops, a local wag commented that Madison Park was in danger of becoming a place where you do just three things: get a good meal, make a deposit, or have a spa treatment.  An oversimplification, to be sure, but still a somewhat legitimate depiction of our business district’s current critical...

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Longtime Madison Park psychiatrist suspended and sued over sexual misconduct

For reasons unknown to us, Madison Park and its environs seem to have a disproportionately high number of mental health practitioners in residence.  The offices of psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and other related professionals abound both here and in Madison Valley (Yelp lists 19 psychiatrists, for example, as practicing in Madison Park alone). Last year, the local mental health community gained a bit of unwanted notoriety when...

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Police Blotter 4/14/11

Perhaps there's some consolation in knowing of the apparent correlation between the less-than-Springlike weather we've been having and the low level of crime in the neighborhood over the past month.  As the temperature rises each year, the crime rate in Madison Park seems to increase.  So enjoy the wind, rain and cold (not to mention the occasional hail storm)* while it lasts.  Your car and your house are each less likely to be broken...

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Most expensive gas in town

Madison Park's one-and-only gas station apparently has the dubious honor of charging the highest price for gasoline of any station in Seattle.  This, according to KING-TV, which used the Shell station at the corner of E. Madison St. and Lake Washington Boulevard as the poster child for a recent story on higher gas prices. The cost of regular unleaded fuel today at the Madison Park Shell is $4.099.  But since you'd never be...

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Local restaurants in Seattle Restaurant Week

One Madison Park restaurant, Madison Park Cafe, and four Madison Valley Restaurants (Cafe Flora, Crush, Luc and Voila! Bistrot) are participating in Seattle Restaurant Week, which begins on Sunday. The two-week celebration allows diners to sample 150 Seattle-area restaurants during the April 10-14 and April 17-21 periods and get three-course dinners at a reduced fixed price ($15 or $28, depending on the restaurant).  Madison Park Cafe, according...

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Madison St. night construction begins in May

Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) announced yesterday that the planned nighttime stormwater mitigation work on E. Madison Street through Madison Valley will begin in early May, about a month later than originally scheduled.  The reason for the delay is that some materials to be used in the construction effort will not be ready before then.  The City, as we previously reported, will be installing infrastructure improvements along E. Madison...

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Madison Park as commercial hub

As we’ve previously chronicled, Madison Park began life in the mid-1800s as a private waterfront estate, Laurel Shade, which later grew into a lakeside village. By the turn of the 20th Century, the neighborhood had been developed into a prime recreational, entertainment, and sports venue for Seattle, and it also served as a major Lake Washington transportation hub, connecting Seattle by ferry to the Eastside.In the early 1900s, Madison Park also...

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Foreclosures not a big factor in our market (yet)

Homeowners who’ve been keeping up on the real estate market over the past few weeks can be forgiven if they appear a bit shell-shocked by what they’ve seen or heard.  For example, one prominent economist, Robert Schiller (best known as co-originator of the widely-quoted Case-Schiller Index of home prices), recently went on record stating there’s a risk of an additional 15% to 25% decline in real estate values nationally.  At the same time,...

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