City ‘reassesses’ road-end blockage policy

By Bryan TagasAs a result of a unanimous action of the Seattle City Council earlier this month, waterfront property owners who block access to public right of ways will now have to pay more—significantly more—for the privilege.  The City’s new stance has immediate implications for the two Madison Park property owners whose landscaping completely blocks access to the public waterfront at the E. Mercer Street road end.  The new fee schedule...

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Police Blotter 6/20/11

The Seattle Police continue to give special attention to the public drug-use problem in Madison Park.  As we reported last month, stepped-up police patrols are now occurring in the neighborhood, especially at the waterfront road ends of E. Lee, E. Prospect, and E. Highland Streets. It appears, at least anecdotally, that area residents are receiving fairly immediate police response to calls about suspicious behavior at these locations, and the...

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Facing up to market realities

We noticed this week that after almost 800 days on the market, the neighborhood’s most expensive spec house just moved from “active” to “pending sale,” thus providing us with a convenient jumping off point for a broader discussion of current market realities and how sellers are coping.  The spec house in question, located at 821 34th Avenue E., was featured on this blog a little over a year ago.  At that time, the 5,500 sq. ft. Georgian...

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98112 fails to make “wealthiest” list

This is one of those “dog that didn’t bark in the night” kind of stories.  Newsworthy, in other words, for what didn’t happen rather than the other way around.  It has to do with a list that our part of town didn’t make this year:  the Puget Sound Business Journal’s Top-25 “Wealthiest Zip Codes” ranking for the region.  The fact that we’re not on it seemed strange to us since, as far as we could recall, we’d always been on it...

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Floating bridge closed this weekend

This is just a follow up to our earlier posting, reminding Madison Parkers of the upcoming temporary closure of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, formally known as the Albert D. Rosellini Bridge. Beginning at 11 pm on Friday night and extending through 5 am on Monday morning, the bridge will be closed to traffic.  The closure will affect the SR-520 route all the way from the Montlake Boulevard exit in Seattle to the intersection of the...

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Bing's is sold

Although the deal had been in the works for several months, it was not until Friday last week that the final documents were signed and Bing’s officially changed hands.  The transition from old to new went unnoticed by patrons, however, since there was not much change in evidence.  Stan Moshier and Lori Campbell, who first opened Bing’s Bodacious Burgers in 1999, were still on board this weekend, working side by side with the new owners—at...

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Great day for a race

As happened last year, Mother Nature cooperated by suddenly producing a picture-perfect morning for the Shore Run/Walk event. Thousands of runners, walkers, and spectators thronged the neighborhood today for what was another highly successful fundraising effort in support of Fred Hutch.Of course the most-fun event for many of us during the Shore Run each year is the Half-Mile Kids' Run. Watching it, that is.The Kids' Run, sponsored this year...

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Remember: Shore Run is tomorrow

The neighborhood will be disrupted for a good cause on Sunday morning as the 34th Annual Shore Run/Walk takes place to benefit the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The 5K and 10K events each terminate in Madison Park, and the Half-Mile Kids' Run will also utilize some surface streets in the 'hood, so parking and traffic flow through the area will be impacted.  Lake Washington Boulevard and McGilvra Boulevard E. will be closed to...

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New York Times does Seattle

It's not every day that a Madison Park establishment is mentioned in the national media, but the Madison Park Conservatory merited this honor today in the New York Times, whose reviewer, Frank Bruni, created a Seattle tasting menu based on his experiences during the several days he spent in our mostly-rainy-though-briefly-sunny city. His story, which will presumably appear in tomorrow's printed edition of the Times, cites MPC as "an excellent...

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Tracking down a rumor

Multiple tipsters have contacted us this week asking what's the story on the sudden appearance of bank guards at the Madison Park branches of both BofA and KeyBank. Is there some threat we should know about?We can confirm that the guards are present in both locations, but each bank is giving the same reason as to why:  this is just the normal rotation of guards among that bank's branch network. It's sort of a showing-the-flag effort, presumably...

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The Seattle Times: late to the party

MLK sale is suddenly big newsCommentary By Bryan TagasIf there were an award for ringing the fire bell after the house has burned down, the Seattle Times would surely be deserving of a nomination today for its front-page story concerning the School District’s sale of Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School last year. The paper’s breathless coverage focuses on the questionable decision-making process by Seattle Schools and the conflict of interest...

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Crime watch

It’s that time of year againOne morning last week we awoke to discover something strange about the bags of used clothes we’d deposited on our street corner the previous night for pick up by the Northwest Center truck. Though we had put out three bags for the charity, only two remained. One of them, perhaps the one containing the Cole-Haan shoes, had been stolen during the night. Later in the week a neighbor reported that two suspicious characters...

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Pit Bull "Honey" not dangerous after all !

This is a shocking story of which we were unaware until it was pointed out to us today by an alert reader.  It seems that back in February, the Pit Bull that attacked and injured three women on a Madison Park sidewalk last summer was declared not dangerous. The dog is therefore allowed to live with its owner inside City limits without restriction. When we last reported on the situation in October, the dog, named Honey, had been declared...

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