Stormwater project: operational at last

It must have been with a gigantic sigh of relief that Madison Valley merchants learned yesterday that Phase II construction of the seemingly never-ending Madison Valley Stormwater Project is now officially complete. An email from the Seattle Department of Public Utilities (SPU) on Monday reported that the project is now operational and the related improvements to the stormwater drainage system along E. Madison Street are also in place. Construction...

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Short takes No. 11

Bank of America almost back to normalFollowing the presumed arson fire at the BofA ATM earlier this month, the Bank needed to scramble to ensure customer service in Madison Park.  The branch itself was out of commission for about seven business days following the fire, finally reopening last Monday.  With the replacement ATM successfully installed and operating by Friday, the temporary mobile ATM--which had served a useful purpose during...

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A milestone

By way of self-congratulation, we note that over the Thanksgiving holiday the Madison Park Blogger signed up its 400th subscriber. This is in addition to the 200 users who, on average, now visit MPB each day. This all adds up to a readership of between 400 and 600 people for most of our postings, according to statistics from Google Analytics. We've come a long way in the less-than-three-year history of the Blog, mostly as the result of word of mouth....

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Police Blotter 11/15/11

House break in leads to arrestsWe're certainly not complaining about our neighborhood's lack of notoriety, but since the Seattle Police Department began its own blog last year, we've noticed only two postings concerning crimes occurring in Madison Park.  The first such story was the one last week reporting the early-morning arson fire at the Bank of America ATM.  This week, coincidentally, there was another Madison Park crime story on the...

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Those good news/bad news assessments

Values down 5.9% on averageThat old adage about the certainty of death and taxes has a corollary for property owners:  the inevitability of tax assessments, which for those of us in King County is an annual ritual.  Last year, as you may recall, our area of town (known to the King County Assessor as Area 14) was subjected to a physical inspection by the Assessor’s staff, a process that resulted in changes to the valuation of area properties...

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Come down and see the firehouse

Anyone reading this blog over the last couple years knows what fans we are of our neighborhood fire team. The Seattle Fire Department's Fire Station 34 is holding an open house this Saturday, so everyone will have the opportunity to meet the firefighters and sit in Engine 34, shown above. In one form or another this firehouse (located at 633 32nd Avenue E.) has been protecting the neighborhood for a long time.  We culled this picture from the...

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Found at 41st & E. Galer

This skinny but "super sweet" dog was discovered last evening by Louisa and Georgia, the daughters of Wendy Skerritt, who brought the dog home with them to be safe. (Rescuing lost dogs seems to be a specialty for these girls, who performed an earlier intervention this year).The dog carries a tag identifying it as being from Moab, Utah.  If you know anything about this lost female canine, which appears to be a wire-haired pointer/retriever, please...

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Madison Park: wealthy as charged

The proposal to take down the fence at so-called (by the City and no one else) Madison Park North Beach has drawn an unusual amount of media attention to our fair neighborhood in recent weeks. KING-TV, KOMO-TV and KIRO-TV have each run news stories on the subject, as have other news purveyors. Some of the coverage in the major media and blogosphere has focused on the apparent class conflict between those "upscale" Madison Parkers who wish to preserve...

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Fall color at the Japanese Garden

One of the great things about living in Madison Park is our proximity to the Washington Park Arboretum, with its 230 acres of lush and varied habitat. A little gem within the Arboretum, of course, is the now half-century-old Japanese Garden.  While many of us may not think to visit the Garden at this time of year, these recently-shot pictures by photographer Dennis Valente illustrate the spectacular show that awaits those who do.The Japanese...

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Extreme cash withdrawal or anti-bank protest?

This was the scene at the Bank of America branch in Madison Park this morning as police and fire crews investigated what appears to have been a deliberately set fire using accelerants.  Whether this was some form of anti-Big Bank protest or simply a misguided attempt to extract money from BofA's ATM machine is not obvious.  According to the Seattle Police Blotter, the fire was reported at 2:00 am this morning by Seattle Police officers...

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Parsing the fence debate

Madison Park as cul-de-sacCommentary by Bryan TagasYou'd probably have to live in Madison Park for a few years to truly appreciate the quiet, steady rhythm of life down here at the end of the road. We sit conveniently removed from much of the wear and tear of typical urban living, having little serious criminal activity in the neighborhood and not much in the way of social discontent.  Our socio-economic circumstance and relative isolation make...

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Another weekend closure for 520

Fortunately, given that the Huskies are playing Oregon in an evening football game on Saturday, the eastbound lanes of SR-520 will not be closing temporarily until 1:00 am on Sunday morning, though the westbound lanes will be closing three hours earlier, at 10:00 pm on Saturday.  This is another in a series of planned bridge closings to accomodate Eastside construction on 520.  This weekend, 22 concrete girders will be installed to support...

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Is this fence coming down?

Decision could come quicklyTonight's the night when the staff of the Parks Department makes its recommendation to the Board of Park Commissioners that the fence at "Madison Park North Beach" be removed and public access to Lake Washington restored. Background on the site, known to most of us as either the Dog Park or Swingset Park, is contained in a briefing memo posted online last Friday. The memo also provides the rationale for the recommended...

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