Wells Fargo branch vandalized

Part of a pattern?It was almost three months ago that the Madison Park Bank of America branch was struck by an arsonist.  In that incident, there was apparently no message left by the perpetrator, so it was unclear if the act was political, simple vandalism, or a botched attempt at extracting money from a cash machine.  In today's incident at the Madison Park Wells Fargo branch, the vandalism is perhaps a bit more straightforward. According...

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Madison Valley designer gets reality show gig

Madison Valley's own Lisa Vian Hunter has been chosen to appear on a new reality show, Fashion Star, which will air Tuesday nights on NBC beginning in March. Hunter has been a clothing designer and retailer of vintage 1950's and 1960's clothes for several years. With her husband, Scott, she established her clothing line, Vian Hunter, in the Bay Area in 2006.  They opened their retail shop in Madison Valley three years later.Fashion Star, hosted...

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Fourth Quarter Real Estate Report 2011

Sales were level, but inventory is way downMadison Park’s real estate market ended last year on a fairly positive note, with eleven houses and condos changing hands during the month of December.  That’s better than the overall 8.5 average sales per month during 2011, but it was not nearly the barn-burning performance that the market generated the previous December.  In that month, 16 sales occurred.  As it happened, however, that high...

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Beautiful but treacherous

Bus route detoured9:00 am: Freezing rain has complicated the already difficult transit of vehicles in and out of Madison Park this morning.  A driver on Metro Bus Route 11 just reported to us that E. Madison Street is in bad shape between 23rd Avenue E. and ML King Way.  As a result, the buses have been detoured to ML King Way, with a later turn up Union Street to Olive.  Unfortunately, there is now a bus reportedly blocking Olive,...

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Send us your snow photos

If you happen to have taken any interesting or beautiful photos during the past few days of snow and wish to share them, please send them along.  As always, we appreciate submissions but reserve the right to "publish" or not.[Upper photo by Adele Clancy; lower photo by Margo Spellma...

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Snow day !!!

It began coming down sometime around 3:30 am, and since then the snow has not stopped falling on Madison Park.  At this point (8:45 am) SDOT reports it's just sent a plow truck down E. Madison Street, which is a second-priority route for snow-removal crews.  This is the scene (as captured on SDOT cameras) on E. Madison, looking west at 23rd Avenue E., the top of the hill:Conditions look a bit treacherous, a fact confirmed by the Number...

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Let it snow !?

Of all the City's neighborhoods, Madison Park is probably the very best one in which to become snowbound.  The "winter wonderland" setting, plus the combination of a relatively flat topography and the immediately accessible (for most) amenities, can make a few days of waiting out the snow here a rather pleasant experience.  During the last couple of days, with snow in the forecast, we encountered plenty of people hoping for the seemingly-unlikely...

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Is Madison Park ready for “greenways”?

They have a well-developed network of them in Portland; and even in Seattle, there are neighborhoods that are already benefiting from them, or at minimum have planning underway to put them into place.  But in Madison Park they are, at best, an idea in the germination stage (perhaps with only fallow ground in which to grow).  After all, introducing them would mean change right here in the Park. What we’re talking about is neighborhood greenways....

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Yes, yes: another weekend closure for 520

Be prepared for a now-almost-routine bridge closure this weekend.  SR 520 will once again be out of service from 11:00 pm Friday night until 5:00 am on Monday.  This weekend construction crews will be installing more than two million pounds of concrete girders for two lidded overpasses above the roadway. The photo above shows work at the Evergreen Point Road during an earlier road closure in November. Work will continue at this location...

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Redistricting Commission confirms legislative & congressional status quo for Madison Park

The Washington State Redistricting Commission formalized the State's legislative district boundaries in a report to the State Legislature yesterday, confirming that Madison Park will remain within the 43rd Legislative District.  The only significant changes to the 43rd occurred north of the ship canal, where there were minor modifications to the District's boundaries on both the east and west sides.  In addition to Madison Park, the 43rd...

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It's McGilvra Auction time again

Big event February 4/ticket deadline January 10One of the great things about our neighborhood's John J. McGilvra Elementary School is the active involvement of the parents and other friends of the school, including the high level of financial support they provide to enhance McGilvra's educational mission. The school's biggest fundraising activity by far is the every-other-year auction, which attracted 350 supporters and raised close to $140,000...

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'Peeping Tom' disturbs the Edgewater

This story was news to us when we received the following email yesterday afternoon:"I was just wondering if you knew anything about the “peeping tom” reports at the Edgewater Apartments recently.  There were signs posted on the doors on or about Dec 18th alerting tenants and visitors. I didn’t see anything in your Blog and wanted to know if there was anything to this, as I drop my kids there for playdates and was concerned. You seem pretty tuned...

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