December happenings

If you are looking to time your holiday party this year so that it coincides with the arrival of the Christmas ships, it would be wise to plan your event for Saturday, December 18. Argosy Cruise’s “Christmas Ship” and its festive flotilla of followers are scheduled to appear off of Madison Park Beach between 4:55 and 5:15 that evening. The Vivace! Cathedrals Choir will be providing the live music.

Other than boat-borne concerts using our fabulous water backdrop, Madison Park doesn’t have much in the way of a performance venue, so holiday events in the Park each year are pretty limited. That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing happening in the neighborhood, however. Art and photo lovers, for example, will have several opportunities to view some static art at different locations in the Village during the month.

Madison Park photographer David Hiller, who spent his formative years in Los Angeles as a photographer to the music and entertainment industry, will have photos from his Music Legends portfolio on display at the Madison Park Café throughout the month. Hiller’s clients have included several icons, including Angelina Jolie. Three of his shots of Jimi Hendrix will be used for a new boxed-CD anthology to be produced by Experience Hendrix LLC (that’s Jimi above).

Madison Park’s own “Fauvist-inspired” artist, Art Messer, will have some of his work on the walls of Park Place Deli during December. His pieces were inspired by a recent trip to Paris, where he found “the movement” is still alive and well in the city’s museums and contemporary art galleries. His oil-on-canvass painting, Yellow River is shown above. A reception to kick off the show will take place on opening night, December 2, from 6 until 9 pm.

Abstract artist Margo Spellman, meanwhile, will have her art on the walls of Wendy Amdal Salon during December. Spellman was recently featured as “Artist of the Day” on Max’s Kansas City, a national art, fashion, and music website based in NYC. That’s her recent work, Through Up, above. The Madison Park Blogger’s conflict of interest regarding this talented local artist is fairly well known.

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Here’s a final note on December happenings: If you plan on picking up Greek pastries from the Church of the Assumption for your upcoming holiday party, you better get your order in quickly. The last day to get your dibs on the baklava, paximadia, and koulourakia is Tuesday, November 23. You can place your order here and pick the pastries up on December 4th and 5th at the Church, located at 1804 13th Avenue E. on Capitol Hill.

Happy December!

[Madison Park Café is located at 1807 42nd Avenue E., Park Place Deli is located at 4122 E. Madison Street, and Wendy Amdal Salon is located at 4120 E. Madison Street. Photo of the Christmas Ship courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives.]

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Police Blotter 11/15/10

Animosities lead to disturbances

There were a couple of unlikely criminal episodes in the neighborhood during the last two weeks, each apparently resulting from failed relationships, real or imagined. The most serious incident was reported by a resident of an apartment in the 4200 block of E. Blaine Street. According to the victim, at about 7 pm on 11/12, a woman pounded on the door of his apartment saying that she was there to pick up her friend, who was a former girlfriend of the victim. He admitted that his former girlfriend had been at his apartment, but he said she had left twenty minutes earlier. The woman, according to the victim, then became enraged and came into the apartment, where she assaulted him, yelling that he should stay out of her friend’s life as he was just “f---ing it up.” In the ensuing scuffle, which began in the living room, the victim was bit on the chest, he reported. The struggle then moved into in the kitchen, where the victim was “grabbed in the genitals” and his underwear ripped. When he reached for his cell phone to call the police, his assailant grabbed the phone and ran for the door. But before she could make it out of the apartment, he punched her in the gut and she dropped the phone, which he then used to make the call. When the police arrived, the victim showed them the bite to his chest, his bruised groin, and the ripped underwear. The man said he did not know the suspect’s name or address. But the alleged assailant later provided a clue to her identity by calling the victim on his cell phone to further chew him out, thereby inadvertently leaving her phone number on the victim’s phone for the police to follow up on. Quite a story, but only the first in this series.

The second incident involved a resident of the 2000 block of 43rd Avenue E. and occurred at 8:25 pm on 11/6. She reported that a man she knew arrived at her apartment to complain that she had had her ex-boyfriend over for drinks. The suspect entered her apartment and yelled at her, but was intoxicated and eventually left. The victim reported to the police that while she did know the man, he was not someone she had ever dated.

There was also a serious case of harassment reported this month. On 11/8 a Madison Park resident told police that his stepson was a victim of “cyber bullying.” He said that his stepson had been having an ongoing conversation with someone on Facebook whom he had never met. The Facebook messages had suddenly became hostile, however, to his both the stepson and the stepson’s girlfriend. The complainant reported, in fact, that the perpetrator had eventually sent this message: “Don’t kill yourself, because I want to be the one to hurt you.” This caused his stepson to experience a panic attack, the man stated. Although the perpetrator had given his “name” on Facebook, the police were unable to find anyone by that name in their databases.

Also during the last two weeks there were three cases of credit card fraud reported in the neighborhood. In one of the cases, a woman in Broadmoor told police that she had received a call from Chase Visa asking about a $1,200 charge that someone was attempting to make using her credit card in New England. She told Chase that the charge was not valid, so the Bank declined payment to the requesting merchant, cancelled her card and issued her a new one. Whether this and the other two local credit-card fraud cases were related to a recent flurry of such activity on Capitol Hill was not immediately clear. As reported recently by the Capitol Hill Seattle (CHS) blog, the Secret Service is investigating a case involving a Capitol Hill restaurant, where the credit card information of various patrons was apparently stolen. CHS reports that the restaurant is the Broadway Grill, which is not believed to have had any direct involvement in the thefts.

[Key to crime-map symbols: starbursts represent burglaries, solid cars represent car thefts, un-solid cars represent car prowls, spray-paint cans represent property damage, upraised hands represent shoplifting, dollar bills represent thefts, dollar signs represent credit card fraud, handcuffs represent arrests under warrants, black masks represent robberies, gloved fists represent assaults, and exclamation points represent cases of harassment. This map covers the period from October 28 through November 14.]

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A survey of Madison Park road ends: Part Two

“Hidden Beach” at E. Harrison Street

Madison Park’s southernmost road end (like our rustic northernmost road end, which we profiled earlier), is a bit off the beaten path. In spite of the fact that it’s actually not the most obscure or hard-to-find waterfront road end in the neighborhood, it’s still well deserving of its local moniker: Hidden Beach. You have to venture down “Devil’s Dip” to get to it, and unless you know what you’re looking for you might very well miss the entrance.

Officially, it’s the “street end” for E. Harrison Street, which actually peters out several blocks higher up the hill, where—at its intersection with Lake Washington Boulevard E.—it terminates its role as a transportation route. This little unconnected waterfront stub of E. Harrison is not at all obvious as either a road end or as beach access (though there is a sign). Frankly, it looks very much like a homeowner’s driveway:

But E. Harrison Street without a doubt has the nicest beach of any of Madison Park’s six waterfront road ends.

You enter Hidden Beach from 39th Avenue E. (known to locals as “Devil’s Dip”) and approach it through a woodsy trail.

The trail terminates in what is a surprisingly lovely and relatively wide sandy beach, though very much smaller and far less able to accommodate a horde of sunbathers than Madison Park Beach can.

This beach, we’re told, is popular with some locals looking for water access for their dogs. A onetime beach-side resident also reports that there are occasional nude swimmers in the early morning hours, but Hidden Beach is definitely not to be confused with the famous Nudie Beach further south on the Lake (more on that in a later posting).

Hidden Beach, unlike a couple of the other waterfront road ends in Madison Park, is a well maintained and appreciated neighborhood amenity for those few who venture to take advantage.

[Upper photo: looking North from Hidden Beach (aka Secret Beach). Bottom photo: looking South. Aerial photo from Google Earth.]

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Planning begins for the next Big One

You may have noticed that the City came out with its new Snow Plan yesterday. The official Snow Map puts Madison Park squarely into the Level 2 category: if it snows, E. Madison Street will be plowed to provide one “bare and wet” lane in each direction. Presumably this means quickly plowed, which if true would represent a major improvement on whatever City plan might have been operative during the last Big Snow. As we well remember, E. Madison Street was not plowed for several days after the infamous Winter 2008 snowstorm hit town, and Madison Park was effectively cut off from the rest of the City during that time. We’ve changed mayors since then, and the new one commits to doing a better job.

The Madison Park Community Council (MPCC), however, is not waiting around to see how things work out if we do have a big snowstorm this year. The Council is taking action to implement its own plan to assist Madison Park residents who are negatively impacted by a snow event. Dubbed the Emergency Snow Brigade, the idea is to “help those who can’t get groceries, prescriptions, or get to a critical doctor’s appointment or other services,” according to Über-Volunteer Gene Brandzel. The MPCC is organizing volunteers to serve as Block Coordinators and as drivers for residents in Washington Park, Denny-Blaine, Broadmoor, and the rest of Madison Park.

Madison Parkers who have vehicles capable of operating in extreme snow conditions are especially needed. Not only will they be critical in helping people get essential services within the neighborhood, they may be needed to taxi children and adults who are unable to get back home because of snow. Pet rescues may also be part of the job, says the Council’s Kathleen O’Connor. Block Coordinators, meanwhile, will be responsible for checking on their immediate neighbors and for communicating with MPCC “dispatchers” to see that drivers and other volunteers are directed to those with special needs. It might be necessary, for example, to shovel walks and stairs for those who can’t do so or to drive the elderly to a place that is heated, if the neighborhood experiences a power failure.

The MPCC is looking for volunteers to fill all of these roles: driver, Block Coordinator, and non-driver volunteer. If you are interested in helping out, Gene Brandzel, the Council’s Lead Coordinator, would like to hear from you. He can be reached at genebb@gmail.com or (206) 524-2115.

Don’t assume, by the way, that just because E. Madison Street is scheduled for priority plowing that Madison Park will not be negatively impacted by a big snow. Even if the City fulfills its commitment to keep that major thoroughfare relatively clear, residential streets will not be plowed. The only exceptions are those blocks of 42nd and 43rd Avenues E. that are part of the bus route (primarily north of E. Madison). McGilvra Boulevard is a Level 3 arterial under the City’s Snow Plan, where only “curves, hills, and stopping zones” will be treated. Cliff Mass's Weather blog, by the way, has an excellent overview of the City's snow plans and the likelihood of weather forecasters getting it right this year.

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[Photos of the 2008 winter snow: upper photo shows E. Madison Street during the storm, courtesy of Dorian G. Muncey Interiors; middle photo shows 43rd Avenue E. at Madison Park Beach, courtesy of Sky Records; and bottom photo shows the lifeguard chair at the Beach, courtesy of Joan Loeken. Thanks to the many MPB readers who provided photos. We will be doing a Winter 2008 retrospective as we get closer to the snow season, using more of the great photos we received.]

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Google does Madison Park

Tina Brown of Tina’s on Madison put us onto this story by mentioning that Google had recently spent an hour and a half or so in her shop taking photos and videos of the place. A quick check of other neighborhood merchants revealed a pattern: Google has been systematically working the Village in recent weeks. So what’s it all about?

The answer is Google Places, an “overarching initiative” currently underway by the dominant internet search engine to provide higher-quality information about businesses in communities located in the U.S., Japan, New Zealand and Australia. Madison Park just happens to be one of the places where Google is making an early investment in one aspect of the initiative, a pilot program called Business Photos from Google. The ultimate goal is to have a new Madison Park “Place Page” on Google that is much more comprehensive and in-depth than what currently exists. For the fact is that if you Google “Madison Park Seattle” today, you get a pretty anemic representation of our neighborhood:

What Google envisions is a robust search conclusion that would provide a detailed Place Page of Madison Park businesses, where each listed business can be clicked on to reveal a business Place Page with updated information, high-resolution interior pictures, reviews, and points of interest nearby. To reach that ideal, Google first needs to get updated, high-quality pictures of each business. In Madison Park, that process is now well underway, although it may be some time before we see the results of Google’s efforts.

When called by Google to set up a photo date, the first question asked by several Madison Park shop owners was “What’s it going to cost me?” The answer was nothing--at least for now. The idea, apparently, is to get businesses hooked on the program by doing the initial photos for free. Google, of course, could always decide later to charge for updates to the photos and for other information that may be uploaded to Google about a particular business. Right now, however, Google is presenting the program simply as an altruistic attempt to provide information that people searching Google seem to want. Google is also appealing to the self-interest of business owners. “By enhancing your Place Page,” says Google in its pitch, “business photos will help your business stand out above the competition and get discovered.” Google, by the way, will own the photos.

Here’s what a Place Page for an individual business looks like, using Bing’s as an example:

The photos on Bing’s Place Page are certainly not high-resolution shots, but we’ve confirmed that the restaurant was contacted by Google to get that corrected. Interestingly, Google officially cites 21 U.S. cities in which the Business Photos from Google pilot project is underway. Although Portland, Los Angeles, and San Diego are on the list, Seattle isn’t.

[Businesses that have not been contacted by Google for a photo shoot can apply to have their businesses included. More information is available here. Aerial photo of Madison Park from GoogleEarth.]

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Starbucks Madison Park to get revamp

Our neighborhood Starbucks will be undergoing a makeover sometime in the next six months, but don’t expect the end result to be anything like what’s recently transpired at certain other Starbucks locations in our fair town. Madison Park Starbucks Manager Iaan Hughes calls the upcoming changes simply “a refresh.” He notes that the store has been in its present form for eight years, and he thinks it’s time for a bit of updating. The changes anticipated for Madison Park will be a lot less ambitious, he says, than the transmogrifications Starbucks undertook in the University Village and in a more recent example closer to home.

There’s been a lot of press coverage of the just completed overhaul of one of Starbucks’ prime Capitol Hill locations, the store at 1600 E. Olive Way—known affectionately to some locals as Gaybucks. Not only was the space completely revamped, but the whole concept of the store was transformed from urban coffee house to something best described as “Coffee Theatre.” A sort of coffee-warehouse effect was one of the goals, another of which was to be green. Many of the materials used in construction were recycled, and the finished space is being touted as environmentally friendly (in fact it’s “LEED® registered or certified.”).

Nothing quite so dramatic as a “Capitol Hill East” Starbucks is planned for our staid Madison Park locale, however. Just as the Capitol Hill store was supposedly remade in the image of its community, the Madison Park store will stay true to what Starbucks thinks we want here in the Park. “It's not going to be hammered copper” or anything out of line with the neighborhood, Hughes says. “My vision for the store is that we have a lot of high profile customers and we need to keep the existing neighborhood feel.”

Speaking of high profile, Howard Schultz just happens to live three blocks from the Madison Park Starbucks and is often seen in the store. But if Hughes is in any way intimidated by his role managing the Chairman’s own-neighborhood Starbucks, it certainly doesn’t show. He’s been doing the job successfully for four years, and he feels he has a pretty good sense of the community in which his store sits.

“We had the potential to be obnoxious,” he says, referring to Starbucks' entry into the neighborhood in 2002. The local (but big) corporation replaced a couple of well regarded neighborhood restaurants that had successively occupied that space; and not everyone down here was happy about the changeover to Starbucks when it was first announced. But after the opening, the Starbucks store was “resoundingly supported by the neighborhood,” says Hughes; and it quickly became a neighborhood fixture. What Madison Park really wanted, in Hughes’ opinion, is what Starbucks delivered: “good coffee and good service.” The store was designed to fit into the Park and be part of the neighborhood—and the new store is not going to deviate from that course. “It’s not going to be cool,” says Hughes.

What this means in practice, he tells us, is an updating of the space and some new furnishings, although “the refresh” may go a little deeper than that. His goal is something “comfortable, timeless, classic—a fit for the neighborhood.” What he doesn’t want to see is anything too dark: “No museum pieces.”

Remodeling suggestions from patrons will certainly be welcomed, says Hughes. And as Amy Peterson, the store’s assistant manager, notes, once the story gets out about the upcoming revamp, suggestions will be offered whether the staff requests them or not. “Madison Parkers are not shy about sharing their input,” she says, adding, “How many times have I had someone say ‘When you see Howard next time be sure and tell him..…’?”

A lot of times, apparently.

[Photos: We challenged Manager (and "Coffee Master") Iaan Hughes and Assistant Manager Amy Peterson to prove for the camera that they can still work the bar at Starbucks. They performed admirably, showing the rest of the staff how it's done.]

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Police Blotter 11/1/10

Plenty of reasons for concern...

As we’ve said many times on this blog, when it comes to guarding against crime it pays to be vigilant. The sagacity of this advice was brought home to each of us in the past few weeks when we learned of the orange-vest-wearing home-burglary suspect and later heard about the guy with the supposedly lost ball who was probably an arsonist and burglar. Each of these men may not have been what he, on first glance, appeared to be; and most likely there were serious consequences because people were not paying close attention.

But if these local incidents were not enough to shake us out of our complacency, what happened recently in Montlake certainly should. Several blog readers suggested that we recap the story for those who may have missed it. So here’s the gist: towards the end of summer, several Montlake residents experienced break-ins where the suspects had pretended to be cleaning women in order to check to see if houses were vacant or occupied. They knocked on doors—or so it is alleged—and if someone answered, the women claimed that they were looking for the home of a new housecleaning client but were lost. If they discovered no one was home, however, they often proceeded to break in and burglarize the place. The alleged perpetrators, who it turns out were from the Montlake neighborhood, were eventually apprehended. But Montlake was put on notice, and residents there have become supersensitive to unusual activity in their neighborhood.

Madison Park has had several home break-ins, and at least one break-in attempt, since our last Police Blotter was posted on October 9. One of the incidents occurred on the 2000 block of McGilvra Boulevard on October 17. The residents had gone on an overnight trip on Saturday and returned to their house on Sunday to discover that their basement door had been pried open. Surprisingly, although the house had been entered, nothing had been taken except for a pry bar stolen from a tool box on the site and apparently used in the break in.

Another forced entry occurred on October 18 on the 500 block of Hillside Drive E. To quote from the police report: “[The victim] stated that his girlfriend had left the house at approximately 6:30 am for a business trip. He returned home at approximately 8:00 pm to find that an unknown person had broken a small pane of glass from the kitchen door to gain access to the interior deadbolt and handle lock. The suspect(s) stole a 46-inch flat TV from the living room wall valued at $2,000. Also missing from the living room was his Wii game console valued at $200 and his Sony laptop valued at $800. Missing from the master bedroom was $100 in loose change, a small pine box with a number of wristwatches valued at approximately $2000, and an HP laptop computer valued at $800.” The report notes that a search for latent prints was negative.

The 1000 block of 39th Avenue E. was the location of an attempted break-in on October 25. The victim stated that she was sitting in her living room watching television at about 9:30 pm, when she heard a noise. She decided to look around the house and found that the front door was slightly ajar. Though she thought it might be a result of the wind, she was scared enough to call 911. She discovered while talking to the police dispatcher that the door had been breached. The police later discovered that a latch on another door to the house also been forced and the breached door had actually been kicked in, though no one had apparently entered the home. After thoroughly checking out the place, the police gave the homeowner some tips on making her home more secure.

Also on October 25, the gift shop in the Arboretum was broken into and two cash donation boxes, containing as much as $120 in total, were damaged and emptied. The thief had entered by breaking a window on a door and lifting the door handle. Strangely, the security system was discovered to be on when staff arrived the following morning, though apparently no alarm had sounded.

We previously reported on the only other break-in to occur in the area during the last three weeks. That was the aborted attempt to burglarize McGilvra’s on October 11.

There were three car-prowl incidents, but each of them occurred in the Arboretum, well outside the core of the neighborhood. There were also several incidents of tagging (graffiti) in the area of the 2000 block of 42nd Avenue E. Thefts, meanwhile, were reported on the 2400 block of 42nd Avenue E. on October 14, on the 4100 block of E. Madison Street on October 18, and on the 3800 block of E. Howe Street on October 11.

...but let's not get carried away

We end our report with a final note concerning vigilance. It’s a good thing, but let’s not get too paranoid. Montlake, it appears, may be going a bit overboard as a result of the sham-cleaning-ladies episode suffered by residents there. Over the past few days there have been breathless neighbor-to-neighbor emails reporting on “suspicious” people being seen in the vicinity: a sandy-haired man carrying a sheaf of papers and a middle-aged white couple carrying a flower pot, among others. After the report went out about the man with the papers, the “perpetrator” sent his own email to everyone apologizing for doing some political canvassing with an out-of-date address list.

Every stranger is not a potential housebreaker. Just to put the whole thing into perspective, a Montlake resident finally capped the email exchange last night by reporting that an unusually large number of short people with high-pitched voices kept knocking on his door. He noted that he was able to get them to go away, however, by tossing them sweets.

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