Consequential or silly?

New Wells Fargo sign has MPCC seeing red (plus gold and black)

There was a new sign installed at the Wells Fargo branch last week that replaces a very similar sign that had graced the site for many years. The replacement sign has somewhat larger gold lettering for the bank's name, the color red covers more of the surface area than was true of the old sign, and the Wells Fargo Wagon (and, for that matter, the Wells Fargo horses) are now black instead of white. These changes, apparently, are just too garish for some residents (can something be too garish or is just being garish sufficient?).

At any rate, the reaction of the Madison Park Community Council (MPCC) was swift and devastating. A letter was immediately drafted and delivered to the Wells Fargo manager asking for a return to the past: Give Us Back the Old Sign (or better yet, no sign at all!) The new sign is just too out of line with the village character of Madison Park and should not stand, the MPCC insisted.  In a posting to some Madison Park residents, the council urged that citizens voice their complaints directly to Wells Fargo's local representatives.

As of yesterday, we understand from Wells Fargo that there have been two complaints. Here, for comparison purposes, is what the old sign looked like when lit up at night:

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The mayor cometh

Walking tour on Saturday to be followed by a town meeting 

It's been a good ten years, by our reckoning, since Seattle's mayor last made an official appearance in Madison Park. Of course it was the ever-affable Mayor Greg Nickels who had the honor in 2002 (that's him in the photo above, with city officials and various Madison Park celebrities in tow).  This year it will be the deep-voiced Mayor Mike McGinn who gets to amble around the neighborhood and meet with the locals.  Madison Park certainly merits a mayoral visit every decade or so.


On Saturday, McGinn will hold a "town meeting" from 11 am until noon at Park Shore Retirement Community (1630 43rd Avenue E.), at which time the Mayor will take questions from residents (and, presumably, from anyone else who may show up).

Prior to that public forum the mayor will walk the 'hood with the various dignitaries of our community council and business association.  We suspect he will be channeled in the direction of Constance Gillespie's notorious "black hole of Madison Park" while he's here. But that's only a guess.

[Photo of Mayor Nickels' walking tour from the Seattle Municipal Archives.]

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Mayor supports intersection improvement here

E. Madison & 37th Avenue E. may be upgraded

The mayor's office announced earlier this week that the intersection where a McGilvra Elementary School student was injured in a car/cyclist accident last summer is one of three projects budgeted as part of the Safe Routes to School program.  A total of $836,000 has been allocated for improvements affecting access to McGilvra, Beacon Hill, and West Woodland (Ballard) Elementary Schools.

Area residents, including parents of McGilvra students and supporters of Madison Park Greenways, have been urging a fix for the 37th and Madison intersection since the near-tragedy at that location a year ago. If funded, the intersection improvements are expected to include a sidewalk extension, curb bulbs, and a curb ramp. Construction could begin as early as next year.

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News from the chow line

New deli operator to arrive in October

Park Place Deli reopened last week after a brief hiatus, but we were a bit ahead of the story in having earlier reported that the deli would be operating under new management. Through September 29, the place will be run by the current owner.  Sometime after that there be a new operator on the premises.

We've been told that Park Place Deli lost its lease because the business had been shut down. As a result, the landlord reportedly not only offered the space to someone else but required that the current tenant reopen the business or be in violation of the existing lease terms. So while the business has not been sold, it will soon be replaced. No word (at least to us) on what the new format might be when the management does change.

Cafe Parco celebrates first anniversary

Chef/owner Celinda Norton of Cafe Parco was profiled last week on SeattleEater.com, a website for foodies.  It's been one year since Norton opened her "modern Italian" restaurant here, replacing the venerable and French Madison Park Cafe. In the interview with Eater (which can be found here), Norton reports that the most popular regular menu item at Cafe Parco comes from the brunch menu: the bacon-banana waffle.

Her biggest surprise about Madison Park?  The fact that lots of regular customers suddenly disappear for the winter season, off to their other homes.

Madison Park Conservatory makes some changes

In addition to adding some lovely (but expensive to operate) propane heaters to the lower-level outdoor dining area this summer, Madison Park Conservatory has also revamped its to-some-cumbersome website with a more user-friendly one that includes at lot of great photography and even (get this) on-line reservations!

Chef Cormac Mahoney has seemed to revel in such things as having an obscure "Madison Park Conservatory" sign (a relatively tiny brass plate barely visible from the street) and a website that took some patience to deal with. On at least one of those fronts he apparently (and with great reluctance, we assume) finally relented.  Accessible is good.

[Photo of Celinda Norton by S. Pratt from SeattleEater and photo of Cormac Mahoney from the MPC website, both used without permission.]

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Another bridge closing this weekend...

...not to mention the main drag through the Arboretum (though obviously we are doing so)

There will be another in the long series of SR 520 road closings this weekend, beginning Friday night at 11 pm and extending through Monday morning at 5 am.  As always, the Montlake off-ramp from SR 520 eastbound will be open, but cars will be unable to travel east past that point.  Here's what WSDOT has to say about this weekend's work:

During the closure, crews will install a fish-friendly culvert beneath all lanes of SR 520 near 108th Avenue Northeast in Bellevue, among other work. To install the culvert, crews will cut a 30-foot-deep trench across the highway, lower in 22 concrete segments weighing as much as 53,000 pounds each, fill the trench and repave the road. 

Also this weekend, Lake Washington Boulevard through the Arboretum will be closed for what is supposed to be the last time in this cycle. The road will be shut down from E. Madison Street to the E. Foster Island Road on Saturday and Sunday, September 22 and 23, from 6 am until no later than 5 pm each day. It will still be possible to enter the Arboretum via E. Foster Island Road. This is what SDOT has to say about the road closure:

The boulevard work includes new street lighting, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, traffic calming measures, landscaping and drainage maintenance. After this weekend, the bulk of the work will be completed, in time for visitors to enjoy the colorful splendor of autumn foliage in the Arboretum and the adjacent Seattle Japanese Garden. The remaining work on the boulevard will require occasional single-lane closures and will be undertaken in October.

By the way, here is an interesting picture we culled from WSDOT's Flickr feed showing the recent installation of a shaft anchor off of Edgewater Apartments:

[Pictures courtesy of the Washington State Department of Transportation.]

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Broadmooor fledglings fly (away)

Eagle parents may be empty nesters

Ever since the return of the eagles to their tree on the Broadmoor golf course earlier this year, we have been following their progress on the blog of Montlake photographer and bird watcher Larry Hubbell.  For those readers who haven't been keeping up, we can tell you that both of the eaglets became fledged over the summer and one of them, at least, has apparently flown away. As of the end of August, the remaining fledgling (that's her in these photos) was still hanging around--and apparently demonstrating her ability to acquire nesting materials.

Hubbell has some more photos and some interesting commentary on his blog, Union Bay Watch, about this fledgling's first flight, as well as coverage of the other fledgling's earlier efforts at learning to fly (which can be read here).

[Photos by Larry Hubbell, used by permission.]

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Massive tree was probably just old

The sudden collapse of that massive Heritage tree in the Washington Park neighborhood late last month left many of us wondering what the cause might have been.  As we reported at the time, the catalpa speciosa, which was approximately 85 feet tall and 75 feet wide, was apparently undiseased, yet it crashed to the ground without the impetus of either appreciable wind or water saturation of the surrounding ground.

Though the tree was gradually removed from the street during the week following its toppling, the homeowner has been left to dig out the lower woody sections and roots. That's where we found him last Sunday when we happened to drive by, so we pulled over to ask what's the rest of the story. "Inconclusive," was the answer.  It is not obvious why the tree fell, he said, but he suspects that for this particular tree it was just its time.  He estimates that the tree was probably 80 or more years old (he has a picture of the tree standing in front of his house in 1939, he said, when the tree was only about 12 ft. high).  He noted, however, that some of the wood he's dug out shows evidence of voids that might have weakened the tree and could be evidence of disease that was not detectable on the tree's exterior:

And will he be replacing the tree with another catalpa?  Not likely, he told us.  No decision yet, but it will definitely be a lower-growing variety.

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