Whoopsies! The Lifewise ad with the slumped-over dummy that prompted an emergency response yesterday when someone mistook it for a real human was not a potential-disaster diorama, but a legitimate accident, Lifewise employee Amy Carter told us in the comments yesterday. more ›

KIRO's headline from earlier today, "Lifeless man dangling from Seattle building turns out to be dummy," brings to mind still-hanging Halloween decorations gone awry. Perhaps a zombie dangling from a tree. But no: police and fire personnel were called to 2nd Avenue and Virginia Street today because of a meta-billboard for Lifewise health insurance, featuring a lifeless dummy who was seemingly about 80% finished painting a large ad, about eight stories up, before slipping off in some horrible accident. more ›

Attorneys butt heads, ferries raise and drop fees like the tides, and Belltown is still stabby. But hey, at least the weather's spiffy. Hooray, September! more ›

Nearly a month after the July 30th stabbing and robbery at a Belltown ATM, a tip has led to the arrest of a suspect in the attack. more ›

WSP catches drunk drivers, the Seahawks are done with drafts, Microsoft's Windows phone is floundering, and a man gets stabbed in--where else?--Belltown. more ›

Playwright Sarah Ruhl is pretty white hot these days, in the world of theater. The MacArthur Fellowship (or so-called 'genius grant') recipient was last year nominated for three Tony Awards, including best play, and was a finalist for the the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The recent praise has been over In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), which premiered in February 2009, and is set to run at ACT July 29th through August 28th. Mrs. Ruhl is more immediately accessible, however, at Freehold, where STAGEright Theatre is running the playwright's early (2001) Melancholy Play, through July 31st. more ›

Tiny rabbits, big news, bashed in windows, and a development in the saga of Pete Holmes v. SPD. It's like speed-dating, but with news headlines. more ›

Seattle recently got rated one of the top ten safest cities for pedestrians, yet many of our neighborhoods are so insular, they're separated by impossible-to-cross arterials or frayed edges that take pedestrians from sidewalks and storefronts to construction and no sidewalks. Enter the Lake 2 Bay Loop, a proposed pedestrian-friendly initiative designed to attractively and accessibly connect Elliot Bay to Lake Union. more ›

There's been a lot of chatter about what Seattle's next "big" neighborhood will be. Seattle Magazine is cheering for underdogs like White Center and West Seattle, while foodies are lauding South Lake Union (thanks, T-Doug) as the next hot spot. And yet, no one seems to be in Belltown's corner--except, it seems, Seattle's burgeoning fashion community. more ›

It's Shuttle Day, maybe! Also, a shortage of medication and bad news in Belltown. more ›

Before the recession/depression, contractors and investors snapped up downtown's valuable vacant land, brimming with dreams of skyscrapers and saucy condos. Now, they lie fallow, just waiting to be put to use--but not for long. more ›

There will be no "percussive activities" before 8, after 5, or on weekends. That's the good news for Belltown neighbors of the 25-story McGuire Apartments, the deeply flawed building at Second & Wall Sts. in Belltown that's facing a painstaking, year-long dismantling starting this month. more ›

Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror Show is such a ubiquitous part of our culture these days, that we take its celebration of alternative lifestyles for granted. Without it, the various sub-cultures we now can't escape (e.g. - polyamory, BDSM, etc.) would be as closeted as Brad Majors and Janet Weiss are at the beginning of the show. more ›

A quick tip: nothing takes an outfit from natty to no-thanks more quickly than an ill-fitting garment. As such, there are two options: get it right the first time, or get thee to a tailor. Either way, you can get it at Kuhlman. more ›

As posted yesterday, the Seattle Department Transportation has revised their proposed parking hikes -- and while some neighborhoods are spared any increases, and most neighborhood parking prices are actually decreasing, the downtown commercial core and First Hill are remaining at $4 an hour. Spared from the hike is struggling Pioneer Square, hurt by the economy and a bad reputation, whose revised rate went down from $4 to $3.50. more ›

Upon hearing that the illustrious Lindy West was hosting not only a trivia night, but a sex trivia night, I immediately assembled my smartest, smuttiest troops. I once stole her idea of having a Google News Alert for "feces"--I knew there was no way she could steer me wrong here. And, just as I expected, questions included stuff like "Which animal was recently observed by a Dutch scientist engaging in homosexual necrophilia?" (a duck), "True or false, elephants have been known to rape and kill rhinoceroses?" (true). The opening round was Guess-The-Celebrity-Penises, and the round immediately following halftime simply consisted of, with the rest of your team, making up a name for a sexual position and then drawing it. more ›

Last week a mean-spirited commenter at Techflash said, "As I was solving the second part of the puzzle it suddenly dawned on me that I did not want to party with a bunch of people who would take the time to solve the second part. As Groucho Marx once said, 'I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member.'" Last night the nerds had their revenge. more ›

Belltown dining news has been dreary of late, what with Flying Fish moving to South Lake Union and a gangland-style murder on Second Avenue. So it's good to see the Belltown Pub returning to First Avenue. more ›

Seattlest told you yesterday that the 25-story, 272-unit McGuire Apartments (and Carpenter's Hall) would be declared uninhabitable by the end of the year and would be torn down. more ›

Hideous Belltown, a blog written by Igor Keller, reports that the McGuire Apartments, an 8-year-old, 272-unit highrise at the corner of Second & Vine, will be demolished. The Harbor Properties building been swathed in scaffolding for the past year while work was done to correct unspecified problems. Apparently they're structural, and irreparable. Details here. more ›

One of those all-American hotdog carts, the kind you see in Belltown late at night, will cost you about $500, give or take. And, for another $700, there's an outfit in Chicago that will teach you how to run it. (Sample from the weeklong curriculum: dress the dog, not the bun.) more ›

Toronto-born corporate chef Bruce Pinkerton came to Seattle some 20 years ago to help open a hotel, since bulldozed. He stayed on, though, and launched the concept of Designed Dinners, a food preparation center and take-out kitchen. The meal-assembly "industry" continues to grow nationally; Pinkerton's business expanded to several locations, most recently at 2nd and Denny in Belltown, and he added Urban Wine Cafe earlier this year. more ›

Belltown's buffet is nothing if not cosmopolitan; just look at the stains on Seattlest's napkin this week! more ›

Spur, Belltown (Sun-Thurs 5-7 p.m. / 11:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m.) An unassuming looking place that has been nationally recognized for their creative and schizophrenic food menu, inspired by local farmers, butchers, and fisherman. From $3.50 for craft beer to their late night (11:30-1:30) $5 Rainier bottles with an order of shoestring fries, you can't go wrong with this hole-in-the-wall off Blanchard. more ›

CHILEAN NIGHT FEVER: It's Santiago in 1978, and even in the suffocating midst of the oppressive Pinochet regime, all that Raul wants to do is dance. Despite being middle-aged, the main character of Pablo Larraín's second film fantasizes that he's John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever and performs his disco dance moves at the local bar. But soon Raul's fantasy becomes an obsession, especially after it's announced that there will be a Tony Manero impersonation contest throughout all of Chile. Tony Manero plays at the NWFF through Thursday. more ›

Last night at 11:45 p.m. in Belltown, a man was stabbed for a) refusing to offer a cigarette when asked and b) possibly responding to racial slurs with racial slurs. The SPD Blotter narrates the contretemps: "The argument was sparked when one of the men asked the victim for a cigarette. The victim refused to give him one, and the suspect took offense, asking if the victim was unwilling to give him a cigarette because he was Black." And then: "The victim did not initially realize that he had been stabbed, but soon noticed that he was bleeding profusely." more ›

Belltown people, where is your past? Belltown people, how long will you last? This is the them of belltownpeople's story on the opening of City Hostel Seattle. It's one of those gritty, gotta-dream stories, featuring a fiery waiter-turned-entrepreneur, 47 artists invited in to "redo" the hallways of the historic Spanish colonial-style Lorraine Hotel, and a reason for someone besides prospective condo owners to visit Belltown. more ›

Leaving Belltown early in the afternoon, heading for CHBP, Seattlest was surprised to find that Fourth Avenue had been transformed into a sort of military corridor, complete with traffic cones, bleachers and hundreds of those canvas armchairs with cup-holders. Right, the Torchlight Parade! That's tonight, isn't it? But what were all those poor shlubs doing, sitting in those chairs, soft drink in hand, waiting, with the infinite patience of the out-of-towner, for the first float, the first drill team and the first convertible (topped by an oversize princess), not to materialize for five, six, seven hours? more ›

A new show of work by Nicoletta Ceccoli and Eric Fortune opens tonight at Roq la Rue. Ceccoli, an Italian artist, is showing works from her series "Beauties and Beasts," that twist childhood imagery borrowed from fairy tales, religion, and legends, into metamorphosing images of growing up and losing innocence. American Eric Fortune's mini-show, "Daughters of Our Nature," features sexy nymphets and whatnot. more ›

• Urban farming--Sightline has a nifty article with mock-up photos about what it would be like to really green up our cities. Because, you know, it would be totally cool to have cows on the roads.
• Publicola has its own problems with recent KING5/SurveyUSA polls, offering the hope we could have both a bag tax and a not-Mayor Nickels! Oh, and Erica C. Barnett scratches back at Joel Connelly for flaming her in his column today.