"Lovely" by Seattle Bon Vivant The always helpful Central District News offers Crave, who recently lost their Capitol Hill lease, some available locations in the CD. We second the idea, Crave in the neighborhood sounds great to this CD resident.Did you find a My Buddy Doll drunk in Belltown? Because someone lost one drunk in Belltown and have taken to Craigslist and Belltowner to find the doll. Sure they are gas guzzlers, but we're a......

Rudolph Valentino. Ray Charles. Jerry Lee Lewis dancing on pianos, for God's sake! Dance in Seattle had anything but a boring 20th century. We were prowling around the internet this morning and discovered that today is the anniversary of the date the city banned a really bizarre but popular 1920s and '30s fad called "dance marathons" within its city limits. That was enough to pique our interest, and we've spent the day researching what was......

Dead Baby Bike Race after-party photo by Sea Kay My Ballard and Phinney Wood shared a post on the annual Dead Baby Bike Race. With the recent fear-mongering regarding bicyclists in the local media--the bike race could likely have not come at a worse time. We're sure already freaked out Subaru drivers, aren't thrilled to think of the idea of a crudely named (see: hilarious) bike race that celebrates "Mutant Bike Culture."Rejoice Francophiles and hipsters......

"There Goes the Neighborhood" by Seattlest Flickr photog goldlionpics The Big Blog gleefully reports there will FINALLY be a World Series in Seattle. The Gay Softball World Series will be hosted on several Seattle fields in August. Central District News brings their regular and always interesting reads, the CD Police Scanner, where it was a boring Monday--fights and narcotics activities--and a development update about where the next condo is going in the CD. We are......

Seattlest has lived in eight cities across the country, and we have to be honest. We've lived in Seattle longer than we have anywhere else because we love it here. It's clean, it's culturally vibrant, it's full of extraordinary natural beauty, it's safe. But, we've never been able to reckon with the fact that it's just so damned wealthy and white. Much as we like to think of ourselves as forward-thinking, inclusive citizens, we......

Photo of Ezell's by our very own Seattlest Contributor, James Ezell's Famous Chicken, a Seattle institution of deep-fried goodness, has been victim to a number of burglaries in the past six months. The most recent burglary happened this Saturday and was caught on surveillance cameras. The grainy footage shows a man breaking in through a side-window of the restaurant early Saturday morning after Ezell's closed for business. This is third burglary in six months at......

It seems like it was just last week that we were gushing over the Bottleneck Lounge. Oh yeah, that was just last week. Well, we're talking about them again. In honor of the Gay Superbowl, the Central District bar is hosting a party: Please join us for live coverage of The Academy Awards on our flat screen TV this Sunday at the Bottleneck. Hosted by Jon Stewart and bartended by Cam, the evening promises......

The Bottleneck Lounge, located at 23rd and Madison, has quickly become one of our favorite bars. Both the staff and the patrons are overwhelmingly friendly, and it's the kind of joint where you end up getting chatty with the bartender or the couple next to you, or where another customer might close out the night by buying a shot for everyone in the bar. Laid-back without being divey, the Bottleneck is just plain chill.......

YOUNG BLACK CULTURE: Studies claim that African-American male culture has continued to decline despite generally strong national economic growth. Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas with moderator Carl Livingston Jr. and a group of respected panelists discuss their attempts to "defy convention and support the success and progress of African-American boys." 7pm // Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center // $5 for adults; Free for CD Forum Members/Students/Seniors DANCE: Australia's Sydney Dance Company brings Grand,......

Carl Hancock Rux's No Black Male Show is presented as an anti-performance. The audience is introduced to its three players as a distraught Rux announces that there will be no show tonight despite having learned their lines. The show (obviously) continues, but it provides a sense of unease for the audience, immediately drawing them in. The No Black Male Show is based on a poem partially written in response to New York's Whitney Museum's......

It's packed at Victrola, as Capitol Hill has power--anything south of Jefferson (all of the Central District, basically) does not. Ours went out some time before midnight last night. Not such a lamentable situation ultimately (no trees fell on our house, but to wake up without wireless, augh!), unless you have a sump pump in your basement that requires electricity to push out all the groundwater pouring in around your house. Which we do. And......

Police attribute an arson in the Central District last night to a fight over an XBox. From KIRO: Police said two men argued over an Xbox and a 20-year-old left. He returned at about midnight and apparently set fire to the back porch at the home in Seattle's Central Area, police said. He then called the family in the home to taunt them, police said. Everyone got out safely. What's unclear is this: Was the......

The recent hubbub at Critical Mass (paired with some magnificently asinine comments on Seattlest Matt's post) reminded Seattlest of why we prefer to keep our bikes as far away from roads, cars, and people as possible. But sometimes getting out to actual dirt isn't a reality. This past Monday, after a lazy weekend and looking forward to taking Tuesday off from work, we set out around our neighborhood in the Central District for a......

Guest Poster Race Card Pete is back. He's a program director at KUBE, and in his spare time he tutors children at Sacajawea Elementary School. He lives in Bitter Lake, but is about to move into a fixer-upper in the Central District. Previously he wrote on a possible Sonics area deal. It seems odd that with all the proposed solutions to the city's transportation woes, the only major project that is currently underway, Sound......

We've got a new guest poster--Race Card Pete. He's a program director at KUBE. He lives in Bitter Lake, but is about to move into a fixer-upper in the Central District. With all this talk about the Sonics wanting $200 million to renovate Key Arena, I couldn't help but notice that the Mariners and Seahawks each received new digs that cost well over $500 million each. Yet from the reaction of the public and local......

Seriously. We love liver. If you don't, then you have no idea how difficult it is to find. Since no one else in our household will touch it, it doesn't make sense for us to make it at home. So all we need to hear about a restaurant is that they have liver on the menu, and we're there. This week, when we read that JoAnna's in the Central District has liver and onions on......

KUOW is currently discussing issues of race, gentrification and community in the Central District. Go check it out. Some guy just called in to say that the CD is a more dangerous place to live, and when asked about whether it is more dangerous than Capitol Hill, said "Well, not as dangerous as one blue house up on Capitol Hill, but..." He went on to say that "anyplace southwest of 18th and MLK, you better......

This Thursday the UW will host a panel discussion about change in Seattle's Central District, pitting gentrification against "revitalization"--the latter, we hope, being something said panel will subject to more rigorous definition. We are pleased to see this topic discussed in a public forum, but these days we wonder who listens to panels any more, much less an academic-sponsored one (as opposed to those ever-popular corporate-sponsored panels--everyone listens to them). What happens after the panel?......

A little while ago, we did a little data mining of the Missed Connections on Craigslist, to check Seattle's romantic pulse. Frankly it was feeble and thready. But we were hoping that with the onset of spring, things have picked up. It wouldn't be fair to pick on CL MCers again so soon, so this time our unofficial data mine was the Stranger's I Saw U listings. 208 men saw women, 148 women saw men,......

There's a whole lot of latino going on in the park right outside our house in the Central District. Normally our neighborhood is exceptionally quiet all day, save for the sound of baking donuts from Gai's, until the little league softball or pee-wee football teams start showing up around 2:30. So we were mighty surprised to hear quite the ruckus out in Judkins Park, and peeking out we saw at least a couple hundred......

The New York Times, with annoying & typical provincialism, claims that black chefs are "struggling" [note: free registration required]. Not so in Seattle, where a culinary star like Daisley Gordon shines at Campagne. More to the point, a baker's dozen black chefs gathered last night to present "Food As Art," a celebration of African-American culinary expertise, at a fundraiser for the ">Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas. Subject of a splendid profile in the......

As you know, there's a strict quota on mentions of Craigslist per quarter. Not too many, not too few. Our longtime favorite CL section is the Missed Connections (not altogether unsimilar from the Stranger's I Saw U ads), for their mix of inept stalking, momentary erotic yearning, and occasional literary gems. However, in comparison to San Francisco (where we first discovered the CL MC), Seattle appears painfully shy. Still, we wondered, where is Seattle's MC......

King County Councilman Larry Gossett is re-submitting his proposal to the City Council this month to spend $600,000 on changing the county's logo from a crown to the likeness of Dr. Martin Luther King. In a recent email to our local neighborhood council (Jackson Place), Gossett indicated that this would "finally give respect and visibility to the fact that our County's namesake is Dr. King." This made Seattlest think "huhn", scratch our chin, and ponder......

This just in from the "No Shit Sherlock" department at King County: There are more overweight people in the suburbs. Please someone, stop the presses. The Neighborhood Quality of Life Study has released the results of their investigation into urban sprawl, linking a lack of "walkability" in suburban neighborhoods to an increase in body mass index, or BMI. Just 30 minutes a day drops the pounds--a message being pummeled into people by their doctors,......

When's the last time you attended a reading by a genuine, MacArthur-certified genius? Tonight's your chance -- local author and Science Fiction Museum board member Octavia Butler will read from Fledgling, her first novel in 7 years, at 7:30 at Elliott Bay Book Co. Butler's appearance is being co-presented by the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas, an organization Seattlest confesses we'd never heard of before. Their mission: "To offer progressive programs that encourage......

Seattlest is a covert eater of plants from other people's gardens. Being the owner of less than a foot of growing space in our apartment window box, we covet large yards with sprawling rosemary bushes and have been known to snip off a sprig or two when roasting a chicken. Last week, while walking between Central District and the ID, we passed a wall of beauty. Hundreds of small orange fruits hung from vines wrapped......

The FBI is investigating a man who spent a signifigant amount of time in Seattle from 1999-2000 for possible connections to the London bombings. From the P-I: British police have identified Haroon Rashid Aswat as a possible source of logistical, financial and technical support to the four bombers, according to media reports. The question for federal agents in Seattle is whether the man named by Scotland Yard is the same man as Aswat Haroon Rashid......

Last year before moving off of Capitol Hill, Seattlest can remember coming out of our house and smelling the distinct smell of donuts. Yum. Where or where did that smell come from? We assumed it was coming from the Wonder Bread plant in the Central District, a mere half mile away. We had seen the Wonder Bread sign from across the city, a beacon of nostalgia from when folks thought that bleaching food made it......

Seattlest has been looking forward to the opening of Central Cinema since we first heard of its existence-to-be a year ago. Kevin Spitzer's idea for a restaurant-cum-theater just plain appeals to us, especially since he's planning to feature movie-themed menus, like truffles accompanying Chocolat or spicy noodles with Tampopo. If the chefs are able to recreate that amazing meal from Big Night, Seattlest will be one contented food/film lover. The bad news: While the......

Jimi Hendrix's childhood home looks to be on the move again in Seattle. Three years ago the dilapidated home was moved a few blocks away from its original Central District location to avoid the wrecking ball during a housing development project. Today there is a dispute over the city-owned land the home is currently residing on. The James Marshall Hendrix Foundation, which owns the home and is currently renting the land from the city, says......