Between dodging families posed in front of the First Starbucks, and attempting to beat your way through hoards of onlookers awaiting the potential airborne salmon, it can be difficult to remember that Pike Place Market is actually still that--a market. Now, City Council is bringing it back to the locals, with a weekly mini-market, right in City Hall's backyard.
Like the Real Thing, with Fewer Tourists: City Hall the Home of New Pike Place Market Express
Can't Miss It: Thursday
ALL TOGETHER: Brazilian dance theatre company, Grupo Corpo, knows how to bring a little flair to the world of modern dance. The group's work is equally based in ballet, with lifts and sweeping gestures, the sensuality of Brazilian dance, classical music and movement, angular modernity and even a few light additions of swing. The result is a new(er) vocabulary of ballet, the seamless combination of these styles. Grupo Corpo's first ballet, Maria Maria, ran internationally and in Brazil from 1976 to 1982. Its stay in Seattle will last three days. Friday and Saturday are already sold out. Along with tonight's performance, there will be a pre-show lecture on the stage beginning at 7:10 p.m.
Can't Miss It: Wednesday
THE CHILDREN ARE OUR RALLY: Friends of Children’s Hospital, your friendly neighborhood Fearey Group-promoted advocacy group for Seattle Children's Hospital is taking it the steps of City Hall. The rally is to show support for Children's after Laurelhurst Community Club protested Children's proposed expansion and won the city hearing. Few moments in life offer the moral high ground of this rally, and it should be a great way to meet hot nurses and doctors.
noon-1:30 p.m. // City Hall's west side steps, 600 4th Avenue // FREE
Seattle DOT Blows $200K They Didn't Have
The Seattle Department of Transportation failed to properly oversee almost $200,000 in roadwork, the reports, all of which will now be replaced at the city's cost. In the midst of the ongoing budget crisis at City Hall, this does nothing to help Greg Nickels' re-election campaign, who some pollsters show losing in head-to-head races with virtually all his potential opponents.
Seattle PostGlobe Ready for its Closeup Now
A revamped Seattle PostGlobe--courtesy of those crazy kids at Instivate--has rolled out, and along with it, they've rolled out a refocused mission: to be "the source for economic and local civic news." The ex-P-I crew is divvying up the city thusly: Kathy Mulady is on elections coverage; Larry Lange, transportation issues; and Kery Murakami takes City Hall. Plus they've nabbed PubliCola's Josh Feit for local politics input. But wait there's more! They've got video from KCTS 9 and new reports from KPLU 88.5 FM. We applaud their work integrating local blogs into the site, too. Now to integrate the money...
Tim Burgess, the Uncandidate
Ooohhhhh...what a sickening feeling to get this kind of note. Just when we thought everything was going so well with Tim. We were really thinking about maybe moving the relationship forward.
It's the End of the News Hole as We Know It
We've now "observed" two future of news media via Twitter (the City Club and ONA events) and watched the Seattle City Council and "No News Is Bad News" events go down via their live stream (while eyeing the #nnbn Twitter channel). One caveat before we recap: what we've learned is mostly useless in practical terms.
Get Out Thursday: "No News Is Bad News" Panel
There's been a lot of talk about the possible closure of the P-I lately, but this Thursday there's going to be a panel discussion of Seattle as a "no-newspaper town." The cold truth is that neither the P-I nor the Seattle Times may emerge from this recession--and if one or both do, it is likely that massive restructuring will be called for. So "No News Is Bad News" asks what we rely on professional journalism for, and what we need to do to guide it through the end of the print mass media bottleneck.
Meeting On Nickels' Proposed Gun Ban Tonight
We've said it before and we'll say it again: the mayor's proposal to ban guns on public property is an ill-founded idea. Attorney General McKenna has said Nickels doesn't have the legal authority to follow through on this plan, but so far all the opposition seems to have barely registered with the man and the ban is barrelling full steam ahead. That is, unless enough people make it clear that there are better ways to combat gun violence. Tonight is your chance to speak up in public on how you feel about the gun ban, as City Hall is hosting an official City of Seattle hearing on the subject at 6:30 p.m. No word on whether Mayor Nickels will be there to sign autographs (sorry!).
City Hall Evacuated
Seattle City Hall was evacuated this morning because of a minor fire. A fluorescent light on the second floor caught on fire, causing embers to shower on nearby desks. City Hall employees tried to quell the fire with an extinguisher to no avail, so firefighters were called. This is the first fire in the new City Hall building, there was no damage reported. Employees returned to business as usual after a 20 minute evacuation, hopefully getting right back to the really important things, like naked swimmers using public pools and approving more condos.
Scooter Riders Ask City for Help
We spend a lot of time at the Seattlest newsroom talking about the problems bicycle riders in this city have and how the city should make it easier for us since we reduce congestion and emissions at the same time. Now we realize we’ve been ignoring the good our our two-wheeled motorized brethren (and sistern) on scooters.
Campout at City Hall
Real Change is setting up camp at City Hall, to protest the city's handling of homelessness and new policies regarding homeless encampments. The planned protest is scheduled for March 13th, with Real Change encouraging supporters to "bring a tent and a friend" down to City Hall.
City Council Debuts '08 Priorities to Unemployed, Elderly
One of the oldest jokes in the book is at the expense of the Sixth Amendment: how can twelve people who couldn't get out of jury duty be counted as your peers? Juries, after all, are populated by the unemployed and retirees--people who don't have to actually for a living.
Seahawks (5-4) vs. Cooking (Deep Dish Pizza)
(This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook. On Sunday morning, following a trip to a local farmer’s market/major supermarket chain, we will be preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. Then at halftime we will throw our badly burned hands in the air and make hot dogs.)
Forget It, Dawdy, It's Chinatown
Saturday we ran into Philip Dawdy sitting in front of Liberty. We were all blah blah affordable housing, blah blah CHHIP, but Dawdy was unimpressed. "What is that, 40 units?" he asked. "Why aren't you talking about what's happening with the Alaska Building?"
Key Arena Doomed
City officials say we don't need to fret about Key Arena's solvency after the Sonics and Storm leave, taking 60 guaranteed events a year with them. After all, there are plenty of other events that Seattle Center can book.
Double the Pride Again this Year
A meeting was held today between rival Seattle Pride factions and after last year's fancy, new and successful Downtown Pride we assumed that the result of this meeting would be the announcement of this year's fancy, new-ish and (financially) successful Downtown Pride. Despite the money problems that Seattle Out and Proud, the organizers of last year's events, have run into since then--they own Seattle Center a hundred grand--and despite the on-again, off-again stutter steps of this year's events, we were relatively confident that something would be worked out.
Zoning Strip Clubs Out of Seattle
Hot issues don't really die, ever, they just retreat underground and cool for a while before popping up in new places. Increased regulation of strip clubs was put down by voters recently by a pretty strong majority, but according to this email we just received the City Council is reintroducing some of the restrictions of the placement of new clubs in the form of a zoning ordinance. Today at 5:30 at City Hall there's a meeting to discuss the ordinance, which, this email claims, will reduce the areas available to new strip clubs to those outlined on the map below.
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-verse
This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us.
City Council Announces Advisory Vote on Whether to Have Advisory Vote
Seattle will vote February 13th on whether to vote on whether to build a replacement Viaduct or a tunnel, the City Council announced today.
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-verse
This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own,
The Weather Story
Listening to Paul Tosch, the KOMO copter guy, who reports that I-5 between Marysville and Thurston County is mostly dry, and the bridges are free of ice. But the side streets and overpasses and underpasses are still icy, so be careful there.
Various Ways of Linking to the WTF Slog Post of the Century
Wheel yourself right on past the express bus stop, cripple, Erica C. Barnett says you're holding things up for the abled.
What if flu hit Seattle like it did 88 years ago today?
On this date in 1918, the worldwide flu pandemic hit Seattle, as 700 cases were reported among the sailors at the University of Washington Naval Training Center on Lake Union. The disease primarily struck those between 20 and 35.
It's A Free Music Thursday
RE: the sign on the door of the North Hill Bakery, we know pigeons are crafty little disease vectors, but this seems positively intolerant.
Save It Or Sink It Wawona Meeting Today
There aren't any pictures of the Wawona that are findable on the web. We looked when we posted something about the boat a few weeks ago. Recent pictures, not some artist's representation of the ship in its prime, carting timber and city forefathers around the Sound. Go ahead. Try to find them.
Happiness Is A No-Rebuild Option
We were dithering outside Town Hall last night, trying to decide whether to attend the Science Lecture -- Harvard's Daniel Gilbert talking about our ability to predict what will make us happy -- or the convention of transportation nerds upstairs. Both were $5. Both started at 7:30pm.
Transit Nerds Taking Over Town Hall Tonight
Transportation nerds, civics geeks and mayor's office moles will all likely be in attendance tonight for the People's Waterfront Coalition's event at Town Hall with John Norquist (former mayor of Milwaukee, New Urbanist type), Scott Bernstein (Brookings Institute Center for Urban and Metropolitan Policy), Anne Vernez Moudon (UW professor of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design and Planning), Bruce Agnew (Cascadia Center, Discovery Institute) and David Brewster (founded Town Hall, founded Seattle Weekly). That's a lot of expertise in one room, even for Town Hall. They're going to talk about the impact of replacing elevated highways with grade-level streets in presentation and discussion formats.

