I took the No 12 bus to the hairdresser today. We only got to 51°F (11°C) today, but the rain had stopped, and I walked back home from there. Here are a few pictures.
Pay to park, and pay by phone only. I guess the city saves money by not installing parking meters, and I guess you cannot park here if you don’t have a smart phone :). At the back are two new apartment buildings going up. One is at 1400 Madison Avenue, a 7-story, 365-unit apartment building with retail.The ‘Knights of Columbus’ building at 722 Union St. Before it was sold to real estate investors in 2018, it belonged to the Catholic Church’s namesake and largest lay organization, a fraternal order founded in 1882 to support church programs and serve charitable causes. This building from 1913 held notable lunches, dances and other events. The gym and swimming pool in the basement were used by servicemen during World War II. It is getting rehabbed and retrofitted to withstand earthquakes, and the two parking lot parcels adjacent to it will be used for constructing apartment buildings. (Note to new owners: that red entrance canopy needs to go).Tuesday Nov. 2 is when the election for Seattle City mayor and other positions take place*. Nikkita Oliver (pronouns they/them) runs against Sara Nelson for a position on the Seattle City Council. Says local public radio station KUOW on their website: Nikkita Oliver is an educator, attorney, and activist who wants deep systemic change to move the city further to the left. Sara Nelson is a small business owner who thinks the current City Council is already too far left and needs to move closer to the center. *We vote by mail, so many votes are already in; mine is as well.There are lots of empty storefronts in the city. This Broadway State Bank building opened in 1913 (see photo below). In recent years it housed a Tully’s Coffee and a Starbucks Coffee. This Broadway & Pike Street corner is a little rough, though. Just a few weeks ago while I walked by, a guy that was on drugs or mentally ill— or both— rolled around in the street, resisting attempts by a Good Samaritan to drag him to safety. The police showed up just a minute later.Here’s a 1937 photo of then-Broadway State Bank, constructed in 1913. I’m sure business from the auto dealers nearby was still booming in 1937. About its construction, the Seattle Times wrote in 1913 “Absolutely fireproof” and “Built of steel and concrete, with cream glazed brick finish”; “the new Broadway State Bank will be one of the finest in this rapidly developing district.” (Information obtained from the Capitol Hill blog).Just half a block up on Broadway, and what have we here? Well, an 8-story, 118-unit apartment, retail, and institution building (community center) under construction. The Seattle-in-Progress website says ‘Project includes renovation of the Atlas Building and Eldridge Tire Building. Atlas Building façade to be rebuilt. Eldridge Tire Building façade to remain’. Looks to me like ‘reconstruction’ and not ‘renovation’.A fake/ gag poster for Seattle mayor. (The two candidates in the Nov. 2 general election for Seattle mayor are Bruce Harrell and Lorena Gonzalez). And who or what is McSweats? Urban Dictionary to the rescue: ‘McSweats is the ill-desired after-effects commonly felt after gorging on McDonalds burgers to unnecessary extremes’.
