Capitol Hill's Garry Oak is in Danger

Belmont Place, originally uploaded by Matt Westervelt.

There's been a bit of talk about the Seattle Garry Oak (Quercus Garryana) at Oak Manor lately, and I live across the street from it, so I thought I'd pass on a bit of information that I've recently picked up.

First, it's not actually part of Oak Manor. It and the .02 acres that it stands on are a City of Seattle pocket park called Belmont Place. We all own it, which is awesome, because we all get to enjoy it (yes, we can picnic under it if we feel like it), but unfortunately, that brings me to the second bit of news.

It is sick. We had an arborist come by to look at one of our trees, and he was of the opinion that the tree is in danger. Its leaves haven't been filling out as much as they used to, and it is very probable that is is afflicted by a fungus (in Seattle? Really?). The message has been passed to the Parks Department, and it sounds like they need to run some tests to find out what it is, and possible treatments they can use to save it.

I'm sure the Seattle Parks Department realizes how important this tree is both to the neighborhood and the city (it's a fairly rare tree, and native to the region), but I'd hate to see the ball get dropped on this one. A few years back we lost the tree in Thomas Street Park to disease, and although they've replanted, it'll be decades before there's shade there. I'm not advocating letter-bombing the parks department or anything, but it might be a good idea to let them know you're concerned too.

Sound Transit, Broadway Station

Today after work, we (and about 130 other people) headed over to SCCC to listen to Sound Transit talk about the upcoming Broadway Station. This meeting was there to tell the public about the design of the station, it's impact on the neighborhood, the landscaping and the art.

For the most part, the station entrances are glass, green walls (like the Capitol Hill Library) and masonry. Special attention has been paid to provide plenty of light and a clean look. They mentioned the spirit of the neighborhood a lot, but on the walk home, I didn't really see a lot of buildings with enormous windows letting in natural light or big glass walls. Maybe they know more about what's going to happen with the monster condo projects planned in between now and then.

They talked about the truck routes that will be taking away the debris from knocking down 2 blocks worth of buildings, and although efficient (going up Denny and coming back down Olive to the freeway), I'm not looking forward to crossing two lines of dump trucks in a hurry on my way to work. One question from the audience asked about putting in a stoplight crosswalk at Olive and Boylston, and the danger of that particular intersection. I cross that street pretty much every day, and I have to say, that's probably a good idea. I hate that intersection. It's dangerous. In fact, the route crosses two of the most dangerous intersections on the hill. It's going to be an adventure.

They talked a bit about trees, and I mostly blanked out. I don't know what kind of trees the architect was talking about, and it's pretty hard to tell with the artwork (and even worse with my pictures of the slides... sorry). We have lots of trees on the hill, and they're going to keep it that way. At one point, she mentioned that they're going to replace three trees they're knocking out of Cal Anderson with 6 additional trees. They're not knocking down the "important tree" at the entrance, which is good to know.

What got a rise out of pretty much everyone was the art. Mike Ross, the artist who built Big Rig down at Burning Man this year sort of fumbled through his thought process, talking about how Seattleites (he's from Brooklyn) love nature, and how he googled "What I love about Seattle is" and got a lot of hits on rain. He talked about descending into the huge station, and how it was like coming through the clouds. Then he dropped the bomb. He's making his sculpture out of Fighter Jets. He'll be painting them pink and orange, cutting them up, and making natural shapes out of them. He had a picture of a Great Blue Heron (our cities official bird) , and although he said it'd be shaped something like that, I didn't walk away with a feeling that it would be a literal representation. I walked away with the knowledge that the largest and most expensive pieces of public art on Capitol Hill will be pink and orange weapons of war.

Here's my flickr set, which should have most of the slides, but the color is completely out of whack because of their projector. Awful really, but if you want the content, it's there.

everlasting puddles

everlasting puddles, originally uploaded by Matt Westervelt.

Have you ever noticed there are some spots on the hill that always have huge puddles? This one, on the corner of Belmont and Mercer is pretty scary to walk by. Cars love to hit it and watch the mud water mix spray all over the hydrant and pedestrians. It's a block from the stop sign, so they've generally got enough speed for it to hit that garage wall when it's big enough. There's another up on Boylston (north of Roy) that last I looked took up 6 parking spaces. We've started calling that one "Lake Boylston". It's been there for years, and although my neighbors told me calls to the city have gone unanswered, the tubes have informed me that just moaning about it probably wont do any good. I think I'm going to call the DOT and see what happens.

On a different, but related topic, there are a lot of potholes on the hill. I wonder if the Pothole Rangers really do fix things in 48 hours. There's one on Roy that has been pissing me off for years. Am I really going to be the first person to call about it?

Office Nomads: Come and Go

Go, originally uploaded by Matt Westervelt.

I've decided that I haven't been playing enough Go lately (none at all for the past few years) and to remedy this, I've brought my Go set to Office Nomads. It's a nice set, and I'm here on Thursdays during the day. If you play Go, or are interested in learning how to play, come down.

If you don't know what I'm talking about at all, check out the Wikipedia page on Go