Dispatches from Ravenna, a neighborhood in Northeast Seattle
Roosevelt Neighborhood Parade route
Been waiting for your chance to see the Roosevelt High School Marching Band go by? In uniform? With a police escort?
The Rough Riders will take to the streets (starting at NE 68th St and 15th Ave NE) at 2 pm this Saturday, June 12.
Catch them marching along the parade route at left OR hang out at Roosevelt Square where the 100+ member band will be performing a mini-concert around 2:30 pm.
It’s June 1, which means we’ve got less than two weeks left until the NE 45st Street viaduct closes until mid-September.
And while you may not use the viaduct much in your own travels, the detours and bonus repaving project may have you feeling the effects where you may not have expected them.
NE 45th viaduct detour route map, SDOT
The Detours
There are two designated Seattle Deparment of Transportation (SDOT) traffic detours during the closure time:
This northerly route will be sending viaduct detourees up and over Ravenna Park, essentially, sending them right through “downtown” Ravenna.
Unofficial northerly detour routes I can anticipate divers trying could include using Ravenna Blvd and/or NE 55th Street to travel from east to west, instead of continuing north to NE 65th Street. If things get too crazy on those routes, we could ask Maple Leaf where they got their NIMBY-esque “NO THRU TRAFFIC” signage.
As a part of the viaduct project, and also starting in June, 22nd Avenue NE (between NE 45th and NE 54th) is getting repaved! Turns out, anticipated construction bids for the viaduct were low enough that the cost savings will be spread out over 22nd Avenue NE in the form of hot, gooey asphalt.
SDOT claims the coordination of these two construction projects will help “minimize impacts to residents.” That may be, but it’s also going to make it even tougher on those of trying to sneak down NE 54th Street.
SDOT has an official NE 45th Street Viaduct Project – West Approach Replacement page, which includes more maps and resources than you could shake a traffic cone at.
There’s a FAQ for you to read as well.
Lastly, if you’re more of a face-to-face learner, SDOT is hosting an open house on June 9, from 4-7 pm, at the University Heights Community Center (5301 University Way NE).
Consider yourselves warned.
Want to see how your neighbors in Northeast Seattle are living a more local and sustainable lifestyle? Want to wander through their yards to do it?
This is a self-guided tour – start anywhere you like, visit any gardens you like in any order you wish. Here’s how:
Do bring the kids! There are children’s activities throughout the tour — noted on the handout — including projects and prizes.
This edible garden tour is a reoccurring event and is hosted by members of the Sustainable Northeast Seattle Urban Farmers group. The next edible garden tour is planned for August 8.
For more information on Sustainable NE Seattle, visit sustainableneseattle.ning.com.
This week marks the end of story time at the Northeast Branch until mid-June. A month doesn’t seem like that long of a break, but it IS for two reasons:
1. My toddler has no sense of time (a day and a half is, like, FOREVER).
2. Erica Delavan, the Children’s Services Librarian, is GREAT.
My tot and I regularly frequent the 11:15 a.m. Toddler Story Time on Thursdays. And we end up regularly sharing the meeting room with upwards of 70 other people (mix of adults and other tots).
That’s 70+ kids and adults (140+ total, if you include the 10:15 a.m. shift) all moving and talking and crying and cooing, while Erica guides us all through a familiar itinerary (including two stories and a new song with a shared theme, the early literacy skill and letter of the day, a story on the felt board, old and familiar songs to open and close the story time, and a stamp on the hand at the end), and does it WELL.
So it was a special treat to attend last month’s very first Pajama Story Time (start time of 7 p.m.) with only 35 other people.
Only 35 of us! We could hear the stories! Clearly! There was room to sprawl and dance! And, it turns out, Erica can really sing!
We sang the Bears in the Bed song (…so they all rolled over and one fell out…there were four in the bed and the little one said, “I’m crowded…roll over…”) and that’s when I realized, this woman can sing! I’d never really heard her voice before, over all the moving and talking and crying and cooing. She even had this bluesy take on the song that really added something.
And, lucky for you, dear reader, there’s one of these PJ story times left: This Wednesday, May 19, at 7 p.m. The dress code? Comfy PJs. Feet optional.
Just don’t bring too many of your friends, okay?
Northeast Branch – Seattle Public Library, 6801 35th Ave. N.E.
This Saturday is shaping up to be a busy one, if you’re into gardens and parks. There’s the community garden work party at the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center, you can Spring Into Bed all around the city, you can get some community service hours in at the Picardo P-Patch (if you have a plot there [EDIT: This is happening MONDAY, from 6:30-8:30pm]), and, heck, maybe your own yard could use some work.
However, every second Saturday of the month, the Friends of Ravenna Ravine gather to do battle against invasives like nightshade, bindweed and jewelweed (all co-starring this month).
Know thy enemy - jewelweed, in this case
George Macomber of the FRR sends out an email the week of the work party, detailing the work to be done that Saturday. This week’s agenda:
We will be starting near the Kiosk removing nightshade along the creek, looking for jewel weed (not as good as it sounds) and other bad things. We also have a few trees to plant. The bindweed is getting started ( it emerges on tax day so it has a 3 week head start.)
This month’s email also included the following tidbit about a future project in the park:
Beginning in late June the county will be starting a project to insure that sewage does not mix with the creek on its way to the Lk. Washington during rain storms. They will block the trail between the 55th and the ball field, and dig down to reach the point where the creek enters a ‘Box Culvert’ that runs under the field. They will not be digging upstream from the drain. They will be treating thistle and removing yellow iris in the daylight area, probably in May and June and replacing dead trees in the fall.
I’m definitely FOR keeping sewage out of EVERYTHING, except the sewer.
FRR meets at the lower playfield at the kiosk in SE Ravenna Park, north of NE 55th St. and north of the ballfield. Check the Friends of Ravenna Ravine homepage for more information on these work parties.
There have been plans for some time now for a community garden at the north end of the big field at the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center. There have also been meetings. And one pancake breakfast in a downpour. But no ground breaking and no planting.
That is, until next week. IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING!
Seattle Parks and Recreation has given the project a green light for sod busting (Thursday, May 5) and raised bed building (Saturday, May 8).
The approval coming this week allows the raised bed building party to take place on Saturday, May 8, the same day as the city-wide SPRING INTO BED celebration. Find out more about SPRING INTO BED here.
For more information on how to participate in your (yes, YOUR) community garden, contact me (rebecca [at] ravennablog.com) and I’ll pass along the contact information.
One of my goals with the Ravenna Blog is to keep things as local to Ravenna as possible.
[However, if I see President Obama walking down 15th Avenue NE eating frozen custard from Peaks, and I’m across the street (hopefully with my camera), heck YES, I’m going to write a post about that.]
There are a number of other NE Seattle blogs that can keep you and yours updated on the doings and transpirings of the greater NE Seattle area. Most of them also have Facebook and Twitter accounts, too.
The Seattle P-I has a reader blog for North Seattle that anyone can write posts for.
KOMO TV has started their own “communities” pages. Northeast Seattle is currently represented by Green Lake KOMO, Lake City KOMO, North Seattle KOMO, University District KOMO, and View Ridge KOMO. And, apparently, they’re all on Facebook AND Twitter, too. Gotta hand it to that Kathi Goertzen for putting all that together. [I kid. It was really Dan Lewis.]
The Seattle Times has partnered with various blogs across the city to create the Seattle Networked News Initiative. I really like the Team Effort Journalism idea, but Northeast Seattle has no coverage in it whatsoever. Here’s a link to the description of the project, which also includes contact information.
I’m sure I’ve missed stuff (Crosscut?). Do let me know what it was, and I’ll update my list and blogroll.
I’m also not going to post something every day. For one, this ain’t Capitol Hill, or the U District. Things are a little quieter up here. For two, I want to stay excited about this little project and focus on churning out quality interesting stuff. I’m sure you want that, too. And, for three, it’s just me typing this thing. I’ve only got so many hands!
Lastly — for SURELY, this post has gone on long enough — I can only find so much fuel for this blog with my own eyes and ears. Ravenna Blog needs YOU.
Please contact me (rebecca [at] ravennablog.com) if you have news to share, neighborhood questions to ask, events to take part in, plants you’ve dug up and don’t want anymore,…whatever.
I look forward to serving you, dear reader, and the rest of Ravenna as best I can.
After a year and a half on the wait list, I was VERY HAPPY to find out this week that I finally got my grubby hands on a plot at the Picardo Farm P-Patch. If you did, too, I’ll see you at the orientation this Saturday, April 3rd.
AND THE EXCITEMENT DOESN’T STOP THERE.
This Saturday is also the grand opening of Seattle’s first and only publicly-sited composting toilet, also at Picardo.
I challenge you to find a better way to spend your Easter Eve.
While we are firmly embedded in Ravenna, our Wedgwood friends to the east apparently want our two cents on their neighborhood (got a postcard about it in the mail just today).
The Wedgwood Vision Project (a committee of the Wedgwood Community Council, funded in part by a Neighborhood Matching Fund award) is “conducting a community survey about issues such as growth and development, transportation, parks, and community activities in Wedgwood.”
The online version of the survey is here. Paper surveys (which you don’t need, since you appear to be using the internet right now) are available at the HomeStreet Bank at 35th and 82nd, or at the Northeast SPL Branch.
The WVP also has a blog up at wedgwoodvision.blogspot.com.
AS IF ALL THAT WASN’T ENOUGH, there is a Wedgwood Vision Project community meeting on Saturday, April 10, from 9:30-noon:thirty at the Wedgwood Presbyterian Church. There will be bagels, followed by a review of the survey results.
Post up over at the Laurelhurst Blog about the Seattle Public Library’s “city-wide conversations” being held in the next couple weeks.
This conversation at the Northgate Branch is you North-enders shot at having your say in a North-end branch.
Citywide Conversation, Northgate Branch
Tuesday, March 2, 2010, 6 – 8 p.m.
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