New Eastlake Community Council website, and new Eastlake blog

I know it's been a long time since there have been any new postings here, and that's with a good reason -- the Eastlake Community council has shifted its online efforts to our new website, http://www.eastlakeseattle.org. Please update links to point to it instead of this blog.

And speaking of blogs, a neighborhood resident has recently launched a new community and news blog called Eastlake Ave. They've already had some great posts about crime, parking, the Fourth of July, and two new Eastlake eating establishments. The blog is looking for contributors as well, so if you have an idea for a story, please contact the folks running the blog.

Check it out!

Help needed

Dear neighbors- as some of you may know a car chase in Eastlake ended with an accident last Monday. As the driver was trying to escape the police he totalled a VW Eurovan owned by Katie and Dawson Cabbage, who live on the southwest corner of Lynn and Minor. The van is wheelchair-accessible and used to take their 10 year-old daughter Devin to doctors appointments, physical therapy, swimming lessons, or to the park to play.

This van has a wheelchair lift, and it is how Devin gets around. Devin's parents just invested $3,000 to fix the van, and cannot afford to replace it. Insurance will only cover the market value, but since this was a 1993 VW, the money won't go far.

Please help Devin's family replace her van. Any help you can give is sincerely appreciated!

How you can help

An account has been set up at Bank of America, and you can go to any branch to make a donation. Just tell them you want to give money to the Devin Cabbage Medical Transportation Fund.

Or you can mail a check to:

Bank of America
WA3-121-01-01
Attn: Devin Cabbage Medical Transportation Fund
1600 Eastlake Ave E
Seattle, WA 98102

Or you can donate online via PAYPAL:
Click on the PayPal donation button below. If you don't have a PayPal account, it's simple & free to set up. Please put "Devin's Van" in the "Payment For" section.

From: Dawson Cabbage [mailto:dbcabbage@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 3:47 PM
To: Carsten Stinn
Subject: Re: accident

Hi Carsten,

Thanks so much for your email! I'm gald you wrote, as I wanted to get in contact with you and with the Eastlake News folks to get some more people involved. By all means, please publish our story on the Eastlake blog. You can find some information at www.devin.freewebspace.com. There is also a story at www.king5news.com. If you type 'devin' into the search box, you'll find her story under 'disabled girl loses special van to police chase'. Apparently, the direct link I sent out to some people doesn't work, so that's your best bet to getting to the news story.

Devin has severe Cerebral Palsy & is in a wheelchair. Our VW Eurovan was specially equipped with a hydraulic lift so we could get her in & out to take her to all her appointments, around town, to the swimming pool, etc. We have been in contact with our insurance company, and most likely the car will be totaled. They don't make Eurovans anymore, and it will not be cheap to get another or something like it. The other problem is that the special lift requires modification to the vehicle (and not every minivan has the right dimensions to fit Devin or a lift) which costs a few thousand dollars. Our van is a 1993, so the compensation for it will likely be less than ideal. We set up a bank account in Devin's name in order for people to help with donations. We also set up an online PayPal account that is linked directly to that bank account so people can make donations online.

In terms of fundraising, Devin's mom had a conversation with some folks at the Hopvine Pub on Capital Hill, and they have agreed to host a fundraising event there. So perhaps with some of our neighbors' help in getting the word out, we can get some specific details & have an event there. If you have other suggestions, please let us know-- we have never had to do this before and we certainly do not know what we're doing or how the particulars are supposed to go!

Thank you again for your email, and we'll talk with you soon.

Katie (Devin's stepmom)

HistoryLink.org's Eastlake links

Wow, this is a great article about the history of Eastlake, courtesy of historylink.org, which is an online encyclopedia of state and local history in Washington state. There are a number of other really interesting articles relating to Eastlake, so go to historylink.org and search for them.

Eastlake bus routes

Here's a quick handy link: Metro bus routes that serve the Eastlake neighborhood. I was just looking for this the other day...

Eastlake history meeting, Tues. April 17

Eastlake history featured at Tuesday, April 17 public meeting, 7 p.m. at Seward School

Please join us for the ever-popular Eastlake history meeting--Tuesday, April 17, 7-9 p.m. at TOPS-Seward School, 2500 Franklin Ave. E.). Local historians and pioneers will swap stories and comment on our extensive historical slide collection. Anyone with experience with, or curiosity about, Eastlake's history is urged to attend and participate.

ECC has a growing archive of photos, articles, interviews, and other pieces of Eastlake’s history. Please contribute what you have, find more items for our archives, or help organize or write up what we have. Especially welcome are donated photos, or if you need them back, we can arrange to scan or copy your photos. (It would be great if someone would make a video or audio history of the neighborhood!) To get involved, or for information about the meeting, please contact cleman ( at ) oo.net or (206) 322-5463.

Eastlake Grand Central Bakery and Cafe reviewed in the Seattle PI

Pull into Eastlake Grand Central for satisfying sandwiches

Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer references to Eastlake

It turns out it's easier than ever to find out about all things Eastlake, at least as far as the local papers are concerned.

The PI's Webtowns page for Eastlake (which appears to consolidate all mentions of Eastlake in the paper to a single web page) -- and if you're the type of person who uses RSS feeds and a newsreader, note that you can subscribe to the articles appearing on this page with this RSS link.

The Seattle Times has their own page for Eastlake, and you can always search their archives for the word "eastlake" using this link.

Wikipedia's Eastlake entry

I was surprised to stumble across an entry in Wikipedia for Eastlake. Other relevant-to-Eastlake Wikipedia entries of note: Lake Union, the University Bridge, and Lake Union Dry Dock Company. (All of these links were in the original Eastlake article.)

Did I miss any?

Update: Commenter Aaron pointed out an entry for Colonnade Park.

(Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project.)

Sitka & Spruce chef/owner Matt Dillon recieves top national honors

Local restaurant owner and chef Matt Dillon, of Sitka & Spruce, made Food & Wine magazine's annual list of America's Best New Chefs. Only 10 chefs from across the country were chosen out of hundreds of candidates.


Seattle PI: Seattle chef Dillon named one of America's best

Seattle PI's review of Sitka & Spruce: Tiny Sitka and Spruce makes a big splash

Sitka & Spruce's website

Volunteers are needed to pull weeds and save trees in local parks

From Chris Leman:

Volunteers are needed to pull weeds and save trees in Colonnade Park (April 7 and 19), Good Turn Park (April 17), and SE Lake Union shoreline (April 21)

Your volunteer help is needed for some "spring cleaning" in three Eastlake parks. We must remove garbage and weeds, and protect trees from being choked by ivy and clematis. Bring your own gloves, wear sturdy shoes and be prepared to get dirty. Also let us know if your company or school could help on a different date. It’s great exercise. Make a difference! (And please share this message with others.)

Saturday, April 7, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and Thursday, April 19, 9 a.m. to 12 Colonnade Park work parties. Meet at the lower steps by the park’s northwest corner under I-5, just uphill from the corner of Franklin Ave. E. and E. Howe St. Coordinated by Eastlake Starbucks (refreshments provided!) in cooperation with Seattle Parks and Recreation Dept. and Eastlake Community Council. Questions or to be added to notification list: kellersen ( at ) comcast.net and cleman ( at ) oo.net or 318-7050 ext. 303448.

Tuesday, April 17, 5:30 to 7 p.m. work party in Good Turn Park. This lovely shoreline park is at the Martin street-end at 3149 Fairview Ave. E. Weeding, pruning, and removal of shoreline debris. Sponsored by the Olmsted-Fairview Park Commission. Coordinator is Tricia Rendina, 261-4271, trendina ( at ) yahoo.com

Saturday, April 21, 10 a.m. to 1, work party at Lake Union southeast shoreline (1500 and 1600 blocks of Fairview Avenue E.) We will be weeding, and moving rocks. A great way to see herons, cormorants, and kingfisher. Make natural history! Led by the Eastlake Community Council, (206) 322-5463, cleman ( at ) oo.net.

Who am I, and why am I here?

Hi, my name is Tim Ahlers, and I share a seat on the ECC board with my wife, Melissa. I'm a software geek by day, and skier/hiker/boater/etc. in the evenings and weekends.

My original interest in joining the ECC was to get more involved in the neighborhood and the community. Melissa and I live down on a houseboat in Eastlake, and we've been lucky enough to have found a really wonderful community on the dock. After moving here, we absolutely fell in love with Eastlake and all its charms and quirks, and wanted to get more involved.

For the most part, I'm the resident computer guy for the ECC, so expect to see more about blogs, websites, email lists, etc. from me in the future.

If you're reading this and you're a resident of Eastlake, what kinds of things should your neighborhood association be thinking about?

hi from teamenzo

Hi - this is a quick message from Teamenzo. The team consists of Linda Furney, Enzo and Carsten Stinn. We live on Minor Ave and have been your neighbors since 1995. Enzo is a 1st grader at TOPS on Seward and asked me to mention that he is looking for playdates in the neighborhood. Linda is a Boeing employee and works out of our house on Minor Ave. I am an architect and work out of my own office in Ballard.

We like Eastlake... a lot! Last year we had a ton of fun working with many volunteers on this piece of public land right on the shore of Lake Union. With a little sweat and lots of support by City and neighbors we turned it into the 'Eastlake Boulledrome'. The boulledrome is located on Fairview Ave where Louisa would meet Fairview (if it went through). We worked for 6 months with the city, department of neighborhoods, SDOT, and many local businesses to create this new park. If you don't know what Boulledrome means it is a court to play Bocci and Petanque. You should definitely check it out this summer! There will be lots of people down there.

Linda and I serve as boardmembers on the ECC and hope to get more improvements started in the neighborhood. If you have any questions about the court or the ECC give us a shout.

Bye for now
Teamenzo

Ask.com business search for Eastlake

Local search is really hot right now, and my current favorite is city.ask.com. (Remember Ask Jeeves? They dropped the Jeeves part awhile ago -- it's just ask.com now.)

This link will take you to a search page already queued up for the Eastlake neighborhood. Want to find restaurants in Eastlake, or dry cleaners, or grocery stores? It's easy -- just type any of those in as the "Business or Category".

Pictures of Eastlake

flickr - almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world - makes it really easy to find photos of particular subjects or of particular geographic areas. Every once in awhile, I'll look through all the photos tagged as "Eastlake" and "Seattle" (since there is more than one Eastlake around the world) and see how much I recognize. I've even found photos taken with me in them (usually as an innocent bystander).

Here's a link to pictures on flickr tagged with "Eastlake" and "Seattle". Do you see any photos of anything you recognize?

Welcome!

Welcome to the Eastlake Community Council blog. Our more traditional website (which admittedly is in need of an update) is located here. Some of our favorite other Seattle neighborhood blogs are the Miller Park Neighborhood blog and the Capitol Hill Seattle blog.

Eastlake is a relatively small neighborhood in Seattle, just north of the main downtown area, just west of I-5, and just east of Lake Union (East of the Lake, get it?). For more history and background about the neighborhood, please see our About Eastlake page on our website.

Here's a map showing the city of Seattle's semi-official boundaries of the neighborhood. If you'd like to explore more neighborhood maps this way, start here.

Here's a Google Maps link to the corner of Eastlake and Lynn, the main commercial intersection in the heart of the neighborhood.