All posts by dennis

Sustainability, Volunteers

Cityfruit Program for Crown Hill

Cityfruit Logo

Crown Hill Fruit Harvest

City Fruit works neighborhood by neighborhood to help residential tree owners grow healthy fruit, harvest and use what they can, and share what they don’t use with others.   www.cityfruit.org

Donate fruit . . . If  you have more healthy fruit than you need and would like to donate some of  your harvest, contact Jen Mullen, Harvest Coordinator, at crownhill@cityfruit.org or (206) 352-9580.

Help harvest fruit . . . If  you would like to help pick fruit and deliver it to food banks and community centers, contact City Fruit at crownhill@cityfruit.org.
Need fruit . . . If  you or your organization need fruit and can’t afford to buy it at the market, contact City Fruit.

Support us .. . Join us in building community and strengthening our local food system by becoming a member of  City Fruit.  See www.cityfruit.org/membership/htm.

This project is funded in part by a Neighborhood Matching Fund award from the City of Seattle, Department of Neighborhoods.

Crown Hill Center, Volunteers

Crown Hill Center Playground Update

We’ve just received this from Lynn Wirta about the Crown Hill Center Playground version 2.0. You can view the plans presented at the April 28th meeting here. This is a great opportunity to meet neighbors and community members interested in helping out with this community resource.

The Committee is looking for large landscape rocks-2 yard size to expand the existing rockery on the playground.  If you have any or know of someone who is getting rid of large rocks, please let Johnny know at johnny@smallfaces.org.  We are also looking for large driftwood to create a beach environment in the sand area.

Tentative date for the playscape install is the weekend of July 10 and 11.  We’ll need at least 25 volunteers that weekend so please mark your calendar for helping out.  The $17,000 grant we received from the City is a matching system.  All volunteer hours will contribute to making the $17K match. Lunch and childcare will be provided.

The new space is getting closer and closer to reality!  We are delighted to have Tom Grover, President of Kompan Play Equipment living in our neighborhood.  He plans to attend our next meeting on June 10th to lend his expertize along with his local consultant and child development specialist.

Sustainability, Transportation, Walkability

Sidewalks in Crown Hill — Are We Getting Any Closer?

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In the last round of project submissions for the Bridging the Gap Levy funds, the Ballard District Council recommended three Crown Hill Projects for funding. The three projects are: 1) Walkway along 13th Ave NW from NW 90th to Holman Road, plus walkway along 90th from 13th Ave NW to 14th Ave NW; 2) Walkway along 13th Ave NW from NW 95th to NW 100th; and 3) Walkway on 18th Ave NW from NW 85th to NW 89th. It is estimated there will be approximately $340,000 to spend within the entire Crown Hill/Ballard area.

On Wednesday, May 19th, 2010, the Seattle Department of Transportation released their preliminary cost estimates for the three projects. The first two projects (originally submitted in 2007) come in at $994,000 and $480,000 respectively, and the third project (submitted in 2009) comes in at $480,000. You can see all the projects costed out by SDOT on their website.

Clearly any of the three projects, as estimated by SDOT, exceed the Ballard District’s fair share of the pot city-wide. The estimates are for traditional sidewalks, rather than less expensive walkways or paved paths, and there is the possibility that some of the cost of the walkway on 18th could be offset by funds available for Combined Sewer Overflow abatement (that project location is in the North Beach CSO area).

What’s next? The Ballard District Council will reconvene its committee to look at the projects, and possibly change the scope so that one or more can be built within the allotted funds. Then a final recommendation will go forward in June. The recommendation will go forward to the city-wide Bridging the Gap oversight committee to assess which projects will be built over the entire city. The oversight committee’s recommendations will then be forwarded on for approval by the Mayor and City Council.

Crown Hill Center, Gilbert & Sullivan

Gilbert & Sullivan Housewarming and Open Rehearsal, June 8th, 2010

G&S Housewarming & Open Rehearsal
(click to enlarge)

The Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society cordially invites all members of the Crown Hill community for a gala housewarming and open rehearsal preview of selections from their upcoming productions HMS Pinafore and Cox and Box.

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
7PM
Crown Hill Center
9250 14th Ave NW
FREE!

Perhaps you noticed all the construction going on in the former covered play courts behind the Crown Hill Center? The newest center tenants completely transformed the space most recently used for storage into a palatial production facility and rehearsal space.  Now we’re all being invited to celebrate their arrival with tours of the new facility and previews of selections from their upcoming productions. For those not acquainted with the G&S Society’s productions, they are grand affairs with a cast of more than 40 performers, and tremendous musicality.

HMS Pinafore, a rollicking, sea-going comic opera, shreds class distinctions and pompous bureaucracy in the Royal Navy. The heroes are British Tars and the laughing stock is the First Lord of the Admiralty, who wants to marry the Captain’s daughter. She in turn loves a member of the crew.

Cox and Box, the 19th century version of “The Odd Couple,” features two inadvertent roommates sharing a shady landlord and a fiancee that neither cares for.

Both shows have happy endings. There is no charge for admission. Free show posters and postcards. Complementary refreshments. Show T-Shirts will be available for purchase.

Parks & Greenspace, Sustainability

Tree Survey Question (still looking for responses)

In August 2009 we published a tree survey questionnaire here. We got quite a few responses, but we’re looking for more. Our grant proposal is currently being reviewed has been approved for funding by the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. If approved, We will contract with an arborist to survey the neighborhood for trees, but Crown Hill is a large area to survey, and we can ensure the trees we think are significant are looked at by the arborist by identifying as many as possible ahead of time. We’ll be sponsoring a neighborhood walk in September 2010, and publishing a push-pin type map (similar to the one below) showing the trees.  Please take a look around and submit trees you think are significant whether they are in your yard, a neighbors yard, a public space. UPDATE (May 2010): Our grant proposal was approved for funding by the DON. The questionnaire is still open, so take a look at the updated map below and submit more trees. Thanks


View Crown Hill Tree Map in a larger map

To see the map larger and with a descriptive legend, click here.

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