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Life in the ‘Fifty Shades’ Building, ‘Up’ House Update
The top Seattle news stories you should be reading today
The late Edith Macefield’s tiny Ballard home that somewhat inspired the Disney animated film Up (remember Macefield’s national-news-making refusal of a $1 million offer forced developers build the Ballard Blocks around her), might go up for foreclosure auction next month. The Seattle PI reports that the current owner of the house owes more than $185,000 on the property.
Tent city news: A proposed plan from Mayor Ed Murray would restrict new homeless ecampments, or tent cities, to non-residential zones.
What makes a native Northwesterner? According to The Seattle Times‘ Ron Judd, you have to have been born here. Recently, Forbes magazine named Seattle the country’s fifth fastest-growing city. We experienced a 1.3 percent population growth in 2014 and are expected to hit that same number in 2015. That’s a lot of new people who, by Judd’s logic, won’t ever be “official” Northwesterners. Crosscut and Seattle mag contributor Knute Berger, begs to differ: “To me, being a Northwesterner has more to do with affinity for place than birthplace. In fact, some of the most Northwesty people I know were folks who stepped off the plane or out of their microbus and found home here.”
When my husband and I first moved here, we wandered into the Escala building downtown and toured a unit that we were thinking of renting. You can only do that now by appointment and if you want to see one of the penthouses–where fictional S&M enthusiast Christian Grey hung his…er…hat in the romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey–you’re required to be pre-qualified. So what is it like to live in this famed building where Fifty Shades fans arrive in droves to gawk? One resident speaks out, citing a particular annoyance involving the Ride The Ducks tour. “Escala residents asked the Ducks to have the drivers stop the commentary for awhile, ‘but they are back at it.'”
This year’s lineup for Memorial Day weekend music fest Sasquatch was released yesterday and it’s loaded with some pretty stellar names: Lana Del Ray, Little Dragon, Ryan Adams, plus local acts My Goodness and Ayron Jones and The Way. MyNorthwest.com wants to know, however, if you’ve ever heard of any of the bands playing this year. Take the poll here.
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Rearview Mirror: Spinasse at Home, a New Spa Experience, and Seattle Mag’s Reader’s Choice Awards
Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).
YOUR VOTE MATTERS Everyone has a favorite restaurant, coffee shop, or local boutique. Call me old-school, but I will die on the hill that Caffe Vita has the best coffee in town. Disagree with me? Now’s your moment to speak up. Each year, we survey Seattle magazine readers, asking them to weigh in on everything…
Studio Sessions: Ling Chun
The Seattle-based artist brings playful color to ceramics and neon while exploring memory, transformation, and life between cultures.
For Ling Chun, creating begins with something sensed before it can be named. Working with clay, glass, light, and sometimes synthetic hair, the Hong Kong-born artist gives physical form to things that words cannot always hold. “For me, the magnitude of making goes far beyond the object that is eventually produced,” Chun says. “The object…
The Magic of PAX Is Stronger Than Ever
PAX West draws more than 100,000 people to Seattle each year. Co-founder Jerry Holkins reflects on what the gaming convention set out to change, how its community has grown and why gathering face to face still matters.
Access to game news as it was happening was difficult back in the day. Even with the advent of the internet, communication between game publishers and journalists was still a very elite affair. I used to fake credentials—via fax machine!—to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo, mostly just known as E3. It was simultaneously as loud…
Your Guide to Bumbershoot 2026
Navigate Seattle’s wildest end-of-summer weekend with 20 picks spanning Death Cab for Cutie, Blood Orange, wrestling, skateboarding and—obviously—movies made in 48 hours.
Four years after Bumbershoot returned with its quirkiness revivified, Seattleites broadly acknowledge the two-day multimedia extravaganza as a welcome finale to the summer festival season. Fests like Bumbershoot are designed around a choose-your-own-adventure model, but if you’re the kind of person who looked at this year’s sprawling lineup—featuring multiple bands, artists, and exhibits happening at…