Life in the ‘Fifty Shades’ Building, ‘Up’ House Update
The top Seattle news stories you should be reading today
By Lauren Mang February 4, 2015
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.
Follow Us
Ferry Tales: Eight Indie Bookstores Worth the Ride
Plan a summer day around these bookshops in Seattle, Bremerton, Bainbridge Island, Kingston, and Poulsbo.
Independent bookstores tend to be cornerstones of the communities in which they reside, and Seattle is no exception. In addition to helping customers discover their next read, these neighborhood hubs host weekly gatherings and events, like publication release parties, author talks, and book clubs. Many of them have cafés and reading tables that encourage lingering…
Rearview Mirror: Seattle Art Fair is Back, Nordstrom Throws a Block Party, and a Must-Try Ice Cream Sundae
Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).
SEATTLE ART FAIR RETURNS The buzziest event of the summer (well, aside from the World Cup), is returning next week. Now in its 10th edition, the Seattle Art Fair will once again take over the Lumen Field Event Center, packing it to the gills with art from 101 local, national, and international galleries. This year,…
Studio Sessions: Jennifer Leigh Harrison
Seattle artist Jennifer Leigh Harrison uses layers of paint and abstraction to explore what we carry beneath the surface.
Jennifer Leigh Harrison’s paintings are dense with movement. Color and texture gather into mosaic-like fields, as if they have been fractured and reformed. There are places in the work where a frenetic buzz seems trapped between the canvas and the first layer of paint. That energy runs through Patterns of Belonging, her current exhibition at…
ENHYPEN’s Jay Has K-Pop Stardom and a Seattle Heart
The Federal Way-raised singer talks hometown memories, Ivar’s clam chowder, and how it feels to perform in the place he grew up.
Long before he was performing in sold-out arenas around the world and representing brands like Prada, ENHYPEN’s Jay called the Puget Sound region home. Born Jay Park (not to be confused with the other famous K-pop star of the same name, who is also from Seattle) in Seattle and raised in nearby Federal Way before…