The President skirts the 'hood (again)

It always seems to happen this way (or at least it did the last time), but when President Obama comes to town and heads our direction, he never quite makes it into Madison Park proper. Yes, we can legitimately say that he traveled on Lake Washington Boulevard, which is the western/southern boundary of the neighborhood. But instead of turning up Madison and gracing us with his presence, he headed from the Arboretum on down to Denny Blaine for a fundraiser at the waterfront home of Ann and Bruce Blume (see video of his arrival here).  As far as we know, no one in the press (except for the Seattle Times) correctly called the neighborhood, however. It was variously described in news reports as Madrona, Madison Park, and even Broadmoor.  Well, all of these neighborhoods have a lot of potential rich contributors, and it's easy to get confused.

Say, look at this. Isn't the President's motorcade driving on the wrong side of the road?

Anyway, the President's arrival was either very exciting (for those people who showed up to cheer as he passed) or very irritating (for those many drivers stuck in traffic delays resulting from blocked roads due to security).  Maybe next time he's in town he can turn east on Madison.  We're relatively friendly down here, after all.

Location of Obama fundraiser in Denny Blaine

[Thanks to David Berryman for taking these photos and to his partner David Chapman for forwarding them!]

President visits Madison Park (sort of)

We can technically claim a Presidential visit to Madison Park today, though his time in the neighborhood was rather fleeting. While on his way to a fundraiser at the waterfront home of Real Networks founder Rob Glaser, President Obama’s motorcade used Lake Washington Boulevard as “a long on and off ramp to and from 520.” He thus rather inadvertently entered Madison Park along our western border before heading south on the Boulevard and into Denny-Blaine, where Glaser’s house is located.

Ironically, the media gave credit to Madrona as the site of the Presidential visit. But as regular readers of this blog well know, Denny-Blaine is not part of Madrona, a fact acknowledged by the Madrona Community Council. So ironically, while the President actually did pass through Madison Park and did not travel into Madrona as far as we can tell, Madrona got the glory in most of the media.

Oh well, we know better. And so, presumably, do the residents of Denny-Blaine, many of whom must have been negatively impacted by the various security measures.

At any rate, the President’s brief excursion through our neighborhood was a big thrill for those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. The picture above was taken from the phone camera of Thao Nguyen of Therapeutic Associates Physical Therapy in Madison Court as the motorcade entered the Arboretum at the intersection of E. Madison and Lake Washington Boulevard. The staff of Therapeutic Associates reports that they waved to the President and that he actually waved back.

There are some good pictures of the motorcade, the security detail, and the exterior of Glaser’s house on the neighboring blog, Central District News. That blog, which actually covers Madrona as part of its beat, was the only media outlet that I could find today that correctly reported that site of the Presidential visit was “near Madrona.”

[SPD Command Vehicle photo by Will Lomen.]