Steamboat Days on Lake Washington

Back in the early days of Madison Park, at a time when we were the principal port connecting Seattle to many of the towns on the Eastside, steamboats plied the Lake daily and their passengers thronged our dock on their way to or from work, school or shopping in Seattle. On weekends, Seattleites flocking to Kirkland and to other points in the “country” mingled on the dock with Eastsiders coming into town to play or shop. At that time, the Park played the kind of “vital link” role that Edmonds or Mukilteo play today for their communities “on the other side.”

The first motorized vessel on Lake Washington was reportedly a boat called the James Motrie, which arrived in 1870, according to the Seattle Times. The earliest passenger-carrying steamboats on the Lake were small vessels such as the Xanthus and the Cyrene, most likely the boats shown in the colorized postcard above. The Cyrene was primarily used for Lake cruising, rather than for scheduled service. As regular passenger traffic on the Lake increased, larger vessels were introduced, often built in Lake Washington shipyards, such as an early one located at Sand Point. The Acme was another early Lake cruiser:

In 1890’s and early 1900’s there were many different operators with boats plying the Lake, but as the new century gained momentum a former Lake Washington boat captain, John Anderson, became the dominant operator with his Anderson Steamship Co. He built a shipyard at Houghton (now Carillon Point in Kirkland) and ran his boats over much of the Lake, making landfall at as many as 50 different locations. Anderson took advantage of tourist interest in Lake Washington during the Alaska-Yukon Exposition in 1909, operating 12 different boats on various lake runs.

The Kirkland was an early sidewheeler introduced into the Lake:

By 1911, Madison Park had regular scheduled passenger service eight times a day to Kirkland and Juanita and seven times a day to Houghton and other communities in the Kirkland area.

This was in addition to sightseeing cruises that also originated at the Madison Park dock. Leschi was also a major transportation hub at that time, with scheduled service to Mercer Island, Medina and Bellevue.

The development of the auto resulted in some changes to transportation across the Lake, with at least one of the larger passenger ships, the Urania (shown above) being converted to carry a few cars as well as passengers. But the passenger-only mosquito fleet continued to exist alongside the auto-ferries, since the smaller boats were able to land at many more locations, and in any event most people did not have their own cars. Tragically, many of the early Lake steamships were the victims of poor technology and safety procedures, burning and often sinking to the bottom of the Lake. (The website of the Submerged Cultural Resources Exploration Team has the fascinating stories of three such wrecks, including that of the Urania, shown below after its 1914 burning off of Houghton).

In spite of these an other hazards, robust passenger-only ferry operations continued through the Great Depression and into the years of the Second World War. One of the boats with the longest record of service (1915-1945) was the Ariel, which was owned and operated by Marcus and Henry Johnson. Former Washington Governor John Spellman, whose family moved from Broadmoor to Hunts Point during the 1930’s, well remembers taking the Ariel (shown above) into Madison Park when he was a student at Seattle Prep during the early war years.

On a typical day, he recalls, the boat would touch docks in Houghton, Yarrow Point, Evergreen Point, Medina, and Hunts Point before making the run across the Lake to Madison Park. The captain would only pull into one of the Eastside docks if he saw someone was waiting to be picked up, otherwise it was on to the next. Steaming in the fog could be dangerous, and some mornings the boat took much longer than its normal 30 minutes to cross, with the captain tooting the steam horn periodically to listen for echoes.

The Johnsons regularly let kids into the cabin, but the adult passengers generally flocked to the lower deck, in the middle of which were the engines, sunken a bit below the deck level and surrounded by a railing. Passengers enjoyed playing cards or checkers to pass the time, and in winter it was the only place on the boat that was warm. Spellman can remember listening to the Billy Conn-Joe Lewis fight on the radio while crossing on the the Kirkland ferry one evening. He also tells of a memorable day when a black Labrador jumped off the dock at Hunts Point and swam all the way across the Lake in the wake of a sailboat. The dog, he recalls, got to ride on the boat going back.

During the war the passenger ferries carried large numbers of workers at the Houghton shipyard to and from their jobs. Spellman recalls that after the Ariel docked at the side of the Madison Park ferry dock in the afternoons, many of the returning shipyard workers high-tailed it into the dock restaurant and bar, where there were plenty of pin-ball machines and several of those early motion-picture machines. That’s probably where the restaurant made most of its money, Spellman believes. In any event, the restaurant did not outlast the end of the ferry runs in 1950.

Spellman feels that something was lost when the floating bridges eventually eliminated the need for passenger ferries on the Lake. Perhaps feeling like many present-day commuters from Vashon or Bainbridge, Spellman remembers commuting by boat across the Lake as simply a less-hectic, more joyful experience: “Simply put, it was a much more civilized time. You greeted and talked to fellow passengers--and you didn't honk your horn at them.”

Readers wishing to learn more about the history of steamships on the Lake should check out the Wikipedia article and note the book references cited at the end, in particular H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest by Gordon R. Newell.

[Pictures of the Kirkland and the Ariel, courtesy of the Kirkland Heritage Society, from Our Foundering Fathers by Arline Ely.]

Tagging is not ‘Art in the Park’

The death yesterday of famed NY graffiti artist Michael Martin, aka “Iz the Wiz”, provides us with a good segue for a little story on graffiti in Madison Park, of which the less said the better. The kind of graffiti sometimes found in Madison Park hardly rivals what you’d see any day in New York, LA or many European cities, but it is causing concern for both the Madison Park Community Council and Business Association.

I took a tour of neighborhood graffiti last week with MPCC president Ken Myrabo, who pointed out a lot of graffiti that I had missed on my many circuits through the park while walking my dogs. I guess it proves that some of us simply screen out graffiti when we see it. Tagging is certainly the lowest form of graffiti, being nothing more the than the unauthorized writing of the perpetrator’s moniker (in words or symbols) on buildings, streets and sidewalks, or objects. We seem to have a lot of that going in certain alleys, especially those in the merchant district near the end of E. Madison Street. Here's an example from the backside of the building housing Starbuck's:

It’s pretty unimpressive stuff. Clearly, the perpetrators are kids with no artistic talent and not much imagination either. In addition to tagging, there are occasional phrases (for example, on a residential garbage can in an alley: “for a rich neighborhood, this alley sure has a lot of graff…”). It’s all pretty pathetic stuff; and though a definite eyesore, it does not appear to me to be gang related. This is not the kind of graffiti that can be studied by sociologists for clues about 21st century urban youth’s feelings of alienation and angst. It seems more about bored kids with time on their hands and a can of spray paint.

Fortunately, most business owners in Madison Park act promptly to remove tagging when it occurs. The biggest problem appears to be on dumpsters (which are owned by the disposal companies, not the business owners) and the backs of buildings in alleyways. Myrabo points out that that the City has a Graffiti Nuisance Ordinance that requires property owners to remove graffiti when properly notified of its existence. He encourages those who discover graffiti to report it to the building owner as a first step.

Tagging is vandalism, and the city has a program to help prevent it and remove it. It is not recommended that property owners take the law into their own hands, as did one incensed New Zealand property owner a couple years ago who confronted two teenage taggers, eventually stabbing one of them to death (so reports Wikipedia).

Graffiti should be reported to the City’s Public Utilities Department (684-7587). You can access an on-line graffiti reporting form, as well as get tips on graffiti prevention and information on volunteering for graffiti cleanup, at Keep Seattle Clean.

By way of comparison of graffiti problems in the Park with those in other Seattle neighborhoods, take a look at what graffiti “artists” have done to destroy a mural on a bridge underpass in the Phinney Ridge/Greenwood area:

For a “before” picture of the mural, check out the PhinneyWood.com blog. For more about American graffiti you can access a great NYC site: at149st.com, which also provides links to graffiti sites in other cities.

It didn’t happen here: a perspective on Madison Park crime

Yes, it’s true that Madison Park has its occasional alleged bear poacher. And once in a while some out-of-area crazy comes into the neighborhood and rams into cars or stabs himself in the chest for no good reason. And we certainly have our share of car prowling and break-ins. But I’m here to tell you—and I’m in a good position to know—that when it comes to real crime, we’ve got it good here in Madison Park.

Take a look at the map above. My friends at the Central District News compile a daily map showing police-scanner dispatches within the East Precinct’s coverage area. That’s right, cdguy over there monitors the scanner most days and posts what he hears on the CDN website. This map is from Wednesday, and it’s typical. It shows no police calls anywhere within Madison Park.

Twice a week I trek over to the East Precinct on Capitol Hill (1519 12th Avenue) and download media copies of all of the police reports for the previous three or four days. I do this in order to compile my periodic Police Blotter for this blog. For the last several weeks I have been reading these reports and finding nothing worth blogging about. At first I was disappointed that all of the really interesting crime was happening elsewhere, but then I realized that having nothing to report is a good thing.

Even leaving out violent crimes, which seldom occur in Madison Park, there is still a lot of interesting and even imaginative crime that happens elsewhere in the East Precinct. Take, for example, the story of the Central District couple who disagreed on which TV show they were going to watch. In a fit of rage, the male grabbed the TV remote and clobbered his companion on the head with it, breaking some statuary in the process. Though battered, she won the argument and was able to watch her preferred show after her assailant fled the apartment in advance of the police. In Madison Park I think we’re just too refined for this kind of thing (or perhaps just to refined to report it). Or maybe it’s just that we’re more likely to have a second television.

And then there’s the case of a woman on Capitol Hill who reported that her upstairs neighbor was urinating from his balcony onto hers on a daily basis. This, apparently, in retaliation for her having complained to him about the excessive noise coming from his apartment. This, too, seems an unlikely scenario here in the Park. But it is the kind of story that readers of this blog are apparently interested in seeing. Several of you have told me that your favorite thing is the Police Blotter, so since I have to wade through all of the reports anyway, I will be presenting a potpourri of East Precinct crime on my future blotters. Always beginning with what’s been happening here in the Park.

Here’s a recent incident: On Friday, June 26, police were called when a man, apparently high, began stepping into the street at 43rd E. and East Blaine, waving his arms around. CDN reports that though the man was wearing one of those electronic ankle bracelets used for tracking offenders, the police database showed the one the man was wearing was “inactive.” Perhaps he just liked the look. He was, however, removed from the scene for evaluation.

More to follow…

Madison Park bear poacher?

The alternative newspaper The Stranger reports that a Madison Park condo was raided earlier this month by officers looking for evidence that a Japanese man has been illegally hunting bears in Washington in order to obtain their gallbladders for sale in Asia. Bear gallbladder bile is used in traditional Asian medicine as a treatment for intestinal, liver and cardiac illnesses and for many other diseases. The Stranger states that it is prized as a “restorative” (meaning aphrodisiac), but this is disputed by many other sources. What is not in dispute is that bear gallbladders, which are approximately the size of a human thumb, are worth their weight in gold in Asia. This, in spite of the fact that bear bile has now been synthesized by Japanese scientists.

The Stranger, quoting a search-warrant affidavit, says that when the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife officers raided the condo on June 8 they “confiscated a dozen firearms, four bleached bear skulls, four boxes of processed game meat, several packages of bear paws, assorted frozen bear parts, and four dried bear gallbladders.”

Although the man has not been charged in this case, the affidavit reports that he had been charged with “wildlife crimes” in the past, according to The Stranger. He is reportedly a psychiatrist in his native Japan. For more on this story you may read the paper’s full report here: The Gall.

Short takes

Missed connection: As we were wandering around the neighborhood this morning looking at graffiti, Ken Myrabo (president of the Madison Park Community Council) pointed out this heartfelt, rain-protected posting on a telephone pole near the parking lot at Starbuck’s. Believe it or not, there’s actually a website for this kind of thing: http://www.missedconnections.com/. No word in this case on whether our CBB realtor has since made her connection.

More on the list of specials than just the Pod Thai? It’s not really a Madison Park story, but it became one when the newspaper and television crews descended on our neighborhood’s Thai Ginger restaurant yesterday to get shots and provide live coverage for the story on the restaurant owner’s day in court. For those who missed the story, owner Varee Bradford has been indicted on charges alleging that she paid various workers tens of thousands of dollars to marry her relatives so they could remain in the United States. My neighbor, Jim Waltz, was the cameraman for KIRO’s live coverage last night, and I’m indebted to him for suggesting the tag line above. For KIRO’s complete coverage, click here.

Watcher in the park is still around: There have been additional sightings of a tall black man supposedly standing around watching children in the playground area of the park. The police advise residents who see any such suspicious behavior to call 911 rather than confronting the man.

Fecal coliform levels remain elevated at Madison Park: King County's regular testing of Lake Washington water at our beach this week again showed higher-than-normal levels of these bacteria. However, the count has declined significantly, from 470 on June 15 to 220 on June 22. This is still considered of "Moderate Concern" under the County's measurement system, but as an individual reading it is not particularly bad news since the trend is in the right direction. According to Dean Wilson, the County's program manager for beach monitoring, higher amounts of fecal coliforms will be present after peroids of rain. The beach is definitely not considered dangerous to swimmers at this level.

The state of real estate: a 17-month supply of very expensive inventory

It probably comes as a shock to no one who’s been paying attention, but the 2009 statistics released by the King County Assessor for the year through the end of May show that Madison Park experienced a 44% drop in home sales over the same period in 2008. This continues a downward trend which began sometime in 2007.

For the first five months of the year a total of 36 homes were sold in Madison Park (including Broadmoor and Washington Park), compared to 64 home sales during the same period in 2008 and 80 in 2007. For the single month of May 2009 only six homes were sold in Madison Park, a 60% month-over-month decline from the 15 that were sold in May 2008.

The 116 properties currently on the market represent a 17-month level of inventory, based on the average seven-sales-per-month pace achieved so far in 2009. It is possible that some additional May sales still need to be reported to the County, and it is apparently the case that based on closings through this week, June will certainly show greater sales activity than May. Nevertheless, it’s clearly been a dismal first half of the year for home sellers and real estate agents in the Park.

One of the most interesting aspects of the local real estate market is the fact that, on the whole, the houses for sale are significantly more expensive--and therefore harder to unload—than most of the homes in the Park would be if placed on the market. The median value of a Madison Park home is $994,870 based on current Zillow.com estimates. Yet the median price of the 116 homes Redfin lists for sale in the Park is 68% higher: $1,675,000.

Madison Park is not alone in having such a disparity between the median value of its not-for-sale and its on-the-market properties. The 42 homes for sale on Capitol Hill, for example, have a median listing price of $925,000, 66% more than the $556,764 median value estimated by Zillow for the other 2,921 homes that are not for sale. The difference in Montlake, meanwhile, is much less: an $800,000 median for-sale price versus a $636,706 not-for-sale median value, according to Zillow. This is only a 26% differential.

[The above photo, courtesy of Windermere Realty, is of 2334 41st Avenue E., a listing of Lincoln Thompson priced at $1,895,000, which is the median house price for the 83 houses currently on the market in Madison Park.]

So what’s selling? The completed sale transactions for the market in 2009 have ranged from a $5.3 million Broadmoor house (1105 Parkside Drive E.) to a $613,000 abode in Washington Park (617 33rd Avenue E.). The median price is $1,200,000 for those sold homes for which prices have been reported to the County. Redfin reports that the sales price of homes over the last six months in Madison Park (exclusive of Washington Park) averaged $590 per square foot. This compares to an estimated median value of $459 per square foot for the overall market, according to Zillow.

In general, it is the larger homes in our market that are being sold, and it is the even-larger homes that are currently listed for sale. While Zillow estimates the median Madison Park home size at 2,049 sq. ft., the median size for homes that have sold in the last six months is 2,359 sq. ft., according to Redfin. And the median size for homes currently listed for sale, says Redfin, is 2,871 sq. ft. (Redfin excludes Washington Park from its analysis).

These figures include houses, townhouses and condos. Here’s a snapshot of the current listings in Madison Park for each category:

Houses

Listings: 83
Median Asking Price: $1,895,000
Median Square Footage: 3,680
Median Price per Square Foot: $515
Average Days on Market: 99
Percentage with Price Reductions: 37%

Condos

Listings: 28
Median Asking Price: $650,000
Median Square Footage: 1,246
Median Price per Square Foot: $522
Average Days on Market: 66
Percentage with Price Reductions: 50%

Townhouses

Listings: 5
Median Asking Price: $450,000
Median Square Footage: 1,200
Median Price per Square Foot: $375
Average Days on Market: 39
Percentage with Price Reductions: 20%

The figures on price reductions, in particular, are misleading due to the fact that many of the units have been on the market in the past, were unsold, and have been put back on the market at a reduced price after a brief withdrawal. Price reduction percentages refer to any price cutting that has occurred since the newest listing.

The real estate agents I’ve talked to see several factors influencing the market. Foremost is the fact that there are so few qualified buyers in such a rarefied market. Those who can afford to buy are taking their time, according to Windermere agent Jan Sewell, who notes that these buyers can also afford to wait for the right opportunity. One of the things they appear to be anticipating is better terms from the lending institutions for jumbo mortgages. Wendy Skerritt, also of Windermere, reports that she is hearing anecdotal evidence that some banks are getting back into the game of financing upper-end houses. If this is true, it will certainly help move the market at the upper end.

Right now, with a buyers’ market fully in play, a Madison Park house owner who wants to sell needs to do everything right, says Lincoln Thompson, associate broker at Windermere-Madison Park. “Houses that are average or not well priced are just going to sit.”

[The real estate market analyzed in this report comprises Sub Areas 6 (Broadmoor) and 7 (Madison Park and Washington Park) of Area 14, as designated by the Office of the King County Assessor. Differences between the median figures used above and those of Zillow result from the combining of the two Sub Areas, which are analyzed separately by Zillow but are not broken out for purposes of this report.]

Relatively wealthy (but perhaps not feeling so)

In case you missed the recent report in the Puget Sound Business Journal (PSBJ), you may be interested in learning that 98112 is the wealthiest zip code in Seattle.

In 10th position, ours is the only Seattle zip code making it to the top-ten list for the Puget Sound region, and it is one of only two Seattle zips in the top twenty (the other being 98177, which includes The Highlands and Blue Ridge). The Eastside rules the list, with Medina the perennial Number One, well ahead of the rest of the pack. A Redmond zip is Number Two, and rounding out the top ten there are two entries each for Sammamish and Woodinville, as well as one zip each for Mercer Island, Bellevue and Issaquah. There are 223 zip codes in the geographic region covered by the paper’s report.

The 98112 zip code comprises all of Madison Park (including Broadmoor and Washington Park), Montlake, Denny-Blaine and most of Capitol Hill. The PSBJ estimates that the average household net worth for our zip is $1,127,992. This compares to $2,272,662 for Medina and $860,838 for Auburn, which is 25th on the list. Average 2008 household income for 98112 was estimated at $138,623.

Madison Park comprises something more than a quarter of the 98112 zip code’s population of 20,043.

Sticklebacks inundate Madison Park beaches

There have been reports for several days of large numbers of dead fish washing onto some of our road-end beaches, particularly those on E. Lee, E. Highland and E. Prospect Streets. The cause is not the mystery it first seemed. The fish have been identified as three-spine sticklebacks, and they have died of what—for them at least—is a natural cause: rough sex.

According to King County’s Water & Land Resources Division, the lot of the male stickleback during breeding season is an unpleasant one. First there’s the swimming around furiously to attract a mate, then there’s the mating itself, and finally there’s the nest building and caring for the young. What the female is doing all this time is not specified. But the males are pretty worn out from their exertions at the end, and many of them go on to their reward. In this case, the reward is more on the side of the eagles, crows and rats who are making tasty meals of the stickleback carcasses. The beaches are picked fairly clean, but some of the remains are now littering the gardens and pathways around the beaches.

Sidebar: As I was researching this story today I discovered coincidentally that the beach at Madison Park is experiencing a big spike in fecal coliform levels, rising from a level of 16 on June 9 to 470 on June 15, by far the highest level of any beach on Lake Washington as measured by the County. Fecal coliforms are a group of intestinal bacteria that are routinely used as an indicator of sewage pollution in water.

Madison Park’s recent reading of 470 is still within the acceptable level, though levels above 200 are considered of Moderate Concern, according to the County. To reach High Concern, the level would need to reach 1000, at which point the beach would probably be closed to swimming.

I talked to Dean Wilson, who is a senior water quality project manager with King County, and he reports that an individual reading at a particular beach “could represent a sampling artifact such as geese being in the area around the time the sample was taken.” He said that overall, Madison Park currently has a geometric mean for the last five samplings of 50, which shows high-quality water. If next week’s sampling shows an elevated level of fecal coliforms there would be a need to monitor the situation more closely, he said. If the reading is high next week, I will report it.

Too garish for the Park?

The refined sensibilities of some Madison Park residents have been sorely tested by the oversize neon sign installed earlier this month by “Washington’s Newest Bank” (aka Chase Manhattan). Believing that the New York-based bank has violated our community’s tasteful-sign standards, they reportedly took their complaints directly to Chase last week, requesting that the sign be downsized and possibly de-neoned. The issue was important enough to be discussed at the Madison Park Community Council meeting this week, with the decision taken to formalize a request that Chase cease and desist.

Chase’s offense was also discussed at the Madison Park Business Association meeting today. It is the MPBA which has the sign standard of which I am told Chase is clearly in violation. However, the standard is a voluntary one; in other words, enforceable only through community pressure.

For awhile this afternoon it looked as though the complaints were being heeded. A sign-company truck rolled up to the branch, the offending sign was removed, and for a brief moment some had hope that a New York bank could actually react to our community’s input.

However, it was not to be. A new metal facing was installed above the branch to cover the bricks (which had been scarred previously by WaMu’s awning), and the offending sign was promptly reinstalled. In fact, the sign now stands out even more than it did before.

It remains to be seen whether Chase will eventually back down, but there is at least one precedent for a big bank responding to the community’s complaints. According to MPBA member Lola McKee (Madison Park Hardware), many years ago Bank of America put up an offending sign but reversed course after the violation was pointed out.

Chase’s sign is not the only one in the neighborhood that is legal under City code but still in violation of the MPBA standard. Also on the blacklist is the new Fitness Together sign, next to Bing’s.

For some, the sign issue may seem like a pretty unimportant battle to occupy people’s time. But for others, such as Council President Ken Myrabo, taking a stand has to do with preserving the character of the neighborhood and keeping our little piece of Madison Street from becoming another Lake City Way. Now that’s a cause a lot of us can get behind.

Watchers in the park and other weird crimes

It’s been a strange last few days on the neighborhood crime scene, including a stalker in the Park, bong hits on the beach, hit-and-run craziness, senseless vandalism, and even a self-inflicted stabbing.

To begin with the most serious, there have been several incidents reported to police of someone watching children in the Park. In two cases within the last week, police were called to investigate, but in each case the suspect had disappeared and could not be traced. The Central District News website picked up a report on the police scanner that on Thursday a suspicious male was reported hanging around the Madison Park playground watching children play. The caller reported having seen the man at the park on many occasions, describing him as a black male in a pink shirt who "doesn't look right.” On Saturday morning I witnessed a police search after a similar incident occurred. The parent who made the police call said this suspect was someone he had seen at the park in the past, but I was unable to get a description.

Meanwhile, the early evening calm of Thursday was shattered when a blue Ford Escort careened down 43rd Avenue E., crashing into a Volvo parked on the street in front of the Lakehouse condominiums. As the many onlookers watched, the driver reportedly got out the vehicle, staggered around, laughed hysterically, got back into his car and took off. Someone gave chase and got the license number, but he broke off pursuit when it became apparent that a serious accident could result.

On another evening last week, according to a neighbor, several people walking on E. Madison saw a man, possibly on drugs, pick up a big ceramic pot from in front of McGilvra’s and smash it onto the roof of a nearby parked car. And if that wasn’t enough craziness for one week, another neighbor reports that over the weekend there was an apparently drugged-out man walking around talking strangely who eventually ended up stabbing himself with a knife on McGilvra Boulevard E. as witnesses watched. Police were called.

Concerned neighbors who wish to discuss this mini-crime wave (if that’s what it is) will have an opportunity to do so at the upcoming Madison Park Community Council meeting on Monday (7:00pm at the Bathhouse). Madison Park resident Don Petit, who is trying to organize the neighborhood to deal with this spurt of criminal activity, reports that the Council has agreed to put crime on the agenda.

The bong hit incident, mentioned above, is admittedly unsubstantiated, but two weekends ago a bong was seen being carried down to one of the roadend beaches here in the Park, and the next morning evidence of a fire and a lot of debris was discovered. Whether the bong was actually used or not, only the alleged perpetrators know for sure.