White Center Now: The blog about White Center

The monthly public safety meeting will be held tonight (Thursday) at 6 p.m.  If you want to learn what is being done to make this community safer or have concerns regarding same, attend and make your voice heard.  I for one would like to see more action to rid the White Center business district of creeps like these, drinking malt liquor on the side of a grocery store, happy as pigs in sh*t.

Chronic alcoholics and other miscreants

Greg Duff of the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council wanted to share this story, including the photos you see above and below:

On Sunday May 24 the Burien Evangelical Church held a picnic at Chelsea Park on 136th and Ambaum.

The purpose of this picnic was to honor our war heroes who have given so much that we might have freedom.

So often we gloss over the true meaning of Memorial Day thinking it is just about picnics, barbeques and working around the house. I thought it would be fun for the kids to invite the Burien Fire Department so the kids could be thrilled when the truck arrived. Three of Burien’s finest arrived on their truck and just as predicted, the kids were thrilled. The firemen went beyond the call of duty. They let the kids climb on the truck, touch the gear and gave out some neat souvenirs. They then played in our softball game and joined us for lunch. It was more than the kids who got a thrill out of having these wonderful fire fighters among us.

As I talk about the heroes of our wars who gave their lives for us, I am proud to be among these heroes who face the dangers of fire on a daily basis to protect. My hat’s off to these fine gentlemen.
Thank you to Barb Peters, North Highline Fire Commissioner for making this possible.

Greg Duff
Burien Evangelical Church Volunteer and Member of the NHUAC

Advisory just in from King County Council Chair Dow Constantine‘s office:

King County Council Chair Dow Constantine will join the owners of the White Center Square development for a groundbreaking ceremony to launch this retail project, which was funded through a $6.25 million loan from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development:

Thursday, May 28
10:00 a.m.
White Center Square site
Corner of 15th Avenue SW and SW 100th St.
Constantine will speak at around 10:30 a.m.

The $11 million project, which will provide 60 new jobs for the White Center neighborhood, was authorized on March 30 by the King County Council.

The heart of White Center will host a new pizza parlor. In keeping with our Commie-working class theme, the pizza place will be named Proletariat Pizza. The location is the old Elisa’s Bakery site, just across the street from Full Tilt Ice Cream. Great News for White Center!

Future Site of Proletariat Pizza

This is going to be an amazing show. Thee Emergency are bringing some special guests that can not be named. It is going to be a fun, but packed show, so get here early. You are going to be kicking yourself Sunday morning if you miss this one.

Son de los Diablos

Weather should be summery and perfect for the Afro-Peruvian Dance Troupe on Friday (May 29th) at 6 pm.

May 29th, (Friday) 6pm
Devil’s Dance Parade in White Center followed by concert at Café Rozella
7pm   9434 Delridge Way SW
Seattle, WA 98106 (206) 763-5805

AFrican ConeXion Project, Café Rozella and 4Culture Specific Site.

In case you saw the huge column of smoke to the west right around noontime – it was a fire that destroyed a home and two cars and badly burned a 34-year-old man in the Arbor Heights area of West Seattle (around 35th/108th). Here’s detailed coverage with photos at partner site West Seattle Blog.

You know the usual holiday drill – schools, most government facilities, banks closed, etc. — but in case you need to take public transit, we also wanted to let you know: Metro is running its Sunday schedule today.

Hung Long

Of all the great Asian markets in White Center, Hung Long Sieu Th! is almost certainly my favorite.  It is distinguished by being directly across from the White Center State Liquor Store.  Some would see this as a convenience and others as a liability.  That aside, this is almost certainly the most well-stocked Vietnamese market.  This is a market in the truest sense of the word: stocking within its tightly knit quarters, all manner of fish and meat as well as a very nice selection of fruits and vegetables, some familiar, some not.  The aisles are packed with sauces, spices and all the accoutrements for fine Asian (or in my case, Mexican) meal.  Indeed, many of the patrons shopping at Hung Long are Latin American, although the overwhelming majority are Asian, attesting to the market’s authenticity.  Most times, I am the only non-Asian at the check-out line, as Vietnamese is thrown around as the lingua franca.

Fresh Fish

My advice for any gringos wishing to venture to Hung Long is to explore and if confused, just ask, the staff are very friendly and more than willing to assist.  Did I mention that the prices are incredibly modest.  You could pack a bag of fruit for under $10.00.  And the fruit would certainly be much nicer than the industrial brand you find at Safeway and other corporate stores.

Fresh meats and vegggies in a typically clean aisle

The seafood is invariably fresh.  No need to trek to Pike Place Market to pick up some fresh crab or halibut.  And you can get some nice black bean sauce to dress the dinner meal.

Fresh Crab

If you feel like noshing while shopping, Hung Long has a small Hong Kong style deli where you can pick up ribs, roast duck, hum bows or other tasty stews and barbeques.

Roast Duck

Fried Fish

My favorite quality of Hung Long is its authenticity.  When I step into Hung Long, I am immediately transported to the wonderful markets of Chinatown in New York City or Hong Kong.  This is the real deal, venture forth gastronomes and lovers of food.   An awesome market, Hung Long.

Asian Drinks

Hong Kong Style Deli

Many of you saw him at the Rat City Rummage a few months back. Dave Ryan is a stencil artists from Bremerton, Washington. All of his art work is done on recycled goods, such as old LP’s, windows and thrift store canvases. Dave enjoys painting silly and epic things, has two different sized feet, and can grow a fairly thick beard when cold or frightened.

Currently he has 42 stenciled LP’s on the walls, and two larger paintings. We had 49 yesterday, so they are going pretty quick.

Followup to our report earlier this week about White Center Community Development Association getting a $5,000 award from the Seattle mayor’s office, which will be used for business-district branding: The mayor’s office just shared this photo of WCCDA’s Karen Veloria accepting the check from Mayor Nickels at the awards-announcement event in Columbia City yesterday.

The draft agenda is now out for next Thursday night’s White Center-South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meeting – read on to see what you’ll hear if you go: Read the rest of this entry »

This announcement is from the Technology Access Foundation, which has a big event coming up next month:

On June 13, 2009 Technology Access Foundation (TAF) will host our Robotics competition for TechStart, our after school program. Six classes will be participating: five from Highline (grades 4th-6th) and one from Seattle. (Grades 6th-8th) The event will take place at the White Center Boys and Girls Club, 9800 8th Ave. SW, Suite 105, from 9 AM to 1 PM. The students will be required to build robots that compete in four events:

1. Tug of War (head to head) (30 minutes)

2. Archery – 2:30 for each run w/ 5 min between rounds (35 minutes)

3. Basket Bot (16 minutes)

4. Drag Race (7 minutes)

This morning in Columbia City, the Seattle mayor’s office is awarding grants to business and community groups from all over Seattle, and one of them is going to the White Center Community Development Association (whose headquarters are on the Seattle side of WC). Congratulations! (P.S. WCCDA has posted even more photos from last weekend’s Spring Clean on its website, plus a big “thank you” to the nearly 400 people who joined in last weekend’s event.) THURSDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: The city has released the full list of grant recipients and the amounts; WCCDA’s grant is for $5,000. According to the mayor’s office, WCCDA will use the money for a “business-district-branding campaign.”

From Sarah at WestSide Baby:

Grab a friend and join WestSide Baby tomorrow, May 21st,from 7-9pm, for our monthly “After Hours” sorting frenzy. Enjoy an evening of sorting donations, socializing and making a difference in the community!

Please RSVP to Sarah@westsidebaby.org if you know you will be able to attend. Children under 14 must be accompanied by an adult and it is especially important for us to know if minors are coming so we can prepare appropriate jobs for them.

We also have an ongoing need for larger size diapers (Sizes 4-6) and Pull-ups (Sizes 3t and 4t).

WestSide Baby is at 10032 15th Ave. SW in White Center.

Son de los Diablos Parade

The Parade Route for the Devil’s Dance has been announced: The Parade starts at El Paisano, on the corner of 15^th Ave. SW and Roxbury, proceeds to La Fondita at SW 98^th St., and then to Full Tilt Ice Cream at 9629 16th Avenue SW then to the Triangle at Roxbury/16th Ave. SW/Delridge and then from there to Cafe Rozella for a Muscial Performance. (Choreography by Monica Rojas, Ph.D.)

Diablo Dancing to Afro-Peruvian Rythms.

Afro-Peruvian Dance and Music:  El Son De Los Diablos
NPR States, “Afro-Peruvian music has complex, sensual rhythms. Its instrumentation is spare, originally just nylon-string guitar, bass and a wooden box called cajon. When it started getting outside attention in the mid-’90s, it felt new. The music’s lean architecture and introspective mood differentiated it from the likes of salsa and merengue.”
“The people of the so-called Black Pacific were so far removed from their African origins that the creators of Afro-Peruvian music couldn’t rely much on cultural memory. So they created instruments, rhythms and a compelling musical aesthetic that was largely a product of their imaginations. The pride of Afro-Peruvian music is the lando, an elegant dance with intertwined rhythms and a seductive undertow.”
El Son De Los Diablos will feature the musicians behind Grammy Award Winner Susana Baca.  Truly a unique experience of a hot new trend in Latin American Music.
Admission is FREE

Diablos do choreagraphed dance movements

AFRO PERUVIAN PERCUSSION; The Cajon

African slaves were brought over to the Spanish colony of Peru in the 16th century to work mainly in the gold and silver mines of the high Andes. However their physique was not suited to the high altitude and they died by the hundreds. Their Spanish or Creole (descendants of European settlers in Latin America) masters sent them to work in the milder climate of the desert coast, where they laboured in the large haciendas; private farms. It was in their small huts, on the packed dirt floors of the courtyards overrun with animals and in the fields of cane and sugar cane that Afro-Peruvian music, song and dance were born.

The beginnings of slavery in Peru were different from the rest of the Americas. Although in Brazil or Central and North American countries it was common to import large groups of slaves from the same African tribe, only small and geographically dispersed ethnic groups were brought to Peru. This was meant to discourage rebel movements around the tribal chiefs, and as such, made almost impossible the preservation of communal traditions. Without a common language or tribal authority to remind them of their roots, Peruvian slaves were progressively integrated into the culture and language of their new country. As a result Afro-Peruvian music is a unique blend of Spanish, Andean and African traditions.

Centuries old, this music started to gain recognition in Peru about 40 years ago and it has became popular in the last 25 years. It was born in the coastal barrios (suburbs) and towns and was reconstructed and resurrected thanks to the work of a few artists and historians. Because the Africans were forbidden from playing their own instruments, percussion instruments developed out of the simplest household appliances; spoons, kitchen chairs, table tops, boxes, handclaps, until it reached this century with the creation of the cajon as a specific instrument to play music.

The cajon which is a wooden-box in which the player sits on to play, is thought to have originated in Peru.  The cajon is made out of hardwood with the front cover being of a very fine layer of plywood. The cajon has an open circle cut at the back of the instrument. The player sits and plays two main strokes as well as a few other variations. The main two consist of: the tone of the box which is played with the full palm in the middle of the “head” (this stroke is usually a bass or palm sound on a variety of African derived hand drums found around the world) and the slap which is played on the edge of the “head” of the instrument (this sound also part of the technique used in many hand drums around the world).

Cotito - El cajon

(A big thank you to Latino Cultural Magazine for the photographs.)

May 23rd, (Saturday), 7:30pm,  Afro-Peruvian percussionist Juan Medrano Cotito releases his new CD “La Voz Del Cajon” at  Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center.
$20 including CD.

These events are sponsored by AFrican ConeXion Project, 4Culture and Cafe Rozella.

The annexation vote for part of North Highline is now less than three months away, and the open house that the City of Burien is presenting at Salmon Creek School tonight is the first one since the question was officially placed on the ballot. It’s from 6:30-8 pm; here are full details from the Burien website.

Two advocates for keeping Evergreen Pool open, veteran Cyril Miller and North Highline firefighter Ed Marrs, are pleading their case with King County Council leaders today, according to this seattletimes.com story, which says they’ll be meeting with County Council Chair Dow Constantine and Councilmember Larry Phillips this afternoon. Evergreen Pool remains slated for shutdown after the end of next month unless either the county finds more money or a community coalition figures out how to take it over.

The Nature Consortium is working to restore the West Duwamish Greenbelt.  As part of their efforts, they are clearing Ivy, which is an invasive species that chokes and kills native vegetation.  This Thursday is the Nature Consortium’s second official foray (first Thursday!) into the Greenbelt to start tackling the Ivy.  Per, organizer Kathleen Dowd-Gailey, “We made great progress on the Saturday event two weeks ago and cleared almost an acre of ivy and made 12 ivy rings on some great big trees! Good stuff!  Since this will be a separate event, not piggybacking on a regularly scheduled Nature Consortium event, I need to know for sure how many people will be able to make it. Please RSVP to me by Wednesday at noon so I can confirm with Nature Consortium staff. I will send out directions to those who can make it after I get your RSVP.”

Contact Kathleen at:  kdowdgailey@gmail.com