On Friday, the Gas Works Park play area opened after work to remediate arsenic below ground. Or more correctly, the play area opened again.

I wrote about the remediation plan late last year noting that the park would be mostly open during this work. The work was followed by a renovation of many of the facilities including the play area. This, naturally, required a closing of said facilities. They reopened back in October as we wrote about here. Why, even the city hailed the completion of the project.

So it came as a surprise when alert reader Jill informed us …

Back in late November, I wrote about some sightings of a coyote dubbed “Wally.” I asked for any more photos that folks may have taken of him (or her). A few have trickled in. See the gallery below.

I also heard back from the zoo which, some readers have suggested, may have more information about this particular coyote. They didn’t seem to have any first-hand information about Wally, but there’s this:

Hello Jack,

We wanted to update you that within a couple of months Woodland Park Zoo will have a “Carnivore Spotter” observation reporting tool (very much like our current …

An apartment building, with retail on the street level!

Okay, so no surprise there. What is somewhat of a surprise is that, after all this time, something is actually going to emerge in the space once occupied by Kitaro Sushi at 1624 N. 45th.

Kitaro burned down December 7, 2011 as we wrote about here. I’m not sure an exact cause was ever determined, but reports at the time said the fire was electrical in nature. A dentist’s office was also damaged in the blaze.

And then time passed.

In 2015, the building was emptied and boarded up.

And then …

If you’ve taken advantage of the nice weather in the early part of this month to rake some leaves, then you may have built up a real backlog. All this month, SPU has been taking extra containers of yard waste for free for customers that already subscribe to yard waste collection. But this is your last week to put out extra stuff!

From the SPU website:

SPU is providing free extra yard waste from November 1-30, 2018. Extra yard waste must be in paper bags (up to 60 pounds), or placed in an extra container that contains only yard waste. …

Seattlekit writes: this coyote has been seen in a 1-mile radius around the zoo for about 2 months now, mostly to the east and south (Wallingford). So I’d like to offer the official name for this male coyote of “Wally Coyote”, as a take-off on Wile E. Coyote of Roadrunner cartoon fame. You in?

Yes, Kit, I think we are!

If you don’t often peruse our forums, readers have been posting recently about a rash of coyote sightings in the neighborhood. This is not a particularly rare event for us. In fact, going back through Wallyhood stories, I see …

I’m beginning to feel a bit like the Chief of Wallyhood’s Playground Bureau. Just a couple of weeks ago, I reported that the transfer station playground is being redone by the contractor due to some deficiencies in the original construction. And this week, I’m here to report that the Wallingford Playfield, along Wallingford Ave. near 45th, is now closed for renovation.

It closed on November 6, but I hadn’t noticed until a friend mentioned it to me. Jordan posted about it back in May, and Ben followed up with an announcement about a community meeting convened to seek neighborhood input …

The Green Lake and Wallingford Paving and Multi-Modal Improvements project (new name!) is the city’s official name for work to be done up by Green Lake, but also includes a host of improvements and renovations along 40^th St. These include addition of and improvements to cross walks; repairing sidewalks; installing some bus shelters; adding and improving pedestrian lighting; repaving of 40^th; and construction of a bike lane.

While the sidewalk repair garnered some criticism when it was revealed that a number of trees might have to be cut down to facilitate that, the greatest controversy was generated …