One of the endearing and enduring features of Wallingford is that it is full of little jewels, unique establishments that are often overshadowed and overlooked because of the oversized influence of other places and events. But nestled right in the heart of the neighborhood, on 45^th, is a restaurant called Harvest Beat that is quite wonderful. Those of you who peruse Facebook, the newly ungoverned purveyor of discord and distress, might have occasionally seen offers from Harvest Beat in the Wallingford & Fremont group for friends and family discounts for their 5-course prix fixe (fixed price) vegan …

On January 8th, the editorial staff at Wallyhood held one of our irregular gatherings with writers, potential writers and editors, and any other curious or interested community members. The Blue Star Café graciously hosted us in their back room and kept us fueled with IPA and appetizers. The purpose of the meeting was, as usual, to recruit and engage. We successfully lured in around ten friends and neighbors to sit with the four of us editors for around an hour and a half. We reviewed the past year, discussed opportunities to get involved with the blog, and then chewed the …

Wallyhood wants to connect! Your neighborhood blog can’t operate in a vacuum, although all of our major media role models (recall our unofficial motto, “It’s not like we’re the New York Times”) do just fine in the far reaches of outer space.

We’re inviting you to come meet us and talk about potentially involving yourselves in the venture that is Wallyhood. Fancy yourself a writer? An editor? Got a beef? Want to bequeath a family fortune to us? Then please consider coming to the Blue Star Café on Wednesday, January 8 at 7:00 p.m. to hang out with us.  We’ll …

Come Wassail on January 11!

Sound and Fury Morris Dancers invite you to a traditional English orchard wassail which will include singing, dancing and poetry. Meet us, rain or shine, at Meridian Playfield on Saturday, January 11th. We have hosted this free and family-friendly event 16 years running! There will be opportunities to communally wish good health to the trees and scare away evil spirits that threaten their health.

Like all good community blogs, we at Wallyhood like to keep our readers informed about critical infrastructure…like what’s open/closed in the neighborhood on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In the past, we’ve tried to make the rounds to actually ask businesses what their plans are.

Unfortunately, we are but four highly unpaid volunteer editors and a rotating stable of equally highly unpaid writers, and we’ve been unable to completely canvass Wallingford establishments. Writer Ro did begin the task for this year, and I called a few places and prowled around the web. We would like to invite you, the readers, …

Nickelsville is the name given to a network of homeless villages across the city of Seattle. Its name is taken from that of Greg Nickels, who was Seattle mayor from 2002 to 2009. Nickels initiated sweeps of homeless encampments in Seattle, and in 2008, the first of the so-called tiny home villages “commemorated” the activity by bestowing the community with his name. Lower Wallingford has hosted the Northlake Nickelsville community for a long time, and it has existed mostly quietly north of the Ivar’s parking lot. There have been internal feuds and conflicts, mostly related to the testy relationship between …

From the Wallyhood Crime Desk…

The recent report on apparently random gun violence here in Wallingford (and I consider neighborhood discharges to be gun violence whether they hit anything or not) led me to consider crime in our area. The editors here at Wallyhood suggested a story idea to our stable of writers on crime near Gasworks Park, as we’ve noted an infrequent, but fairly steady, reporting of primarily property crime (break-ins and thefts) around that location. But what about for the neighborhood as a whole? How do we compare to the rest of the city?

First of all: comparing …