We are a little short-staffed at Wallyhood during the month of August.  But it’s supposed to be a slow neighborhood news month, with summertime street fairs finished and many people out of town on end-of-the-season vacations.  With fewer off-leash dogs desecrating our parks, and fewer readers to complain or care about it, what is there to write about?  August is usually when the Mariners are completely and mathematically eliminated from the post-season (but NOT THIS YEAR) and people have shifted to football prognostications about the Huskies and Seahawks. So we sort of figured the blog would be coasting into …

Our preference here at Wallyhood would be to permanently close down the crime desk.  But unfortunately, the reality is what it is.  The Seattle Times reports that a woman was murdered at a motel in Wallingford on Aurora Avenue early on Friday morning.  From the SPD report:

At 12:46 a.m., police responded to a motel in the 4400 block of Aurora Avenue North for reports that a woman had been shot. Officers arrived and found a 33-year-old woman with a gunshot wound. Officers and Seattle Fire Department medics attempted life-saving measures, but medics declared the woman deceased at the scene.…

After years of decline, speculation, and tagging; and weeks of neighborhood wondering what’s next with that big backhoe out in front, demolition of the old Guild 45^th theaters has begun.  I went up to have a look this morning in the hope that I might catch the work crew in action to see if they would provide any clues as to what comes next for the site, but no one was around.  We at Wallyhood have long been curious about what comes next at the site.  I reached out to the contracting company with their banner on the front …

Here at Wallyhood, we (especially the relative newbies) have learned that there are certain topics that elicit visceral community reaction.  Bike lanes, for example.  Homeless encampments.  Local implementation of the urban village concept.  Outdoor cats, songbirds, and coyotes.  The recent and upcoming changes to the Green Lake outer loop seem to fall into this category.  For those of you who do not receive updates from the city directly, here is a summary with links.  Please feel free to vent in the comments, but be nice and remember, don’t shoot the messenger (replacements are hard to find).  Substantive insights and suggestions …

With YoYo & CoCo now gracing 45th Street with taro frappes and frozen yogurt cubes, Wallingford is asserting itself as the frozen treats district of Seattle. Even as someone with no sweet tooth and a lactose-intolerant spouse, I still find this claim-to-fame far more exciting than the direction we are threatening to head of becoming the unofficial smoke shop district of Seattle, but that is a topic for another story…

Today’s 90 degree weather served as ample excuse to ruin my kids’ dinner and sample this new Wallingford wonder.

I can safely report that YoYo & CoCo passes the 3 …

After a mid-summer closure to remodel, Yoroshiku will have a soft open today, August 17th as a ramen bar specializing in Ramen, Tsukemen, Zangi (Japanese Fried Chicken), and a few other fan favorite dishes.…

The simple truth is that when it comes to non-profit service organizations in Wallingford, it is the volunteers that make it happen. None of these organizations collect enough money to let them just hire staff to provide the services that are so badly needed in our community. Today’s post continues a series of interviews with volunteers who make up the strong right arm of Wallingford service organizations.

Jeremy Mason – Boy Scouts

Jeremy learned the advantages of being a community volunteer from his father and his own Scouting experiences as a youth. He saw his father volunteer with Habitat for …