Ell Alley: March 2014

Saturday, March 29, 2014

New Neighbors

View of the new building from our patio.

View of the new building from the west alley.

Construction of a new building of 3 units in our block, across the west alley, was completed at the end of February. In March, our new neighbors moved in. By the end of the month, we still hadn't met any of them. We didn't even know what they looked like. The 3 units are in the opposite corner of the block from our house. We can't see any of their back doors from our back door. But we can see one of the back doors & all of the master bedroom windows from our master bedroom. We met the parents of the young woman in the unit closest to us several months ago. They took measurements of our house, because it's the same as hers. Another 3-unit building is under construction directly across from us, with about 15 feet of space between the 2 buildings. Those units should be completed in a few months, the last townhouses in our development. There a still a few detached houses under construction down the street.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Kitty in the Window

This is one of Kitty's favorite places to sleep & bathe, on a cushion, on the bench in the dining room window overlooking the garden. When we got Kitty from Meow Cat Rescue, they told us her name was Susie Q. We were willing to accept Susie as her name, but she was not. She only responds to Kitty. One of Jordan's Facebook friends saw her picture & commented that she had sugar toes. Rusty started calling her Sugar & sometimes Shug. She doesn't pay any attention to that.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Shades

Office with day bed, shades & cat.

Master bedroom with shades & potted succulents.

Living room with shades & sheer curtains.

We've got shades in almost every window. Shades were installed 2 weeks ago & more shades last week. A guy is coming tomorrow to take measurements for shades in Stokely's room. Steve keeps thinking we need more shades. He wants to talk again with the women who run this business with shades. Now he wants shades on the doors, which are glass. The westering sun through the kitchen door will be certainly be intense this summer. Most of the homeowners around us have covered their glass front doors. We have also hung all of our art. The place feels much more homey. We've been here more than 4 months.

About Ell Alley

Ell Alley is the home of Jetta, Jordan, Kitty, Rusty, Steve & Toby. It is named for the alley beside & behind the house that forms an ell: the shape of the letter L. It is located in the Rainier Vista development, in the Rainier Valley of Seattle, which extends 7 miles southeast from Downtown Seattle to Rainier Beach, between Beacon Hill & the lakeside ridges of Mt Baker, Lakewood & Seward Park. Ell Alley is 4 miles from Downtown Seattle, 0.4 miles from the Columbia City Station & 0.7 miles from the center of the Columbia City Landmark District.

Rainier Valley History

The first settlers arrived in the 1850s, but settlement was slow until the forest was cut down & milled, as it was throughout the city. Developers bought logged-off land toward the end of the 19th century. They laid out the communities of Genesee, Columbia City, Hillman City, Brighton & Dunlap.

Cheap land in the valley, just outside the City of Seattle, attracted Italians of rural origins & they planted large, productive gardens. The north end of the Rainier Valley became known as Garlic Gulch. Japanese immigrants also had farms in the valley. The produce filled local markets including Pike Place.

The Rainier Avenue Electric Railway opened the valley to greater development, reaching Columbia City in 1891 & Renton in 1896. In 1907, the City of Seattle annexed most of southeast Seattle, including the Rainier Valley.

At the start of World War II, Japanese residents were forced into internment camps east of the mountains. Tens of thousands of war workers came to Seattle to work at the Boeing Company, the shipyards & the port. The US government constructed thousands of temporary housing units at Rainier Vista, Stadium Homes (now Mt Baker Village) & Holly Park in the Rainier Valley.

After the war, the temporary housing became public, low-income housing. Suburban development took many white residents away from the valley. Blacks moved into the Rainier Valley from the over-crowded, nearby Central Area. Interracial couples found acceptance here. Filipinos arrived in large numbers.

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, refugees came from southeast Asia: Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Lao & Mien peoples. Many settled in the Rainier Valley. Chinese continued to arrive, although most settled on nearby Beacon Hill. There was a small influx of Mexicans. Somali immigration began after US involvement in Somalia in 1992.

Work on new housing at NewHolly (formerly Holly Park) began in 1997 & continued for a decade, with 1400 units sold to private owners. The rebuilding of Rainier Vista began in 2003 & still continues. Columbia City rapidly gentrified starting in the late 1990s. Many units of new housing were built in the form of townhouses, condos & apartments.

The current population of the Rainier Valley is about 41,000. The racial breakdown is 34.1% Asian, 26.9% Caucasian, 26% African American, 1.6% Pacific Islander, 6.5% Mixed Race, 1% Native American and 3.4% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race are 7.2% of the population.

Our Land & Climate

The city of Seattle rests between 2 bodies of water: Puget Sound & Lake Washington. Puget Sound is a substantial part of the Salish Sea & a very small part of the Pacific Ocean. The Salish Sea is set apart from the Pacific by the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington & Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. The dense, wet clouds of the Pacific Ocean travel as far as the Cascade Mountains, near the Salish Sea & not very far from the ocean. East of the Cascades lies the desert of the Columbia Basin. The moist, temperate climate of Seattle extends south to northern California & north to southeastern Alaska. The Pacific Northwest Coast from San Francisco Bay to Cook Inlet shares a flora dominated by evergreen coniferous forest. The central portion, west of the Cascade Mountains, is called Cascadia. The climate is cool & wet from fall to spring, warm & dry in summer. The Olympic Mountains block Seattle from much of the Pacific rainfall. Seattle is drier than the Atlantic coast of North America & northern Europe, cooler in summer & warmer in winter. It lies near the latitude of Paris & Quebec City.

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