Dognapping: yes, it can happen here

It was a balmy spring evening in early June, and Carolyn Howard didn’t think twice about the fact that her front door was open and her dog, Piper, was sitting on the porch. In her 35 years in Madison Park it had never crossed her mind that anyone might walk off with someone’s dog—and her Wheaten Scottish Terrier was certainly not known for straying from the property. So she didn’t give the situation a second thought. But when she returned to the porch after just a few minutes, the 9-year-old Piper (aka “Pipes”) was nowhere to be found.

“I knew that she had been taken,” says Howard, “because everyone in the neighborhood could have said where Piper lived if she had been found by someone. After I looked for her and couldn’t find her my first instinct was that things were bad.” Howard immediately went into action, calling up pounds and veterinarian offices in the area and posting fliers around the neighborhood.

We’re happy to report that this story has a happy ending, with Piper being discovered by Howard at the Bellevue dog pound five days later. A wheaten-colored Scottie had been turned in, and Howard learned this fact after calling to listen to the pound’s daily recorded message listing new arrivals. She had hope that the dog was Piper but had to wait until the animal shelter opened the following day to find out for sure. At the reunion, according to Howard, Pipes was glad to be reunited but had no explanation to give for her disappearance.

Howard, who lives on the 1600 block of 42nd Avenue E., says “people need to know that this can happen. In the good weather, there are lots of people walking around the neighborhood who don’t live here. I’ve never been concerned before, but I sure am now. Piper is not getting out of my sight!”

A neighbor who had a similar thing happen to her dog several years ago speculates that someone took Piper with the intention of breeding the dog, later discovering upon closer examination that Piper had been neutered. A wheaten-colored Scottie is very unusual, according to Howard, and this may have been the attraction. As a precaution against further temptation, Howard jokes, “I think I am going to dye her black.”

Piper’s story provides an object lesson for those of us who are dog owners, especially those who have small pure-bred dogs that can be easily lifted. Being trusting may be a Madison Park thing, but it’s not necessary a wise thing.

Entrepreneurship in the Park

In an effort to snag beach goers who are too impatient to await the ice cream truck’s arrival or too lazy to walk up to Bert’s or the Scoop du Jour, Manal Sahmarani and her husband last week set up a tented refreshment stand in the Park near the Bathhouse. Their plan is to dispense pop, ice cream and popcorn to Park denizens and the occasional boulevardier who might wander by during the afternoons (this is my overblown explanation of their business plan, not her description of it).

She tells me she will be at her station in the Park (E. Madison St. and E. Howe St.) through the end of the summer.

Madison Park: a port no more

When my wife and I first moved to Madison Park early in this century, one of our neighbors welcomed us to “this destination community.” I asked what exactly he meant by the term, and he explained that Madison Park is a place people come to for a reason. No one drives through here just to get to somewhere else.

In this sense, the Park is different from most Seattle neighborhoods, and I’m certain that fact has shaped the character of our community. But it wasn’t always like that. In fact, for the first 70 or more years of Madison Park’s existence, it was actually a thoroughfare and access point for communities on the east side of the Lake. Kirkland, for example, was boosted in its early rise by the lifeline to Seattle provided by both passenger and vehicle ferries landing at Madison Park.

The above photo (click to enlarge) shows the dock as it looked in the first decade of the 1900s, one hundred years ago. At the dock is the ferry Lincoln, which was operated by the King County Ferry System. Madison Park itself initially developed as a link to the Eastside. The trail originally blazed by John McGilvra in the 1860s from downtown to his homestead here on the Lake (later Madison Street) became the primary route for settlers from communities across the water to get to Seattle to shop or to sell their produce and wares. As noted by local historian Alan J. Stein, many of the people who originally pioneered towns like Kirkland got their first glimpse of the Lake—and the possibilities beyond—from our beach. Madison Park thus became a vital commercial link, as well as a lakeside resort community.

Initially, the Madison Park dock was a steamer landing where several independent steamboat companies plied their trade. Our community grew up around the landing (which was next to McGilvra’s property) and eventually a trolley-car line was built on Madison to speed travelers on their trip to downtown. By the early 1900s, with the development of the eastside and the consequent increase in cross-lake traffic, King County decided to develop a vehicle-ferry system for Lake Washington. The ferry King County of Kent was the first of several King County ferries that operated until 1950 from the Madison Park dock at the foot of Madison. Another early ferry was the Washington (shown below), which handled the Kirkland-Madison Park run from 1908 through 1915.

This is the Madison Park ferry dock as it looked in the 1930s:

In coming months, I will be doing blog posts further exploring the history of the steamers and ferry boats operating from Madison Park, as well as an entry on the cable-car trolley line from the Park into downtown. History buffs stay tuned.

[Upper dock photo and photo of the Washington are courtesy of the Kirkland Heritage Society. Photo of the ferry dock in the 1930s is courtesy of the Museum of History & Industry, via the University of Washington on-line digital photo collection.]

Artist’s reception at Madison Park Café

Longtime Madison Park artist Art Messer will be presenting some of his current paintings at Madison Park Café this month and will be opening the show with a reception at the restaurant on June 15th at 6pm. The work was inspired by Messer’s trip to Europe this year, where he experienced an April in Paris. Messer, who for several years in the 1980s ran a Madison Park art gallery, has been painting in the Park for 30 years or so.

Entitling his show A Fauvist in Paris, Messer explains his inspiration with this artist’s statement: “Fauvist or wild beast was the establishment’s label for artists like Matisse, Dufy and Cezanne and their bold use of color as expression. This movement is alive and well in the museums and contemporary art galleries in Paris. My current works are influenced by all of these factors. I enjoy painting in this form because it is just fun. Enjoy.”

The show will be on the walls of Madison Park Café (1807 42nd Avenue E.) through the end of June.

Free frozen custard on Saturday!

It’s not exactly a Madison Park story, but close enough. Besides, the punch line is just too good to pass up: Old School Frozen Custard (1316 E. Pike Street) will be giving it away for free at its grand opening on Saturday, June 6. From 3pm ‘til 10pm there will be a free single scoop cone of frozen custard for every comer. For those not in the know: frozen custard may look like soft ice cream but is quite a bit richer, containing at least 10% butterfat and 1.4% egg yoke by weight. The production method is also much different from that of ice cream, and you can read all about it on Old School's website: http://www.oldschoolfrozencustard.com/.

The new store has had a soft opening all this week, and based on the lines it appears they have a winning product (it’s not free until the official opening). This is the second location for Old School, which has operated in its original store in Bonney Lake for almost two years.

As for the opening of the new Pike-at-Madison location, give the owners credit for good timing on the weather!

Car prowl incidents up big time

Our friends at the Central District News have proven much more resourceful that I in getting neighborhood major-crime data for the East Precinct from the Seattle Police. CDN’s analysis, Crime Stats Released, shows that our beat (C3 on the map in the post below) experienced not a single homicide in 2008, which was also true for the first four months of this year. Vehicle thefts are down for the 16-month period. The CDN reports, however, that the police have confirmed to them that car prowl incidents and the theft of auto accessories (which are not “major” crimes) are up 100% in the East Precinct over the past year.

For our reporting area (which includes Madison Valley and part of Madrona) crimes in the other categories seem to be at a pretty stable level, though non-auto thefts have been trending up—going from under 20 per month in January 2008 to well over 20 per month in April 2009. The run rate for assaults in our community is about 5 per month, and the rate for burglaries is about 10.

While the April numbers for the East Precinct show an increase in overall crime from the trend of the previous 15 months, it will not be clear for several months if this is an aberrant peak in a downward trend or something else.

This is perhaps a good point to reiterate that the Seattle Police make officer assignments each year based on the number of reported crimes. The East Precinct accounted for 18% of reported crimes in 2008 and has been allocated 18% of the total police force, according to the City. That gives us 88 officers out of the 496 total.

[Above graphic courtesy of the Seattle Police.]

Crime up in the East Precinct

[On the night of June 2, the owner of this truck parked at E. Galer and 42nd Avenue E. was the victim of a smash-and-dash that apparently was interrupted in progress, since the perpetrators left items in the truck and a tool of their trade on the street next to the truck.]

As you may have read in The Seattle Times yesterday, the Seattle crime rate was slightly down in 2008 over the level of the previous year, although serious crimes such as murder and rape were on the increase. Just why it took the City five months to report last year’s numbers was not explained. The City also issued crime statistics for the first four months of 2009, however, showing that overall crime is up 9% this year over the same period last year. The East Precinct, of which Madison Park is a subunit, showed an increase of 6% in major crimes. There were 180 violent crimes in the precinct through the end of April, compared with 165 last year, a 9% increase. Property crimes (burglary and theft) increased from 1,404 to 1,477 for the period, up 5%.

Unfortunately, the Seattle Police have yet to break out crime information by neighborhood, so we have to wait until the city is in the mood to report specifically on Madison Park crime. As I noted in a previous blog entry, the last crime information for our part of the world was published in early 2008 covering 2007 crimes. The East Precinct, by the way, encompasses pretty much the whole area between I-5 and Lake Washington and between I-405 and SR520, plus Montlake, and excluding parts of downtown:

When Madison Park crime data is reported, you can read about it here.