Beginning this year, Seattle Public Utilities will commence work on the Ship Canal Water Quality Project. The project will involve construction of a tunnel from Ballard to Wallingford with the ultimate goal of preventing sewage overflows into Puget Sound. While tunneling has yet to begin, the first step of the project, in our neighborhood, was taken late last year with the installation of a temporary and hard-to-find art exhibit at the Wallingford end of the tunnel. More on that later.

Over in Ballard near 24th Ave NW and Shilshole Ave NW, some work actually began in 2018 to prepare to …

Once again this year, I’m rounding up the top ten stories from the past year ordered, as always, by unique page views. No single story walked away with the top spot by racking up tens of thousands of views; all the top posts received a few thousand views which is typical of a post on this site. Excluded are forum posts created by you, the readers. These can sometimes garner two or three thousand views, but while I’ve always limited the top ten list to actual articles, this year the forums have been unavailable for the past few months while …

A Friend of Wallyhood emailed us photos of a van fire that happened near the Wallingford Playfield earlier today. If you heard the Fire Department responding around that time, now you know what was up.

The fire took place around 11 am. No one appeared to be in or even around the van at the time of the fire, so there were no injuries. It may, of course, be a stolen and abandoned vehicle, but it appeared to be in pretty good shape (pre-fire, anyway). So maybe someone will be returning to it to get a nasty surprise. SFD left …

A number of reports are circulating online, among them this from Connect Media, that the Bartell Building located at 1820 N 45th St has been sold. The building is one among a dwindling number of single-story buildings along 45th where zoning changes approved earlier this year allow buildings of up to 75 feet in height.

The space had been advertised online for a price of $6.875 million in a deal brokered by Newmark Knight Frank a local commercial real estate firm. The sale closed on November 21 for $6.095 million. A search of records at the King County Assessor’s office …

If you’ve walked to the southern part of Stone Way anytime in the past several months, you’ve likely seen the white land use action sign in front of 3542 Stone heralding the arrival of a new development and the demise of another one of our neighborhood’s old, low-rise buildings. While Stone Way Cafe will remain, gone will be Hashtag and Sea Ocean Books to be replaced by Living Stone.

The new building, plans for which date back at least as far as early 2018, will consist of a five-story office building with retail shops on the ground level facing Stone …

It’s been a while since we wrote about this project, but that certainly doesn’t mean the work has stopped. I was walking along 40th between Meridian and Stone Way last Friday, November 15, and discovered that the sidewalk was gone. There were a few spots with freshly poured cement that were nice and smooth. But most areas had been dug up leaving just dirt to walk on. One very short section was entirely closed off leaving me to walk in the street for a bit.

Motorists need to beware, too. To facilitate the sidewalk work, SDOT has closed 40th to …

The Route 44 bus runs from the University District, through Wallingford along 45th Street, and into Ballard where it merges onto Market. If you live in our neighborhood, you’ve no doubt ridden the 44 a time or two or more. Personally, I avoid it. I remember it as being extremely, extremely slow. To be fair to the 44, it has very high ridership, and it has to make its way along some very congested streets.

Recognizing the problems on this route, Metro is considering some changes to improve our ride. Public input is currently being gathered, and to that end, …