The City of Seattle is in the process of acquiring an empty, $1.1 million lot at the corner of Federal and Republican to turn the land into another new Capitol Hill park, according to an announcement from the Seattle Parks Department. Details of a community meeting to discuss the land acquisition...

Susan Lund of Team Oddfellows (Photo: CLIFF DESPEAUX / THE SEATTLE TIMES by permission)

Team CapitolHillSeattle.com combined stellar defense with timely line drives -- and a little technology -- to earn the championship in the first annual Beard and Mustache Fest Wifflebowl with a 2-0 victory over Oddfellows. Or it might have been 1-0. But we won. One key play in the victory of the Oddfellows crew came down to instant replay when a close play at first was reviewed via Seattle Times photographer Cliff Despeaux's viewfinder. Earlier in the day, Team CHS defeated Cherry Street Coffee 4-zip. We next go on to play the New Orleans Saints in the Who Can Be Lazier for the Rest of February Bowl. We're a lock.

For more Beard and 'Stache fun, check out the Lover's Quarrel Cardboard Tube Fight on Valentine's Day -- also in Cal Anderson Park....

Find a pen. Mark your votes. Find a stamp. Get it in the mail. Ballots in the 2010 special election must be postmarked by Tuesday and, remember, the neighborhood drop-boxes for ballots have been eliminated. So far, King County reports that only 24% of Seattle ballots have been returned. Here is some information about the two school levies under consideration. You can view this list of projects that the capital levy will fund at schools across the city.

Editor's note: Schools First Seattle is a supporter of the levies and an advertiser on our local blog network, but wasn't involved in this story.

• La Spiga Haiti Benefit Wednesday February 10: $25 suggested donation (all proceeds go to Haiti) - call 206.323.8881 to reserve
• Chungee's soft opening today at 3 pm, Grand Opening on Saturday 2/13
• Still introduces a generous happy hour daily from 5 to 7 pm;  $4 wells, $2 Tecate, plus a buck off signature drinks
• Unicorn also introduces a daily...

A driver speeding across Capitol Hill after hitting a car near 20th and Madison was finally apprehended following a short foot chase after hitting another vehicle near Boylston and Republican, according to the police radio scanner report from our partners at Central District News. In between,...

Capitol Hill lost one of its two on-street bike parking options when SDOT removed the rack in front of the Broadway Market QFC late last year. Nobody tried that we know of -- but SDOT now tells CHS they were worried that the rack would be stolen. Now planners are looking for new locations to install a more secure rack design.

SDOT planted three on-street bike parking racks around the city last February -- two of one style (Broadway Market and Green Lake), and another kind at the 12th Ave. location -- the only current Hill location offering on-street bike parking, in front of Stumptown Coffee and Cafe Presse. The Green Lake one ended up getting stolen last fall, which prompted the removal of the Broadway twin, SDOT tells us....

With the construction walls rising at the work site for the Capitol Hill light rail station and tunnels, a major component of Sound Transit's strategy to complete work on budget and in time for a 2016 start of service is still not in place.

To enable the 24-hour-per-day construction schedules Sound Transit says are necessary to complete the station and tunneling work by 2016, the agency has applied for a crucial set of permissions from the Department of Planning and Development that will allow work at the Broadway site to exceed standard thresholds for nighttime construction noise in the city.

Thursday night, the city is holding a hearing to collect community feedback on Sound Transit's application. Here are the details on the hearing:...

Foursquare and Gowalla are now competing for your smart phone’s attention. Based on the Capitol Hill activity present on Foursquare, it looks like local users will favor using its application over Gowalla’s.

For those who are not yet familiar with either Foursquare or Gowalla, these two networking websites turned smart phone applications essentially allow users to tell their friends where they are, where they frequently go, and who goes where the most. You can create places to for others to visit and, at least using Foursquare, if you visit a place more frequently than anyone else, you become the mayor of that place....

dead tv. no 1 Originally uploaded by arion»

A few options:
Vermillion (where yours truly will likely be):
Super Bowl Party this Sunday, 2/7 2:30pm: FREE food (w/ beverage: Chicken wings, sloppy Joes, nachos, meatballs, salads) and drink specials (Firefly Sweet Tea vodka - $3.50!)

Chao Bistro: one thing we know about Chao - they have lots of televisions and they're not afraid of using them.  I recall interviewing them early on, when they insisted to me that the purpose of the monitors would be to display digital art.

Standbys on the Hill such as the Canterbury, the Elite, the Hopvine, 22 Doors, Redwood, and the Elysian....

We were walking past 12th and Denny today and saw people working hard on finalizing the interior of Chungee's which has taken over the old location of Esmerelda. Speaking quickly with the people inside, this is what we learned:

• On Monday, February 8th, the restaurant will have its soft opening
• Next Saturday there will be a grand opening party including line dancing out in front on the sidewalk of 12th

It looks pretty nice inside, but our group was understandably confused by the idea of line dancing. We shall...

There's still a little time before the citywide fire station open houses are scheduled to end at 3 PM. Here's a look at this morning's visit to E. Pine's Fire Station 25 by some little neighbors with big enthusiasm for shiny fire engines. Keep in mind that Station 25 was a little busy this...

Earlier this week I got a chance to sit down and talk with Capitol Hill resident and author Cherie Priest about her most recent work, the Seattle-set steampunk novel Boneshaker. Much of my conversation with Priest boiled down to one question: "Why Seattle?"  "I tend to set things in places...

A dog runs through the wading pool located in Cal Anderson Park during a warm day in January. It was the warmest January in Seattle on record.

Seattle University's  ...

In June of 2009, the Broadway Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Community Stakeholder Committee selected a team of local architecture studio Schemata Workshop & the planning firm Makers to help synthesize community priorities for the TOD sites and develop a vision for the station area....

Sound Transit has started to construct its huge construction wall along 10th as it begins work on the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station.  Originally Sound Transit said the wall would be 16 ft tall (when they released the rendering that I'm including here), but have since said the walls...

They're a young and good looking bunch with big, fancy vehicles. Sure, they're loud and they keep late hours but the residents of E. Pine's Fire Station 25 make pretty good neighbors. You can stop by the firehouse to meet them on Saturday as part of the city's Neighbor Appreciation Day. Station 25 will be open to meet the firefighters, tour the firehouse and check out the lovely new Ladder 10 from 11 AM to 3 PM -- as long as there aren't any big fires, that is.

Fire Station 25 is located at 1300 E. Pine. There's also a firehouse at 901 East Roanoke Street that will be open for tours. Here's a list of all Seattle fire stations.

Retrofit Home, a contemporary furnishings and craft store, currently nestled between Pacific Supply and La Spiga is moving two blocks northwest to the southeast corner of 11th & Pike (former home of Aria). Jön Milazzo, a co-owner of the store with Lori Pomeranz, told CHS that Retrofit expects...

Don't enjoy this news too much, Pioneer Square. Third Man Video recently completed its move from 1st Ave to E. Pine. This morning, the new Capitol Hill business received an ugly welcome to the neighborhood: an early morning break-in that left owner Shane Benson more sleepy and annoyed than anything.

Benson tells CHS that sometime around 5 AM this morning, one of his new neighbors saw a man walking down the street with Third Man's cash drawer. The glass front door to the video store had been busted with a rock. By...

3 bedroom, 2 bath...

Two men say they were the victims of a gaybashing on Capitol Hill last weekend.

According to a police report, two men were walking on 11th Avenue and East Pine Street at about 2:15 on Saturday morning when they passed two other men, both carrying skateboards, on the street.

As they walked by the skateboarders, one of the men said "hey cutie" because, the report says, "they thought the two suspects were...

Street sign Originally uploaded by knoopie

One of the more intriguing topics that came out of our report on the City Council transportation committee's briefing on the streetcar was talk of seeking a federal grant to help pay for an extension of the line beyond its planned light rail station terminus all the way up Broadway to Aloha. We learned today that Seattle won't be applying for the grant that was being eyed for the extension. But that won't, a City Council aide tells us, end the search.

The interpretation of the agreement between Sound Transit and the city for the construction of the streetcar outlines a route that ends at the future light rail station at Broadway and John. Sound Transit will not pay for an extension of the route up Broadway to Aloha....

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs just released an update on the humanitarian situation in Haiti.  In sum, the UN OCHA states the following:

Over 3 million people were affected by the earthquake.  Over 112,000 people are confirmed killed and another nearly 200,000 injured. The bottom line is that aid is flowing into Haiti, but it is still a challenge to reach everyone in need.   

Remember those proposed parking changes for Broadway we reported on last fall? We'll know soon if the city is going to make the big leap and institute paid parking on Broadway after 6 PM. According to the Seattle Department of Transportation planners, the final list of changes for Broadway and Cal Anderson park will be released in the next few weeks along with a schedule for implementation. Remember, this kind of stuff can be good for a city. We hear that the extended paid parking hours on Broadway has made the cut -- but nothing official on that yet.

If it's anything like the Pike/Pine changes, we can expect to see some of this stuff enacted before spring:...

Happy update on Babygirl, the wayward golden retriever who was lost, found and lost again when her family had the wrong phone number for the person who told animal control they had found the doggy. Babygirl's family tells CHS they got a call from the pound on Tuesday telling them the dog had been dropped off and was eagerly awaiting a reunion. Glad to know Babygirl is home. Lose something you love? Find something you know somebody else must love? Add a notice in the CHS Lost & Found.

It was an even wilder scene than normal at Dick's Drive-In around 2 AM this morning as emergency crews responded to a reported stabbing victim at the fast-food nightspot. Police determined that there had been no stabbing but only after six emergency vehicles had been dispatched to the scene.

According to scanner archives from the morning, a caller reported that a highly intoxicated man who had been stabbed in the hand was at the 115 Broadway E restaurant. Emergency crews who arrived to treat the man described him as 'aggressive.' There was also a report of a second injured person in the incident. Police determined that there had been a fight but no stabbing.