The YES WE CAN mural by Mindy Barker is located at the Tahoma Associates Building, 1545 Tacoma Ave. The mural, which features an elk in front of an abstract Mt. Rainier, is located near the site where the local Indian tribes would welcome the Winter Solstice. More information on this wonderful neighborhood addition can be found here.
The mural is part of the Tacoma Murals Project.
It seems like every time my family takes the Tacoma Avenue South Bridge, we wait for a traffic light. And if dear husband is in the car he starts griping about the bridge and how he hates it. He is convinced that it will go down in an earthquake. It’s to the point where even if he isn’t in the car, dear daughter and I will look at each other and say “I hate this bridge!”, but then we laugh.
It turns out dear husband is right (I hate when that happens!). According to a 5/25/13 article in the News Tribune, the Tacoma Avenue South over the NPRR (Northern Pacific Railroad) and South Tacoma Way has a sufficiency rating of 7. A rating of 100 means an entirely sufficient bridge, so 7 is really bad. In fact there is only one bridge in Pierce County that is worse and it is the SR 167 over the Puyallup River with a rating of 2. The Tacoma Avenue Bridge has two lanes and was constructed in 1930. It has a daily of over 10,000 vehicles.
Chris Larson, the city of Tacoma’s engineering division manager for public works, said the Tacoma Avenue South bridge will be closed for about 15 months starting in October 2014. The project is expected to cost $11.5 million, of which $11.2 million will come from state and federal grants.
Infinite Soups at 445 Tacoma Avenue South is one of those tiny Tacoma treasures that would be easy to miss. I lucked out on Friday and there was a parking spot nearby and many of the soups were available. They only sell soup and rolls/crackers, but they have a wonderful soup selection (19 today). I had a creamy, chicken soup to go, which is the only way to get it. Infinite Soups will be opening up a second location in the old post office building sometime soon. Look for the large hanging spoon or their neighbors Malarkey’s Pool & Brew to find them! Their Facebook Page, with the daily soups, can be found here.
Next to Nature at 1624 Tacoma Avenue, Tacoma, is a splendid pet supply store with friendly helpful staff. Today we stopped by with our two pups and purchased some holiday treats. Our pups were thrilled that the store had cats, though the store cats sensibly wanted nothing to do with them. I hadn’t realized that there are two other Next to Nature locations, one in Edmonds and the other in Seattle.
Per Tacoma Public Library, the building was originally the Coast House Materials Property which was founded in 1900 by Frank McHugh. In part of the 1980s and the 1990s, it was a hardware store. It closed in 1990. In 2001 Coast House Furnishings
opened and in July Next to Nature Pet Food opened.
http://www.next-to-nature.com/
I wandered out on this rainy, rainy night to take a photo of Tacoma’s McDonald’s at 802 Tacoma Avenue South, which has a hanging Dale Chihuly glass art piece. I’m not finding much information about this piece and the restaurant was busy enough that I didn’t want to bother the servers.
Dale Chihuly is a Tacoma native and I have seen him about town at art functions on occasion. He was born here in 1941 and attended Wilson High School and the University of Washington. His website can be found here http://www.chihuly.com/
Update: It ends up its not Chihuly art! Just very similar looking.
The building at 1302 Tacoma Avenue, Tacoma is mixed use property with the Tacoma Avenue frontage having a vacant convenience store/deli and the part fronting South 13th Street having apartments. I remember when the convenience store was open and it never seemed very welcoming to me. Since its been vacant, it has been repainted to a pleasant dark green. The building in 1926.
I’ve been meaning to stop and snap a photo of the mostly vacant lot in the 2100 block of Pacific Avenue. Today was the day. I put my lens through the chain link fence and snapped away. While writing this up, I thought I’d find some interesting story, but no, not really. Obviously there had been a building, most likely a house, there at one point and the current owners are both protecting their property and potential liability by fencing off the remains. But that’s about all I have. I’d also like to know more about the Bugeye ftb graffiti. I can find other references to Bugeye, but not the origin. Odd.
The Tacoma Center Building at 2367 Tacoma Avenue is available for sale with an asking price of $499,999. The building was built in 1969 and contains 12,960 square feet.
Update June 2013: The property no longer has a for sale sign up and has been repainted. It looks really nice!
When I saw that an antique mall had moved into the Clinton’s Music House space at 2301 Tacoma Avenue South, I figured that Clinton’s was gone. But no! When I stopped to snap this photo I discovered that Clinton’s is still there, but in a smaller space. Well, that’s good. Information found on the web says that Clinton’s has been family owned and operated since 1898. They have been at this location since 1964. There is a second location in Olympia.
http://sites.google.com/site/clintonsmusichouse/home
Monday dear daughter and I went to see a movie produced by a classmates of hers. The premier showing was at Tacoma’s First Presbyterian Church at 20 Tacoma Avenue South in the Stadium District. The church was founded in 1873 to meet the needs of the settlers. This is the church’s third location with the construction was completed in 1925 at a cost of $500,000. Per their website says “A masterpiece of Romanesque architecture, it was designed by famous church architect Ralph Adams Cram and is rich in Christian symbolism expressed in stone, wood, glass and mosaic”. The congregation’s website is here www.fpctacoma.com/
