From the PSBJ:

Restaurateur Carmine Smeraldo passed away peacefully Wednesday night (Jan. 11) at his home.

Blessings and prayers poured out to the Smeraldo family as they dealt with the illness of their beloved patriarch and iconic owner and operator of Il Terrazzo Carmine, a classic Italian restaurant in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. Carmine’s, as it came to be known, has been a haven for a legion of loyal customers since 1984.

As neighborhood residents + business owners, if you have thoughts or stories to share with his family, you can go to CaringBridge.org to visit his personal page (log in required).

Phone hand-off results in New Year’s Day robbery, assault (KOMO News)
Woman robbed after meeting a man in PSq to retrieve a lost iPhone. Biggest mistake to withdraw $400 right before meeting a stranger in the wee hours of the morning.

The rough road to a safer 3rd Avenue (Crosscut)
People in Pioneer Square, Belltown, and the International District have long struggled with public safety problems due, in some part, to the high concentration of shelters and services in their neighborhoods. In Pioneer Square, the hope for the future is to bring in market and workforce housing to restore some balance to the neighborhood, which in turn would help bring in a more diverse mix of retail businesses.

A plan to honor 130 years of fallen Seattle officers (Seattle Times)
Veteran Seattle Police Officer Mike Severance is seeking city approval to place signs near where Seattle police officers have died in the line of duty.

KK Does Aerosmith at Fuel in Pioneer Square: “Even When I Suck I’m Pretty Good” (Seattle Weekly)
Read more about how Fuel does Karaoke.

Afraid that I wouldn’t be able to leave my warm apartment if I stopped there, I headed out to the art walk right after getting off the bus. As a reminder, Art in the Park doesn’t happen January through March (something I had forgotten and was disappointed about).

It was cold and dark and occurring only two weeks after Christmas, not too many people were out in the neighborhood. After stopping by one of my favorite Pioneer Square stores (Fireworks) — I headed over to the studio opening for Tiffany Colors. She was recently featured in Seattle Magazine for her new “flexible space [that] will play host to revolving artist displays, including framed art and jewelry, as well as act as a private salon.”

By the time I arrived, her studio was already full of people mingling, looking at jewelry and art and using the photo booth (hosted by local photographer Sarah Rhoades).

The 900 sq ft studio is available for rent/hire for photographers, videographers, graphic designers, art shows, etc. They have a lot of studio amenities available, including the one thing you can’t get anywhere else — the amazing atmosphere of a historic Pioneer Square building. Contact info is as follows: info@tccreativestudio.com or www.tccreativestudio.com

On my way out of the building, I came across another studio that hosted art by Teesha and Tracy Moore. Not only did they have intricate art journals you could look through, but they also had lomo cameras and other unique art supplies for sale. Not being particularly artistic, I’m always excited to see art happening live:

Painting done by daughter Tiffany

Although there is an obvious “Art Walk” absence with the loss of the 619 building, it is inspiring to see other studios popping up and sharing their talents with the rest of us.

A recent email from the DSA:

Dear Downtown Residents and Families,

The Downtown Seattle Association (DSA) is developing a grant application to the City of Seattle to construct a children’s playground in Downtown, and we need your help.

Today, there are more than 3,000 children living in Downtown Seattle, an increase of approximately 50% since 1990. However, most Downtown neighborhoods lack public play spaces designed for children who live or visit Downtown.

To help remedy this, DSA is working to identify and develop kid and family friendly amenities in Downtown for residents and visitors with kids. As such, we’d like to enlist your help by providing personalized words of support for a children’s playground to include in the grant application which we’ll be submitting in early February. A specific location for a play structure within the Commercial Core will be identified in partnership with the City during the application process.

Please help support development of a children’s play space in Downtown by emailing your personalized words of support to Jon Scholes, VP of Advocacy and Economic Development for the Downtown Seattle Association: jons@downtownseattle.org.

1.  Provide your name, the area of Downtown you live in and briefly explain why you support development of a children’s play space. Your personalized words of support will help strengthen the application to the City of Seattle for grant funding.

2. You can also mail a letter of support to: 600 Stewart Street, Suite 200 – Seattle, WA 98101.

For questions, please contact Jon Scholes at 206.613.3216 or via email.

Please feel free to share this email with other families who are interested in supporting more kid and family friendly amenities in Downtown.

www.DowntownSeattle.com

Pop Artist Troy Gua pokes fun at the ‘Seattle Freeze’ at SOIL Art Gallery (Culture Mob)
Is Seattle really that cold? Is it really so distant? Is the ‘Seattle Freeze’ a real phenomenon? At least one local artist thinks so. Local pop artist Troy Gua‘ s new exhibition ‘N/ICE’, showing January 4-28 at SOIL Art Gallery in Pioneer Square, is an entertaining look at Seattle’s “friendly but distant” social deficiency. The show’s opening reception is Thursday January 5 – the First Thursday Art Walk – from 6:00-8:00pm.

Photo test: Think you know Seattle, but can you name that sign? (Seattle PI – BIG Blog)
The State Hotel sign on First Avenue is left over from Pioneer Square’s early days.

Vulcan sells part of Merrill Place (DJC)
Records show that an affiliate of Vulcan Real Estate sold a portion of Merrill Place, an office and retail building in Pioneer Square, for just over $23.9 million.

Seattle looks to clean up Third Avenue transit corridor (Seattle Times)
The city of Seattle is trying to make the Third Avenue transit corridor, where an estimated 40,000 people arrive and depart downtown each day, safer to protect shoppers and others from a gauntlet of open-air drug deals, the homeless, the mentally ill and crowds of loitering street kids.

Developers still piling into Seattle’s South Lake Union (TechFlash)
South Lake Union will remain a hot spot for commercial development in 2012, while Pioneer Square may emerge as Seattle’s next emerging neighborhood.

Christmas Muggings, Shootings, and Robberies (PubliCola)
A man was shot outside a Pioneer Square club this weekend after he got into a fight with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, according to police.

SAM’s Listening Room and “Record Store” are Painfully Out of Touch With the State of the Music Industry and Seattle’s Unique Scene (Seattle Weekly)
There’s a record store in Pioneer Square that doesn’t sell records. The Record Store, as it’s called, is a traveling installation put on by the Seattle Art Museum and Olson Kundig Architects.

Greyhound may test Seattle’s commitment to mass transportation (Crosscut)
The bus line is losing its home on the north edge of downtown. Is a move to Pioneer Square’s King Street Station the best choice, and perhaps the only way to keep the intercity service in Seattle?

A new (and well-traveled) web producer (PSBJ)
The Berliner in Pioneer Square reminds Jennifer Sokolowsky of the Döner kebab stands that are on every corner in Berlin, Germany, where she lived for three years.

Seattle wants to see shoppers in town and offline (King5)
The economy is down and online retailers continue to attract a big chunk of shoppers. However, that hasn’t slowed down the woman, who calls herself “Mouse.”

“I have a PHD from the school of hard knocks in retail,” jokes the owner of Magic Mouse Toys in Pioneer Square. “We appeal to all different ages, all different price points.” She has been in the same spot for 34 years, and won’t admit any concern over online retailers. “I would find that boring to exist, why even leave your house?” Mouse says.