The fence around the former, much-loved Italian Spaghetti House & Pizzeria is gone, and a “for lease” sign is up.

Will it reopen as a restaurant?

The sign says “retail, restaurant or development site. Call Joe.”

Joe hasn’t returned our call from last week.

A reader in Wedgwood emailed this week that she saw the sale in the Puget Sound Business Journal.

I read that the Spaghetti House Restaurant at 9824 Lake City Way was sold on January 9. The buyer is ISH Restaurant LLC, 2900 NE Blakeley St., Suite B, Seattle 98105. The purchase price was $1,200,000.

The registered agent for that LLC is Joe - Joseph L. Brotherton.

Our reader points out that neighbors, and the community councils of both Maple Leaf and Wedgwood, have expressed concerns about the arrival of strip clubs along Lake City Way.

Since the old restaurant closed last year, a new neighhbor has moved next door, medical marijuana dispensary Greenside Medical at 9804 Lake City Way N.E.

Update Feb. 18: Police say driver who caused crash had “paranoia” and had not eaten for days. The Seattle Times has the story here.

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Update 6 p.m.

Seattle Police report six people, including the suspect, were transported to various area hospitals for treatment of their non-life-threatening injuries. More details on this nine-car crash from our partners at the Seattle Times here.

The road will be shut down until approximately 7:00 p.m. while officers and detectives complete their on-scene investigation.

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Police and the Washington State Patrol are reporting that all lanes of First Avenue Northeast are blocked (4:41 p.m.) near Northgate Mall by a police investigation and multiple car crash.

The on and off ramps to Interstate 5 are blocked.

Washington State Department of Transportation

From Seattle Police:

Shortly before 4 p.m., officers in the North Precinct spotted an erratically driven vehicle, traveling northbound on First Avenue Northeast. Officers began following the vehicle. The female driver accelerated towards the intersection of First and Northeast 107th Street.

The driver drove through the intersection at a high rate of speed, striking multiple vehicles. Seattle Fire responded to the scene. Several victims were transported to Harborview Medical Center and other surrounding hospitals for serious but not life threatening injuries.

The driver appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and or drugs. She will be processed at the scene.

Over the weekend we received an email about Neighbor Appreciation Day from new Maple Leaf resident Micah confirming what long-time neighbors have known for years: This community rocks. Micah tells us:

We live on 85th and 5th NE. We moved in three months ago and have already benefited a great deal from this website.

We recently saw a post on this site and the green lake site about Neighbor Appreciation Day and thought that it would be a good opportunity to have an open house to meet our neighbors and develop more community in our place of town. We made invites and walked them to neighbors. The turn out was great. Over 20 people packed into our house for a potluck style open house. What a great time! We even put together a neighborhood contact list.

Thanks so much for the great idea! This neighborhood rocks and so does this webpage!

Thanks Micah, and congratulations on the great turnout! Does anybody else have Neighbor Appreciation Day stories to share?

Beth Brunton, the Simon Youth Foundation’s 2011 National Teacher of the Year, has another award to share that honors the students, faculty and staff at Northgate Middle College High School:

Last week, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education announced that the alternative school located inside Northgate Mall was among 186 schools across the state and 21 in Seattle honored with 2011 Washington Achievement Awards.

Northgate Middle College won in the category Special Recognition – Improvement, along with nearby Pinehurst K-8 School and six others.

The full list can be viewed online. The award-winning schools will be honored during a ceremony on April 25 at Mariner High School in Everett.

Power was out in much of Maple Leaf between about 1:15 and 2:00 Saturday afternoon, and Josh thinks the culprit was a bird - now deceased.

“Just a heads up to let you know the power outage was caused, apparently, by a crow electrocuted in power lines at 8th and 96th,” he emailed.

(We missed the outage, as we were chasing crows ourselves at the First Annual Edison Bird Festival.)

Kristin, on Northeast 97th Street between Roosevelt Way Northeast and Eighth Avenue Northeast, emailed: “All of the power went out around 1:20 p.m. Lights flickered, heard a boom, and all power went out. Any idea what caused it?”

Jeff emailed that he lost power at 1:24 p.m. at Northeast 95th Street and Roosevelt. “Is it just me or others without power too?”

Jill Killen, at Cloud City Coffee, said 2,344 Seattle City Light customers - most of Maple Leaf - were affected by the outage.

The outage was tracked on Twitter by neighboring blogs, and also by @outagetracker, which posts on outages throughout the country.

Northwest Puppet Center is offering a new take on an old tale this weekend and next: “The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by A. Wolf,” which it describes as such:

Think you know the real story behind the huffing and puffing? Think again. There’s only one individual who knows the true story about one wolf, three houses and three little pigs: Alexander T. Wolf. In this revealing no-squealing adaptation of Jon Scieszka’s popular book, A. Wolf has a chance to tell his side of the story.

The production, based on the popular children’s book by Jon Scieszka and performed by Paul Mesner Puppets, is at 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, from Feb. 11-19.

Cost is $10.50 for general admission; $8.50 for children under 17; and $9 for seniors 65 and older. Tickets are available at Brown Paper Tickets or at the box office (opens 30 minutes before each show) at 9123 15th Ave. N.E.

P.S. Coming next: “The Odyssey.”

Maple Leaf’s Beaver Pond Natural Area has been in the news lately, but not because of the beavers.

We got 94 comments on our initial post about nearly 50 trees being vandalized in December.

Then the Seattle parks department and City Light posted notices that a number of trees in the beaver pond proper, at 8th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 105th Street, had been substantially damaged by the beavers and were “dying or standing dead.

“This created a situation of imminent danger and hazard to the public and a high probability of severe damages to nearby electrical infrastructure and private property from tree failure.”

Then came January’s snow and ice storm.

This week trucks and crews from City Light were at the pond. “We worked with parks and personnel from ecology and took down a number of trees girdled by the beavers,” said the utility’s Scott Thomsen.

Thomsen said a particular problem is very high-voltage transmission lines that carry 230 kilovolts from electrical substations. Those lines are on the pond’s western border, and were in reach of damaged trees. Update: Thomsen emails: “We have transmission and distribution lines in that area. The transmission line is 115 kilovolts. The distribution lines are 26 kilovolts.”

Many of the felled trees will be left in place to provide habitat, and the park department plans to plant replacement trees. “It is our goal to protect the wetland and leave as many snags and large woody debris in the wetland habitat as is feasible,” according to the posted notice.

Now the beavers might be in trouble. (more…)

Maple Leaf resident Paula Becker, who co-wrote a book that looks back at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, is no stranger to the speaking circuit. She and co-author Alan Stein have discussed the book that commemmorates the 50-year anniversary of the world’s fair at many of the Seattle Public Library branches, and have even shown up on TV KING/5’s “New Day.”

But if you’ve been patiently waiting for Becker to come back to our neck of the woods to learn more about “The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and Its Legacy,” your chance is coming up soon.

From 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday, March 8, Becker and Stein will be at the Northeast Branch of Seattle Public Library, 6801 35th Ave. N.E., where you’re invited to:

Share your stories at this slide show and talk on ‘The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and Its Legacy” by authors Paula Becker and Alan J. Stein.

As Becker told us in her November interview, her speaker series isn’t just about her speaking. It’s also about hearing your stories. Regarding a similar lecture at the Central Library, she told us:

Although the first part will be an illustrated lecture (which she explains is just a modern term for a PowerPoint slideshow), Becker says they like to open up most of the time for people in the audience to share their stories.

“So many people who come have stories from the fair,” Becker said. “We really love it when people stand up at these events and talk about what they did.”

For more information about the event, visit the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild.

Update Feb. 9: Maura emails to say her car was stolen overnight.

We live on Fifth Avenue Northeast, very close to 80th as the cross street. They had to jimmy the lock, dismantle the alarm and hotwire the car to drive off, Silver Chrysler Sebring- nothing special about the car… All while we were sleeping in the house, nearby. My husband heard a dog barking loudly at about 3a.m….but who knows when it happened. They not only took our car, but car seat &~ golf clubs were hidden in the trunk. So bummed about this.

How can we become more involved with helping stop the crime in Maple Leaf? This is definitely going to hit the pocket book.

See her comment below - Maple Leaf Life

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Jim emailed this morning to say: “Our car prowled on 8th Avenue Northeast at Northeast 91st Street.

“Busted a window and took $5-$10 in coin, broke the coin tray.”

Like many neighbors, Jim experienced the most common crime in Seattle - a car prowl. “Most car prowls themselves take less than two minutes. The damage done to locks and windows can be very expensive to repair and cause great inconvenience,” according to Seattle police.

We last wrote specifically about car crimes in October. Then, 23 cars here were reported broken into or stolen over 28 days.

There are places where the risk is greater. One of them is Northeast Northgate Way, among the parking lots adjacent to the mall and across the street, and in the block immediately east of the mall. (See example above.)

Terrie Johnston, Seattle Police crime prevention coordinator, ran car prowl numbers this afternoon for December, January and February to date for police patrol district Nora 3. (See map.)

Of 43 total car prowls during that time, a third of them occurred along that stretch of Northgate Way, she said.

Why? Well, “it’s a target-rich environment,” Johnston said.

Reading down the list of reports, she came up with thousands of dollars in merchandise stolen from shoppers’ cars in minutes.

It’s where last week’s cherry picker was stolen, too.

The police advice sheet on keeping cars safe starts with: “Take all valuables with you when you park, and make sure all items, regardless of value, are not visible.”

Speaking of troubles involving autos, a neighbor in Maple Leaf’s south-west corner emailed over the weekend that he’s having problems with an early morning delivery car “that has a muffler modified to sound like a race car, and it is very noisy at the 4:30 a.m. hour that he comes through.

“It is very loud and can be heard over a 1-2 block radius as he winds through the area.”

The delivery car’s dispatcher says additional complaints would be needed before taking action, according to the neighbor, who is hoping to round some up.

Anybody else being bothered in the wee hours by loud cars? Let us know.

Your chance to regain many of the skills that have been lost over the generations is coming up this weekend at the Hands-On Community Skills Fair on Saturday at Meadowbrook and Ravenna-Eckstein community centers.

Organized by Sustainable Northeast Seattle in partnerships with the community centers, the event will teach you such skills as:

• Making cheese
• Tool sharpening
• Bread baking (wheat and gluten-free
• Make-it-yourself herbal products
• Basic sushi making
• Basketweaving
• Soap making
• Simple bike repair
• Cistern installation

Plus many more, which are listed on the full schedule. Tickets costs $15 in advance online through Seattle Parks and Recreation or by calling the Meadowbrook Community Center, 10517 35th Ave. N.E., at 206-684-7522, or the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center, 6535 Ravenna Ave. N.E., at 206-684-7534. Buying advance tickets allows you to reserve space for your workshops of choice. Otherwise, tickets cost $20 at the door.

Workshops take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and a vanpool will be available to shuttle participants between the two locations. The event ends with a community potluck at the Meadowbrook Community Center from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Two years ago, Maple Leaf resident acupuncturist Misty Nault decided she was done driving to far-off locales such as Puyallup and Marysville to practice her career, and she started shopping around for a location a little more close to home. She couldn’t have gotten much closer than where she ended up at 9415 Roosevelt Way N.E.

NW Pain Relief is located in the basement of 9415 Roosevelt Way N.E., and is accessed around the back.

“I chose this place because I live just a block away,” Nault said about NW Pain Relief, which she originally opened with massage therapist Jodene Hager. But since then, Hager had to give up her practice, leaving Nault without a massage component to the company.

“I really missed having massage here and I think it works so well for my patients (to have both services available),” she said. In December, she brought massage therapist Shelly Nance on board, followed by fellow massage therapist Andy Olk in January.

“Now all three of us are here and I really like it,” Nault said.

Left to right: Shelly Nance, Andy Olk and Misty Nault at NW Pain Relief.

Nance also lives in Maple Leaf, and adds that in addition to offering massage therapies including deep tissue and relaxation, she also specializes in Reiki, which she says most people find to be very grounding, balancing and relaxing. “It can help people who aren’t sleeping, but it’s also good for overall well-being,” Nance said.

Olk lives nearby in the Green Lake area, and his areas include deep tissue, Swedish and sports massage. “What’s unique about what I offer is that I have a very firm but soft and nurturing touch,” he added.

To make an appointment at NW Pain Relief, fill out the online form. You also may contact Nault for an acupuncture appointment at (206) 452-5965 or [email protected]; or for massage, Olk can be reached at [email protected] or (206) 495-9695, and Nance is available at 206-353-5370 or [email protected].

It’s not in Maple Leaf, but it’s not far away, either. And it shouldn’t be here at all.

East Point at the Montlake Fill, Saturday morning.

It’s been a great winter for bird watchers.

First there was the irruption of Snowy Owls, who are still dotting the landscape mostly to the north of us. One was reported in Maple Leaf in early December. Here’s a photo of one sitting on the roof of the Ballard Library.

Now there’s a Tufted Duck (TUDU, to bird banders) at the Montlake Fill. And dozens of birders there watching him. (If you want to find him, look for the crowd.)

Classic Collection of North American Birds

Here’s what bird guru David Allen Sibley has to say about Tufted Ducks, in his Field Guide to Birds of Western North America.

Very rare visitor from Eurasia, mostly along coast; records are of single birds on ponds or sheltered bays….Male distinctive: black back and rounded black head with long dangling tuft.

I last saw a Tufted Duck in 1999, but not in Seattle. In Reykjavik.

The duck was first reported Friday by Constance Sidles, the guru of the Montlake Fill (aka Union Bay Natural Area). She says the bird is often just off the Fill’s East Point.

“It’s a male TUDU with quite a long tuft and black back, just a classic Tufted Duck straight out of the bird books…..

“Something I did not know: He can control his tuft. Sometimes he would stick it out from his head, other times he would flatten it against his head and neck. Sometimes he would make his tuft smooth; other times he let it get ragged. Before he dove, he would always flatten it so tightly he looked like a regular duck, not the exotic stranger he really is.”

Police overnight received multiple 911 calls about a large Chevy work truck - equipped with a cherry picker -being driven “erratically” around north Seattle.

The truck was stolen by a woman driver about 8:30 p.m. from First Avenue Northeast and Northeast Northgate Way, police say. They attempted to stop it in Wallingford - at North 35th Street and Woodlawn Avenue North. “The suspect failed to yield to the officers and began driving recklessly northbound on Stone Avenue North.”

When officers attempted to stop the car on Aurora Avenue North in Shoreline, the driver turned around and fled back into King County, chased by patrol cars from the King County Sheriff’s Office, the Seattle Police Department and the Washington State Patrol, police said.

The truck eventually crashed into the concrete base of a light pole in a parking lot in the 11700 block of Aurora, according to police, and the driver was arrested and taken to Harborview Medical Center to treat injuries from the crash.

The suspect, a female in her 20s, faces potential charges of Auto Theft, Felony Eluding, Property Damage, and Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol and/or Drugs.

KOMO-TV has a photo of the truck. Stolen and prowled vehicles are common in that general stretch of Northgate, home to both a mall and a transit center.

Need some help with your taxes but can’t afford to pay for help?

The Seattle Public Library can help! Starting Wednesday, Feb. 1, free tax assistance will be available at the Northgate Branch, 10458 Fifth Ave. N.E., through Monday, April 16. Hours are:

• 4-7:30 p.m. Mondays
• Noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays

Free tax assistance will be available at various other branches as well. For more information, see the library’s news release.

From time to time we get emailed complaints about potholes in the neighborhood. Then the Pothole Rangers are called out.

A week’s worth of ice and snow have made the problem worse. Here’s an overview from the city’s pothole map. Green means a fixed pothole, blue means a request to fill one is “pending” (?). We don’t seem to have any yellow (not fixed for the last half year) or red (not fixed for a year).

But I know we have more potholes than this.

Mayor Mike McGinn says the city’s transportation department has $9 million available to address street surface repairs, which includes potholes. About $8.5 million of that is earmarked for main arterials.

“Freezing weather and heavy precipitation mean that we’re seeing more potholes. We’ve added dollars to respond to pothole repair requests,” McGinn says.

So let’s help out. Report potholes to the city here. Call in the rangers!

(Thanks to My Wallingford for some of this information.)