The first meeting of the The first meeting of the West Seattle Trails Alliance for the Alki Kiosk portion of the project took place at the Alki Community Center Thursday night, Feb. 4, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Six members of the Alki community attended. Though the public turnout was less than hoped for, the individuals there represented the Log Cabin Museum, the Alki Community Council, and the Statue of Liberty group, which has been working on the restoration of the statue and the plaza surrounding it, as well as individual citizens. The group spent two hours working on the basic themes and overall content direction for three wayfinding kiosks which will be part of the Alki shoreline in the near future.

The effort is part of a $98,000 Neighborhood Matching Fund grant awarded last year to the West Seattle Trails Alliance for a West Seattle Trails and Wayfinding project. Feet First is a partner in the project as well as being the fiscal sponsor.

The three locations for the Alki kiosks are near 1) Me Kwa Mooks park, 2) somewhere on the strand in the vicinity of the Statue of Liberty, and 3) in the general vicinity of Seacrest Park and the existing Water Taxi dock. The group spent the first hour last night working on identifying general topical areas for the three Alki kiosks and the second hour placing these ideas on the appropriate kiosk.

For the overall thematic of all the kiosks, the suggestions so far include focusing on the Duwamish history and the many uses made of the peninsula's features as well as a secondary theme of the development of Seattle. For the Me Kwa Mooks vicinity kiosk, the thinking is that the focus should be on the Native Beginnings with additional themes of summers along the Sound, early Swedish agrarian uses, the Mosquito Fleet, early trolley links and, of course, the Orca watching and eagle watching offered at this location.

For the Statue of Liberty area kiosk, the suggestion was to continue the evolution of the area theme with this kiosk featuring Early Seattle and Alki settlements with several minor themes including the seal birthing and eagle-osprey hunting aspects of the beach and the Alki Lighthouse history as well as some of the early uses of the highway for cruising, which continues to this day. One thought was to highlight some of the 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980 and later "No Cruising" highway signs as an indication of the continuing use of this stretch of Seattle street for these classic American coming-of-age activities.

For the Seacrest Park kiosk, the theme continues with the evolution of the city with a montage of skyline photos and engravings taken over the years starting back when this area was a dock and lumber mill district. Continuing with the development and evolution theme, the Seacrest kiosk could also feature "getting to Seattle" stories and photos showing early water taxi operations, early trolley operations across the causeway and the later development of the several West Seattle bridges.

All three kiosks will have integrated themes of art, nature and community woven into them as those themes are recurring Alki Community themes. One of the features which everyone indicated they would like to see on the Statue of Liberty-area kiosk is a listing of all the features, monuments and in-sidewalk special art and commemorative elements along just this one-half-mile stretch of Alki Avenue.

Next steps in this process are to produce draft documents from the whiteboard sheets which were used last night (see example from one board) and to schedule a second meeting and continue the content-development process with a refinement of these first-round ideas, image concepts and story lines and a focus on what kinds of art should be integrated into the bottom third of each of these three kiosks. Each kiosk has a content area with a front and back and an art area with a front and back. Art themes were barely broached at last night's meeting. A meeting date for the second round was not set last night but will be announced in the near future, with the Herald being one of the recipients of the notice. portion of the project took place at the Alki Community Center Thursday night, Feb. 4, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Six members of the Alki community attended. Though the public turnout was less than hoped for, the individuals there represented the Log Cabin Museum, the Alki Community Council, and the Statue of Liberty group, which has been working on the restoration of the statue and the plaza surrounding it, as well as individual citizens. The group spent two hours working on the basic themes and overall content direction for three wayfinding kiosks which will be part of the Alki shoreline in the near future.

The effort is part of a $98,000 Neighborhood Matching Fund grant awarded last year to the West Seattle Trails Alliance for a West Seattle Trails and Wayfinding project. Feet First is a partner in the project as well as being the fiscal sponsor.

The three locations for the Alki kiosks are near 1) Me Kwa Mooks park, 2) somewhere on the strand in the vicinity of the Statue of Liberty, and 3) in the general vicinity of Seacrest Park and the existing Water Taxi dock. The group spent the first hour last night working on identifying general topical areas for the three Alki kiosks and the second hour placing these ideas on the appropriate kiosk.

For the overall thematic of all the kiosks, the suggestions so far include focusing on the Duwamish history and the many uses made of the peninsula's features as well as a secondary theme of the development of Seattle. For the Me Kwa Mooks vicinity kiosk, the thinking is that the focus should be on the Native Beginnings with additional themes of summers along the Sound, early Swedish agrarian uses, the Mosquito Fleet, early trolley links and, of course, the Orca watching and eagle watching offered at this location.

For the Statue of Liberty area kiosk, the suggestion was to continue the evolution of the area theme with this kiosk featuring Early Seattle and Alki settlements with several minor themes including the seal birthing and eagle-osprey hunting aspects of the beach and the Alki Lighthouse history as well as some of the early uses of the highway for cruising, which continues to this day. One thought was to highlight some of the 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980 and later "No Cruising" highway signs as an indication of the continuing use of this stretch of Seattle street for these classic American coming-of-age activities.

For the Seacrest Park kiosk, the theme continues with the evolution of the city with a montage of skyline photos and engravings taken over the years starting back when this area was a dock and lumber mill district. Continuing with the development and evolution theme, the Seacrest kiosk could also feature "getting to Seattle" stories and photos showing early water taxi operations, early trolley operations across the causeway and the later development of the several West Seattle bridges.

All three kiosks will have integrated themes of art, nature and community woven into them as those themes are recurring Alki Community themes. One of the features which everyone indicated they would like to see on the Statue of Liberty-area kiosk is a listing of all the features, monuments and in-sidewalk special art and commemorative elements along just this one-half-mile stretch of Alki Avenue.

Next steps in this process are to produce draft documents from the whiteboard sheets which were used last night (see example from one board) and to schedule a second meeting and continue the content-development process with a refinement of these first-round ideas, image concepts and story lines and a focus on what kinds of art should be integrated into the bottom third of each of these three kiosks. Each kiosk has a content area with a front and back and an art area with a front and back. Art themes were barely broached at last night's meeting. A meeting date for the second round was not set last night but will be announced in the near future, with the Herald being one of the recipients of the notice.