Man Spends the Night in 80-foot Tree Downtown & More News

Seattle airport plans to allow Uber and Lyft to pick up arriving passengers as early as next week. According to GeekWire, since launching in Seattle three years ago, Uber and Lyft were able to drop off passengers at the airport. However, due to the Port Commission’s exclusive contract with Yellow Cab, the companies haven’t been able to pick up riders who just arrived to Sea-Tac. Cities like San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and San Diego already allow the alternative transportation companies to pick-up riders at the airport and it seems like Seattle is next. With the one-year pilot program that is set to begin on March 31, Uber, Lyft, and Wingz (a flat-rate “taxi alternative” that only does airport trips) will be able to pick up passengers at the third floor ground transportation plaza at the airport. 

For the next month, one of Shakespeare’s original First Folios from 1623 is on display at the downtown Seattle Central Library branch. Commemorating 400 years since Shakespeare’s death, the Folio, on display through April 17, is from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. “The First Folio was published in 1623 in London,” Jodee Fenton, manager of special collections at the Seattle Public Library told Mynorthwest.com. “There are 36 plays in the First Folio, all the ones we’re familiar with. If it weren’t for the First Folio we would have lost some of those plays, most likely. Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Romeo and Juliet. Plays that have formed an important part of American culture.” The First Folio, published seven years after Shakespeare died by a couple of his friends and colleagues, is on display at the library in a temperature, humidity, and light-regulated clear case so that is does not get damaged. The pages of the book are opened to display Hamlet, so you can read Shakespeare’s famous lines, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” The exhibit is a popular one in Seattle! In fact, 9,000 people got tickets before the exhibit even opened. Seeing the First Folio is free, however you still need to get a ticket to see the book. If you would like to see the book, tickets may be reserved here. 

Seattle police and firemen spent Tuesday afternoon trying to coax down a man who climbed to the top of an 80-foot-tall tree in downtown Seattle and refused to come down. Komo News reported that just after 11:30 a.m. reports were recieved of of a man stuck in the upper branches of the tall tree at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Stewart Street. Crews brought a ladder truck to the scene and negotiators climbed up to try to get the man to come down. He refused to come down from the tree and police were forced to shut down nearby traffic because the man was throwing apples at police and pedestrians below, and then later branches, orange peels, pine cones and other materials. By the fourth hour, the man had stripped the top of the tree, which according to the Seattle Police has been there since the 1970s. Just before 9 p.m. on Tuesday evening, the man climbed about halfway down the tree, paused, then climbed all the way back to the top. On Wednesday morning police and firefighters were still trying to convince the man to climb down from the top of the tree. Police Lt. David Drain told The Seattle Times on Wednesday morning that the man had arranged branches torn from the tree to sit on and they were not sure if the man had slept overnight. At one point Wednesday morning, the man yelled down to the people below from the top of the tree, “How much taxpayer money are you wasting? It’s not an emergency!” Efforts are still being made by law enforcement to get the man out of the tree safely. 

Rachel’s Ginger Beer (RGB), a staple of Seattle’s Pike Place Market, is opening its first store outside of Washington in Portland. According to Eater, Rachel’s Ginger Beer will be opening on Portland’s trendy Hawthorne Boulevard in the fall of this year. The shop will sell bottle and growler fills of ten types of ginger beers, from the classic, to ginger beers flavored with pink guava and blood orange. You’ll also be able to drink their famed cocktails, like the Moscow Mule, Dark ‘n’ Stormy, and Porch Swing, on tap. Owner Rachel Marshall told Portland Monthly, “I want this place to be an anchor for RGB outside of Seattle.” By establishing the company in Portland Marshall has hopes that she will start wholesale production of the ginger beer in Oregon as well.