Looking for a little more happiness in your life? Cecile Andrews, local author of “Less is More” and “Slow is Beautiful,” will guide you through “Happiness Lessons” from 7-9 p.m. on Tuesday, May 18, at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, 6532 Phinney Ave. N.

In the past few years there has been a great deal of research on the nature of happiness. What are the secrets of happiness? Why is it on the decline? What specific steps can we take for our personal happiness as well as for societal well being? How can Seattle use a Gross National Happiness measurement? To register, call 206 783 2244, $5 donation.

The 85th Street Market on the corner of 8th Avenue Northwest and NW 85th Street now has an ice cream shop.

We are ready with our ice cream shop just in time for summer. We carry 24 different flavors from Dreyr’s . We will serving hand dipped ice cream by scoop, shakes, smoothies, sundae, banana split, root beer float and a lot more.

PlayMatters at 7720 Greenwood Ave. N. is having a summer-long special of $5 for open play time from now through August.

The Phinney Neighborhood Association is looking for volunteers in a number of different areas: PNA Board Members, writers for the quarterly Phinney Ridge Review, copywriters and “information architect” for the PNA’s new website, and volunteers to help run the PNA’s World Cup showings this summer. Email Alex if you’re interested in any of these volunteer opportunities.

The Seattle Times reports today that the city is removing more graffiti that has sprung up on the oft-tagged underpass mural near Woodland Park Zoo.

The Seattle Center Foundation is looking for your memories of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair for its upcoming 50th anniversary in 2012. “The Next Fifty” celebration includes an online time capsule. You can submit an image, story, video or audio file from the fair until May 21, and you’ll automatically be entered to win a Heritage Package (annual family passes to the Pacific Science Center, Seattle Center Monorail, and the Space Needle - a $2,400 value).

A project that recently received a Small and Simple Neighborhood Matching Fund award from the City of Seattle is seeking an artist(s) to design a mural for a wall near the southeast corner of Phinney Ridge that bridges the neighborhoods of Fremont and Wallingford.

The 46th Street Mural Project is looking for a design that will “bring a positive visual message to pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists traveling under Highway 99 (Aurora Ave.) at N. 46th St.”

The wall is located on the north side of the underpass at N. 46th St. and Aurora Ave N.

Get more details on our sister site, Fremont Universe.

Greenwood spent the morning putting aside the evilness of this year’s months-long arson spree and instead focused on the good - community, caring neighbors, and talented individuals donating their time to clean up the neighborhood.

The unveiling of the mural along the safety fence in front of what used to be the Eleanor Roosevelt Building - housing Pho Tic Tac, Szechuan Bistro, C.C. Teriyaki and Green Bean Coffeehouse, and which was destroyed in the Oct. 23 arson - brought out a couple hundred people to the sidewalk by Taproot Theatre.

Greenwood Chamber of Commerce President Steve Giliberto summed up the experience this way.

“To be on the site of darkness and have a light shine over it,” Giliberto said. “It’s not only a testament to our neighborhood, but a testament to the human spirit. Evil happens, but good can always get the last word. It’s a great ending to a tough year.”

I spoke with two of the mural artists - John Osgood and Kevin “Sensei23″ Sullivan - as they stood across the street in the Gorditos parking lot. They installed the mural in panels yesterday, then quickly covered it up with black plastic for the official unveiling. Osgood says the muralists worked in the empty space beneath Bartell Drugs for the last month or so, creating the mural in sections. There wasn’t space to lay it all out down there, so they saw it all for the first time during the installation.

“When we were like halfway through, I got goose bumps,” Osgood said. “Once I started seeing it go up, I was like, oh my god.”

The mural features the drama masks symbolizing Taproot Theatre (which owned the Eleanor Roosevelt Building), a firefighter rescuing a PAWS Cat City kitty during the arson, muscle cars from the annual Greenwood Car Show, a huge phoenix rising out of the flames, the name Greenwood, and images promoting the monthly Greenwood-Phinney Art Walk. Sitting on top of the Greenwood name and on top of a tree are two owls. Sullivan told me the owls symbolize watching over the neighborhood.

Taproot Theatre Artistic Producing Director Scott Nolte told me that Taproot had the initial idea to do something with the site, then a number of other people ran with the idea. While Taproot provided money for materials, the muralists donated all their time.

“It was a labor of love on their part,” Nolte said.

The crew of Station 21 was there (although not all are actually stationed there, but some were filling in because of the holidays).

And plenty of people watched from across the street, so they could see the whole mural at once.

I drove through downtown Greenwood late this morning and happened to see the new mural being installed in front of the arson site next to Taproot Theatre. As soon as they were done, they covered it in black plastic to prepare for tomorrow’s unveiling at 11 a.m.

The mural features a phoenix rising from the fire (those flames you see on the far right), a Greenwood firefighter rescuing a PAWS Cat City cat during the Oct. 23 arson, muscle cars from the Greenwood Car Show, and other iconic neighborhood images.

Three artists from Seattle Mural Art created the mural: Zachary Bohnenkamp, Kevin “Sensei23″ Sullivan, and John Osgood. We’ll bring you a full report after tomorrow’s unveiling.

And we just heard from Cindy Potter, one of the trustees of the Greenwood Fire Relief Fund, who reports the relief fund has now collected more than $14,000 for the businesses affected by the string of arsons.

Last week we put up a post about the tagging of the mural at North 63rd under Aurora Avenue. Today, a Seattle Department of Transportation employee called to say they’re trying to find the people who originally painted the mural to clean up the graffiti, some of which you can see below.

When someone gets permission to put a mural on a bridge, they also agree to maintain it, according to the SDOT employee. City employees will now try to track down those who worked on the mural to see if they’ll take care of it. It’s only after no one steps up to do the work that the city’s graffiti rangers will paint it out, he said.

That isn’t quite the way it worked out for the zoo mural on the North 57th Street underpass. A few months ago the graffiti rangers accidentally covered that mural with gray paint that the city later paid several thousand dollars to remove.

“We definitely don’t want to paint out any murals anymore,” said the SDOT employee who asked not to be quoted by name.

Several members of the community got together to paint the mural in 1997 with the help of a matching grant and the support of the Phinney Ridge and Green Lake community councils. Lise Ward was the project manager. She’s leading an effort to restore the Zoo mural and we’ve left messages for her to let her know about the latest graffiti and the city’s attempts to track down people involved with the original project.

According to the city, Guy Allen, Dan Ayala, Amy Bengtson and Mary Gross are listed as the artists and Irene Wall with the Phinney Ridge Community Council was involved as well. 

Update: Lise is aware of the city’s interest in seeing the mural fixed. She’s not exactly sure when she can deal with this one, given she’s got her hands full with the 57th Street zoo mural. To get things moving, some volunteers would be welcome.

Lise can be contacted at lise.ward@hotmail.com, or (206) 362-8731.

Just two months after the city paid for specialists to restore the zoo mural underneath the N. 57th St. bridge, which had mistakenly been painted over, it’s been tagged again. Here’s the graffiti on the north wall:

And here it is on the south wall:

The graffiti has been reported to the city’s Graffiti Prevention & Removal tipline, so we’ll have to see what happens next.

At midday today, restoration crews finished their work on the zoo mural in the 57th St. underpass. The grey paint is gone.

And the familiar animals are back, in brilliant color.

There are some patches, however, where the spray removed more than just the grey paint. This patch near the giraffe is the largest.

It took crews from Surface Cleaning Technology four days to finish up the work — all paid for by the city, which mistakenly painted over the mural a couple months ago as part of a graffiti abatement program.

Update: We just returned from the 57th St. underpass on Phinney Ridge where workers are using a high-tech spray to remove the grey paint that covers the zoo mural. It looks like it’s working like a charm.

The cleaning is scheduled to take four days, but it’s proceeding quickly.

Earlier: This morning (Monday), crews from Surface Cleaning Technology will begin removing the grey paint that covers the colorful zoo mural in the 57th St. underpass. Last month, that company proved that its unique technology — a machine washer that uses soft volcanic crystals — will be able to save the mural that city workers painted over weeks before. And yes, the city of Seattle has agreed to foot the bill. The cleaning is expected to take four days, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day. We’ll post photos after the work begins.