Posted by Aaron Pickus

An architectural wonder made of impermanent snow has been erected for the ages (or at least a week) on the north shore of Green Lake. When asked what his inspiration was for the project, chief architect Ben Van Citters said, "Notre Dame. Especially the flying buttresses." Van Citters is also known for his critically acclaimed effort to transform a nearby footpath into a harrowing bobsled course. The cornerstone for the castle, cathedral and impenetrable fortress was put into place sometime around midnight during the storm last Saturday.

Work has progressed continuously since then (full disclosure: these losers are my housemates). "At first I was just doing it out of boredom, but I worked on it today to meet some wenches" explains principal designer Chris Church. No word yet on his success. Inside, tourists will find archways and turrets. Weary gawkers will also notice benches, inside the main chamber, on which to sit while contemplating the energies of our nation's youth. The Sagrada Familia of Green Lake is located on the lawn surrounding the lake between Latona and Sunnyside. This successful project challenges the conventional wisdom that new construction is not occurring in Seattle.

"Here is a photo of two 48 Metro buses stuck—1 in each direction—at the corner of 80th and Wallingford in Greenlake," writes Slog tipper Madflare. "Both of these buses are articulated buses. I thought Metro stopped running these in the snow after the lessons learned over the last few days? Traffic is all messed up!"

I've been thinking the same thing as Dan's friend. Watching scenes like this over the weekend...

...and wandering on foot in the streets of the city—literally in the streets, because why not when most cars are stuck somewhere?—it's hard not to notice the attitudinal shift.

The cars are humbled. The people are emboldened. The snow is deep enough that it blurs the point at which the curb ends and the car-space begins. Street life—by which we usually mean sidewalk life—is finally, actually, street life.

Maybe I've missed something in previous years living in this city, but it does seem to me as if Seattle—which has a rich, familiar culture of street protest—is now developing a new addition: a culture of street joy.

Many people I know here have drawn connections between the spontaneous celebrations surrounding the arrival of the current city-stopping snow and the spontaneous celebrations in November after the arrival of the world-stopping election result:

In both instances the the streets have been immediately appropriated for the purpose of joy—not commerce or commuting—and the Seattle police, who normally exist to protect commerce and commuting, have gotten it exactly right. They've ceded the streets to the celebrants and made it their duty to protect them and their temporary takeover of space that isn't theirs. On election night, I saw police keeping cars away from the street party in the above video. On Saturday night—or, really, at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning—I saw a lone police car parked so that it blocked traffic from descending the hill favored by the East Denny Way sledders, some of whom are pictured above.

It's messy, of course, this business of joy-ing in the street. The police aren't everywhere. And not everyone agrees on the new rules, or at what depth of snow they begin to be enforced, or how long after a snowfall the new rules should end. What we have is perhaps a kernel of a new Seattle tradition with a lot of chaos around the edges. And so, walking around, I saw a few scenes like the one in this video (a video sent, coincidentally, by the same YouTuber who captured the election night dance party).

Similarly, on Union Street, around 17th Avenue or so, I saw over the weekend something that seemed like a checkpoint one would find in a country with a heavy-handed military. Except that it was manned by snow-caked people in their 20s and 30s, some of them on a couch that had been dragged into the intersection, others standing near trash can lids and cardboard and other sledding materials. If a driver charmed the people manning the checkpoint, he or she could go through. If a driver didn't, or failed to stop and turn away as instructed, there was a somewhat good-natured retribution. A hail of snowballs. Shouts about how awful the driver was for messing up a good thing. People hanging on to the driver's back bumper and sort of water-skiing behind the car, heels gliding down the snowy hill.

A driver could disobey the new law of the snow-stopped city, but its enforcers wouldn't make it easy.

There is a lot one could connect to the street celebrations that Seattle has seen this November and December: The World Trade Organization protests of 1999. The rise of Seattle's Critical Mass specifically, and of local bike consciousness in general. The huge Prop 8 protest of mid-November. The anti-war rallying that's been done in various moments over the last eight years. The decline in esteem that the automobile, and its demands, are experiencing. The increasing density of the city, the support for this density from the political class, and the demands that people living in small, densely-packed neighborhoods feel compelled and empowered to make. All of this informs the current thoughts about who should control Seattle's streets—and when.

But making too many connections may be getting ahead of things. If this is indeed a new thing, a new way of clebrating in Seattle, we'll have to see what it becomes before we know exactly what it is. I, for one, hope it becomes something—something greater than two notable moments in the life of a city in late 2008. Because whatever's going on in this town lately, it's fantastic.

Fabulous news intern Aaron Pickus just texted me to let me know that:

The Metro website is bullshit! The 48 doesn't exist on the hill but the site says it's back to normal

Clearly, Metro is not to be trusted.

The Federal Aviation Administration is reducing the number of flights at New York's LaGuardia Airport in a bid to improve the airport's dismal on-time record.

Transportation secretary Mary Peters today said the FAA will reduce the number of takeoffs and landings permitted each hour to 71 from 75. The number of hourly flights at the New York area's Kennedy and Newark airports is also capped, but at higher levels. LaGuardia tends to handle shorter-range domestic flights than its nearby rivals.

The FAA's move to further reduce capacity at LaGuardia is an acknowledgement that little can be done over the near term to cut into the airport's chronic delay problem other than limiting the amount of traffic it can handle. In 2007 and so far in 2008, LaGuardia ranks last among the 32 largest U.S. airports in on-time arrival performance with only 61% of flights arriving on time, Ms. Peters said. Reducing the number of flights to 71 from 75 will reduce delays by as much as 41%, she said, saving up to $178 million in delay-related costs each year.

"Too many flyers know that LaGuardia's delays are the worst of the worst, and we want to use every tool at our disposal to help passengers stuck with this grueling congestion," Ms. Peters said.

Looking for somewhere to sled where you won't have to worry about colliding with cars or dealing with beligerent assholes? You're in luck.

The Seattle Parks Department has opened up the city's four golf courses to sledders. I'd recommend the Jackson course, which (hypothetically) you can get to on the 73.

Seattle police say they've already had one car vs. sled incident after a teenage girl collided with a car near the University District last night.