Building's 'widow' crashes council meeting

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SEATTLE, July 3 (UPI) -- A woman wearing a wedding gown told Seattle City Council members they were all invited to her upcoming marriage to a building.

Babylonia Aivaz entered a restricted area of the council chambers Monday, passed out flowers and invited members to her marriage to a soon-to-be-razed apartment building in Seattle's Yesler Terrace neighborhood.

It turns out this won't be her first brick-and-mortal union. She showed the city officials a brick she said was part of her late spouse, a demolished warehouse in the city's Capitol Hill area, KOMO-TV reported Tuesday.

Claiming her mission was to save the Yesler Terrace neighborhood from the Seattle Housing Authority's planned redevelopment, Aivaz was met by police and a small crowd outside City Hall, saying, "This officer says I need a mental evaluation or I need to go to jail, because he doesn't believe this [brick] is my spouse."

The city government points out that many of the buildings in the Yesler Terrace area are over 75 years old and ending their useful lives, and that 561 of the neighborhood's apartments do not meet the modern-day needs of tenants.