A possible destination

Dear Diary,

Re-reading some of your oldest pages recently has reminded me that, once upon a time, I envisioned you ending soon.  Obviously, that didn't happen, as I became more and more outraged at the ways that water was being used as a weapon against homeless people.

I expect to write in you fairly soon about why I'm carrying on, with that fight long over.  But it is reasonable to have some sort of goal.  On December 14, 2020, The Seattle Times was kind enough to publish something I wrote, that said, in part, this:

For years I've thought about what I value partly by planning, but never actually building, a website about my interests.  Now, the parks of North Seattle ... are demanding vast spaces in that website. 

I've been having a lot of technological problems lately, and it's getting less plausible that I'll really beat them all, as I continue to age.  Maybe my dream website will never happen.  So perhaps your destiny, dear Diary, is to hold many dozen park-specific pages.  Please think about that, dear Diary, and please welcome any comments your readers care to make.

A detail note about labels

Dear Diary,

It's strange to think it now, but for most of your life, I've been housed.

For some time before then, I'd been pushing shopping carts, not stolen from a grocery store, but purpose-bought.  Your pages that I wrote while homeless include endless complaints about these carts.

Once I was housed, I got a laptop, and discovered Blogspot's categorisation system, which it calls "labels".  It doesn't show its labels to readers on phones, you see.  Soon I re-read all of you, dear Diary, and set up a system of labels.  And all those complaints about carts got the label "cart".

Unfortunately, so did less me-specific remarks about things that impede some people's ability to get around.  This is a particular problem for writing about the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation's love of "access".

Now I've finally separated these two things.  Many pages are still labelled "cart", some are now labelled "mobility", and a few have both labels.

Happy days and nights, dear Diary! 

Under Construction, part III: A.B. Ernst Park Before

Dear Diary,

Please inform any reader of this part who really loves A.B. Ernst Park, and who is reading before sunset on April 2nd, that they should stop reading right now and go make some last memories in the park they love.  Because on April 3rd, trees are going to start being taken out.

So at this point, your readers, dear Diary, are either people who don't love that park, or are reading after sunset, right?

This reminds me that I don't know, and haven't known for a long time, who reads you, dear Diary.  Strictly speaking, I don't even know that anyone reads you; for all I know, the numbers I see are all artificial intelligences being trained.  But even if that's not so, I mustn't assume any baseline level of familiarity with the work I've done with your excellent help.

So.  Dear Diary, you are a blog about public amenities, and especially about public restrooms whose doors open to the outside, and public water fountains that are outside.  Most of these things are in parks, and because variety is the spice of life, sometimes, as now, I just do some park appreciation without talking about plumbing at all.  The area we've focused on is the northern part, a sort of peninsula, of the City of Seattle, in a northern border state of the United States.

At one of the peninsula's southern tips, towards the middle east-west, is a neighbourhood called Fremont that likes to call itself the centre of the universe.  Parts of Fremont and its more staid eastern neighbour Wallingford are pretty hilly, and possibly as a result, three of their parks have as their raisons d'etre that they allow people to traverse those hills.

The Wallingford Steps are the flashy sibling, made of concrete but with spectacular artistic adornment, plus, yes, some plants.  They're the most successful as stairs, too, linking N 34th St with N Northlake Way, and, across that perilous street, with Gas Works Park and the Burke-Gilman Trail.

Troll's Knoll Park is the plain, friendly sibling; challenged to praise it, Seattle Parks calls it "sustainable".  It connects N 36th St with N 38th St adjacent to Aurora Ave N.  Just east of its bottom is the Fremont Troll; at its top is the Troll's Knoll P-Patch.

But A. B. Ernst Park almost ignores its stairs, which unimpressively go from N 35th St to the next alley south.  Instead it focuses on being a quite beautiful park, one worth spending time in. 

But tomorrow, motivated mainly by access and activation, Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation will start changing A. B. Ernst Park.  I would be pretty shocked if the result of the changes isn't loved, by some, within a year or three - Seattle Parks generally knows what it's doing.  But that doesn't mean I can't celebrate the old version.

I learnt on my second recent visit that what I see as this park's signature element is not what everyone sees.  I went across the street and discovered that what drivers see is mostly a couple of giant street trees.  But if, like me, you walk west from the Fremont branch library (soon to close itself for construction), there's no doubt at all that A. B. Ernst Park is mainly about these spectacular pillar-like trees.

These are arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis).  Another species that's prominent in the park is bald cypress (Taxodium distichum).  And how, you may ask, dear Diary, do I know these things, having never displayed any botanical knowledge before?  Alas, this is how:

There are many signs like that attached to specific trees; there are also quite a few on the ground.  Other trees bear different symbols:

Well, as I mentioned not too long ago, dear Diary, I'm having technical difficulties.  Let me describe the planned work, and then close with two more photos.

Most people, I think, understand this park as a winding path with a weird structure in the middle, sort of a crude theatre.  The occasion for the work is that Parks acquired a bit of land east of the park.  So they're moving the path eastward, and widening it, because even though the park's current page says it "provides wheelchair access", paths can never be too wide when considering Access.

And then they're giving the space thus created at the west end of the park to Activation.  A picnic table will be where the park entrance now is, and south of the table will be an "embankment slide" with "hillside loops".  That area will rejoin the main path at the head of the stairs.

If I'm reading the plans right, it's a goal to keep the theatre-like area, and the artwork that surrounds it (Water Mover by Jenny Heishman) more or less intact.  But they're planning to remove half of the arborvitae, so I expect it to be a long time before the park feels right to me.

Well, dear Diary, writing this part in you on my phone has been horribly time-consuming, so I'm going to have to find a better way soon.  Until then, happy days and nights.  The first photo below shows arborvitae, theatre and Water Mover, while the second shows the stairs at the bottom of the park.

 

 

 

Under Construction, part II: Themes

Dear Diary,

Well, I've been hiking, and have now visited six of the thirteen parks on my list for this page.  But technical problems are slowing me down, and anyway I can probably make the remaining parts shorter by putting these general remarks into one place.

Because, you see, dear Diary, Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation has certain priorities when it comes to construction.  Let's start with a couple of magic words.

Activation

Parks cares a lot about how many people use its parks, and the particular feedback loop it embraces is known as "activation".

The idea behind activation is that there's always room for one more person in a park, and to the extent their budgets allow, park managers want to bring that one more person in, using techniques known to help in doing so.  I'm not sure believers in activation think there can ever be too much of it.

Now, I have a pretty jaundiced take on this whole activation ideology, because I'm not at all sure weird single middle-aged men are in activation's target audience, but I'm absolutely sure homeless people are not in activation's target audience.  In fact, activation is often presented as a way to discourage homeless people from being in parks, by outnumbering them with normal people.

Nevertheless, Seattle Parks embraces activation ideology, and it comes up time and again in their construction projects.  Specifically, they like to replace playground equipment, partly as trends in safety engineering change (and perhaps advance), but also because new equipment is a new chance to activate more kids.

Access

I'm not here, dear Diary, to object to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, from which we all benefit in many ways, and from which I, personally, benefit in specific ways as well.

But already in my hiking, I've become convinced that the word "access", used in explaining park projects, has a weird meaning, at once narrower than it should be (a path can be made "more accessible" without removing stairs) and broader than it should be (any path can be made "more accessible" by widening it).  So, in Seattle Parks project management, "access" is a magic word, not a well thought out principle.

Synthetic turf

Not all park construction norms are magic words.  Seattle Parks has been fairly busy replacing natural playfield surfaces with synthetic ones.

Not being an athlete, I have no real opinion on synthetic turf as an experience.  It may well be less "ecological", but I've already visited one target for conversion, and no blade of grass will be harmed by the planned changes to Woodland Park's Field 4's infield:

As an accounting student, though, I have to admit that synthetic turf is a major bureaucratic win.  Instead of considerable expenses to mow, water, and so on - labor expenses, mostly, very high in Seattle - synthetic turf is an asset, and depreciates.  Replacing it is small change in capital budgets.  I don't know, though, whether it's also a win for taxpayers.

Single user stalls

Yes, dear Diary, Seattle Parks also has a norm concerning your core topic.  (Although both access and activation will come up in that regard as well.)

I think it's obvious that single user stalls aren't as efficient in using space as multi-stall restrooms.  Each single user stall has a sink, after all, and probably a dryer.  But I don't have proof, because I hardly ever know how big the women's rooms are, so I can't do before and after comparisons.

For example, the old Cal Anderson Park men's room had two stalls plus a urinal.  Did the women's room have two or three?  Impressively, Parks managed to squeeze four single user stalls into that building, which is either parity (ignoring for now the urinal) or minus one.  However, two of those four were damaged years ago, and aren't on the construction radar, so it's worse than that in practice.

Single user stalls are certainly safer, while people are in them, and that's not trivial - someone running away from someone else can take pretty good refuge in one.

Well, dear Diary, those are the things I wanted to sum up here.  The time I've spent hiking has been available because my instructor has given us some days to study before the midterm on Monday.  I hope to visit three more parks tomorrow, but that still leaves three in Lake City, plus Hubbard Homestead and a return trip to Woodland, to squeeze into several weeks of frenetic assignments thereafter.

As for when I'll tell you about these hikes, dear Diary, it's more of a hassle than it'd been the past few years, but less time-consuming than hiking, so I hope pretty soon.  Until then, happy days and nights. 

Under Construction, part I: Introduction

Dear Diary,

Yes, it's been a long time.  I've been in school now for nine straight quarters, with at least three more to go before a break.  I'd thought not to take any classes this quarter, but that didn't work out.  Maybe next summer...

However, the Seattle Times recently ran an excellent article, by Ann Duan, about construction going on this year in the parks owned by the City of Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation.  It's accompanied by a map, by Winnie Yao, showing eight of those projects in North Seattle.

That looked like an easy hike to do while still in class.  Just seven destinations.  (Magnuson Park, of course, has two projects.)

But I was curious about Duan's sources, and it turns out that Parks's home page now links to two things, one of which seems to be new:

1.  For years, the home page has linked to a list of current and future projects, and still does.  When that link first appeared, it was next to squibs about recently completed projects at two parks.  As that part of Parks's home page fell into neglect, those two projects got steadily less recent.
2. So a few weeks ago, Parks started linking in that space to a map of projects completed from 2023 on.

So currently, the goal is that completed projects move off the list and onto the map.  I hope that continues to be maintained, but anyway it's current now.

Well, dear Diary, as I confessed long ago now, it's been years since I last saw most of the parks you're primarily about.  I plan to spend September, between quarters, at long last getting what I think of as a "baseline", knowledge of working and non-working water fountains and open and closed restrooms, for use in winter hikes in December.

But I hope to visit Duan's list of North Seattle projects, plus a few more up north, and also Matthews Beach and Green Lake Park, where there are supposed to be summer-only restrooms that I've never actually visited in summer, this month and next.

And then while getting the baseline, I'll spice those hikes up by looking at the completed, and the less shovel-ready future, projects.

We'll see what actually happens.  Besides my current class, I have several other demands on my time this summer, and anyway I'm normally pretty lazy in summers.  But I hope to see you soon, dear Diary, with reports of Green Lake, Woodland and A. B. Ernst parks, and Meridian Playground.

Let me not forget:  Downtown parks actually pull under their weight in projects.  Duan and Yao mapped only one, at the ID-Chinatown Community Center.  The sources listed above have some more.  I'm going to hold off on making plans for downtown, though, until I see how North Seattle is going, and also until I know whether I'll be working downtown.

Anyway, happy days and nights until we meet again, dear Diary. 

Peace Park Today

Dear Diary,

It's been a long time, hasn't it?  Some things have changed in Blogspot, and I'm not sure how I'll deal with those going forward, but anyway, that's why the photo in this page is so huge.

I went on a long hike today, and my path took me through Peace Park.  It seemed weirdly deserted and non-descript, just a rather dry lawn with some unobtrusive interruptions.  For what seemed like minutes I couldn't find the park sign, and wondered if it had been taken down.  Not so, but the only thing it brags about is the sculpture "Sadako and the Thousand Cranes", and that sculpture is still achingly absent.

But people remember it:

I'm sure I haven't read everything that's been said about the violent theft of that sculpture, but in what I have read, I've seen nothing about any possibility of replacing it.  Seems to me that the alternative is to tar ourselves with the guilt of the thief, to say we aren't good enough for a statue like that any more.  Anyway, I think this possibility of a new sculpture should at least be raised, and, if possible, handed for a decision to the people who left all those flowers, or people who remember how to make origami cranes, or like that.

Good night, dear Diary.  I'm still not sure when we'll meet again.

More silence, and then more

Dear Diary,

In September 2024, I began a series of hikes, and at the same time compiled "Past hikes of North Seattle parks in these pages", meant as a complement to a document I circulate (in particular at that time) as a publication history.  It was also an admission that nothing I write in you any more, dear Diary, gets much read; that our best days appear to be behind us now.

One reason for those hikes in September 2024 was to find out whether more people would read if I actually wrote about parks.  But, possibly because I'd chosen mystifying titles, few people read the resulting pages either.  So it was easy to transfer the time I'd intended to devote to them to the page I'd planned about the buses.

In December 2024, I added a section to the "Past Hikes" page covering the September 2024 hikes.  Since then, it's dawned on me, nobody will have seen that section either. So here it is, mildly edited:

And I've had basically no interest, this month [i.e. December], in finding out what's happening to park restrooms this winter.  I'm sorry, dear Diary, but not actually sorry enough to go hiking in the rain.  As other pages in you from earlier this year mention, I'm now in school, trying to put ever more distance between myself and homelessness, and this right now [i.e. December 2024] is my last long break before August. [This right now, February 2025, isn't a long break. It's a short break before an exam.]

Perhaps then [i.e., in August 2025], I'll do what I tried to do this past September:  find what I called then and still would call a "baseline".  Find out how the parks are operating in summer, so that if that winter I hike them again, I'll be able to tell what's different.  For that matter, locating water fountains (which are rather more mobile than restrooms) while the weather is nice.  If I can get that done next August and September [2025], I can in turn realistically do winter hikes, after I graduate, next December.

Anyway.  Here are the two pages:

• Thyme Patch Park on Monday
• Bitter Lake Reservoir Park Yesterday and Froula Park Today

The first covers most of the parks in NW, the second a couple of parks in far north Seattle.

And while you've probably figured out the point, dear Diary, in case those titles confuse any more readers, you might as well tell them that after my happening on Thyme Patch Park on the first hike, I decided to call the rest of the pages after parks without plumbing that I hadn't visited for way too long.  The second page's title hammers on something I've mentioned to you before, that Seattle actually has parks (those exact two), not that far away, built on reservoir land, but without their own plumbing.

Well, good night, and good days and nights until we meet again, dear Diary.

End of what I wrote in December 2024. Near as I can tell, it's still all more or less true. So again, dear Diary, happy days and nights and probably months, until we meet again.