Water Fountains: Things We've Lost, Part II

Dear Diary,

I'm so, so sorry this is coming late, poor dear Diary.  I may end up putting three pages into you today, though, which I hope will assuage the hurt of my neglect.

Part of the reason for the delay, though, is pretty exciting!  I went on tour!  And not just to parks.  Yes, I started the day at Burke-Gilman Playground Park, and spent some time at Ravenna Park, both with restrooms open but Ravenna Park's - well, the term the parks people use is "lower" - its lower water fountain remained shut off.  I have to tell you, though, Ravenna Park's upper water fountain, the one that's running, tastes really metallic, and from the very pretty deposits in the lower fountain's bowls, I expect the same.

Anyway, though, I then went downtown.  I had several reasons, but one was to find water fountains that - brace yourself, dear Diary, this'll be hard to believe - aren't in parks.

See, once upon a time Seattle actually had water fountains on certain sidewalks, just as if it were a normal city.  They were concentrated downtown; here are three examples:

Those are, respectively, at 5th and Westlake, at Westlake Park on 4th between Pike and Pine, and at 3rd and Union.  But the water fountains weren't just downtown.  Here are a couple more:

These are at 14th and Madison and on Broadway just north of Olive Way.  Notice something different about that last one?  Yep, it's the only one of these which I know to be running.

Time was, back in Greg Nickels's and Mike McGinn's mayoralties, that these fountains did something else unusual:  they ran all year.  At least when they weren't clogged or damaged.  But even then, they eventually got fixed.  I think this continued throughout Ed Murray's mayoralty too, but what I'm sure of is that things have been different since Jenny Durkan became mayor.

Now, I haven't shown you all of them [1], and it could be I've missed more that are running.  But even so, one out of five is a poor start.  We've already seen how few water fountains are running in the parks; now this?  Does Mayor Durkan have something against drinking water?

Well, I should hope she would.

For starters, water is explosive.  Seriously:  just expose it to some sodium and blam!  A girl in my high school lost an eye to a prank gone wrong.  Well, Seattle is in a seismically active area, with several active volcanos nearby.  I suspect the reason so many park water fountains aren't running yet is that sodium seeps are breaking out all over our parks, and the area's top geologists are working round the clock to get them under control.  We should applaud them, and give our esteemed mayor a break. [2]

This explanation won't work for the street fountains, though, that don't have any soil around for the sodium to seep through.  For those, I'd like to point out two other considerations.

First, water is addictive.  Terrifyingly so.  A vast number of Seattleites are water addicts.  And you know what, dear Diary?  All water addicts die, some horribly.  I applaud our mayor for daring to stand against this beloved scourge.

Second, remember when I mentioned "damaged" fountains?  These fountains were subjected to astonishing levels of vandalism.  You can see that in the tapless fountain at 5th and Westlake, and in this one from 30th and the Burke-Gilman Trail, although I'm not sure it's properly a street as opposed to a park fountain:

(Yes, I like taking pictures of that one.  And that pedestal it's on is typical of the street fountains.)

Also, though it looks fine now, for quite some time the fountain at 14th and Madison had no tap.

Well, if we persist in trying to have nice things despite vandals' attacks, doesn't that mean the vandals have won?  Or at least the Visigoths, or the terriers, or somebody.  I mean, I think it's wonderful that we finally have a mayor who's man enough to stop throwing good money after bad.  I mean, bottom line:

We, the people of Seattle, have shown that we aren't good enough to have street water fountains.  And we should be ashamed of ourselves for wanting them.

I'm worried about that new tap at 14th and Madison.  It may be a sign that our resolute mayor is weakening in her resolve.  Don't do it, Mayor Durkan!  Stand firm against the awesome might of the nefarious water lobby, and know that all right-minded citizens stand with you!

[1] - One reason this comes so late is that I spent hours looking for one on University Way, which is where I remembered the U-District's fountain as being.  Either I remembered wrong (rather likely) or it's been torn down.  Fortunately I didn't go looking for ones I vaguely remember in Ballard and on Rainier in Columbia City.  Since with these additions my list covers every Seattle neighbourhood I've spent much time in, I expect there are also fountains in places I'm less familiar with.

[2] - To be fair, another obvious reason for the park water fountains (and restrooms) to be opening late is that we've had a freakishly cold spring.  As a homeless man, I assiduously track low temperatures, and these were getting down into the 30s F quite often through April 13.