Bad Apples in the Bonny Green Wood

Dear Diary,

This is a page I've put off writing for months now, partly because in it I have to show my fellow homeless behaving terribly.  But I've already had occasion to mention relevant facts, and it's time to get it all said.  There are, however, four parks between where I left off, in "South of North Once More, Part II" on October 8, and the scene of the crimes.

This page and the next two focus mostly on parks I haven't previously told you about, dear Diary.  They represent hikes I originally took June 25 and 26, and repeated October 9 and 10, because the photos I took the first time were lost when my phone was stolen in mid-July.  I was, oddly, able to retake most of the same photos, plus a few more, this time.

To begin with, a park not Parks', which I didn't see last time, having taken a different route.  The Phinney Neighborhood Association has a small park next to its office near Phinney Ave N and N 67th St.  The part that was empty, so I could photograph it, was, of course, the chess tables.

Sandel Playground

When I first saw this park between 1st and 2nd Avenues NW and NW 90th and 92nd Streets - the only Greenwood park in "NW" - I had just come from the quiet and not very friendly parks of Crown Hill, and I was astonished by what I found:  a park full of people.  I'd forgotten what community looked like.  On the nights of June 24 and October 8 I slept in it, grateful that it did empty out after dark, and the mornings, especially in October, were quieter.  But anyway, trying to explain what I'd seen, of course I didn't inquire about local housing or organisations.  Nope, all that community could only result from the park's own landscape.  The first time, I took a rather precious picture of a minor detail of that landscape which I liked, rather like this:

But the second time the park was empty enough I could take a more typical picture of its landscape:

In June, it was pretty obvious that a water fountain had been removed; a Parks employee confirmed that the removal had been in April.  I took a photo of the removal site and a nearby basketball court that actually looks like a basketball court.

As you can see, times change:  the water fountain came back, and was running.  The men's room, both times, had no doors and no dryer.

After getting food at the Fred Meyer that is what enables all other food sources in Greenwood to be posh and expensive, and that is also in "NW", a few mostly Healthy Streets-closed blocks from Sandel, which is why this page gives all direction markers in addresses -  Anyway, from Fred Meyer I went on each time to

Alice Ball Park

The first time, I spent much of June 25 writing the "History and Parks" pages that have introduced such an amazing number of people to the Ballard parks.  (Well, an amazingly low number, anyhow.)  I did this at the Greenwood branch of the library.

Alice Ball Park is a smallish park opened in 2019 across a notional N 81st St from the library on Greenwood Ave N.  It's where I ate several times June 25, and breakfast October 9.  But I wasn't grateful enough to find any "neat stuff", which is what I still then thought any non-utilitarian photos I showed you, dear Diary, had to be.

But then I read a book about women in STEM that had a chapter on Alice Ball.  Apparently she was a black nurse, trained in Seattle, who more or less single-handedly solved the problems that made the only drug for treating leprosy in her day ineffective.  So I started to feel guilty about how I'd treated her park.

Anyway, as we just saw, I've become more comfortable with showing you landscape photos, so here, dear Diary, is one:

The park is usually more crowded than that.

Greenwood Park

This park is officially at Fremont Ave N and N 89th St, but I usually enter it from the equivalent latitude of Evanston Ave N.  It answers a mystery that had been with me since my first visit to Little Brook Park in Lake City ("Top of the City, Part I").  That park has a single, hopelessly privacy-compromised restroom.  But surely even such bad restrooms are sold in packs of two; so where was the other?

Greenwood Park, that's where.  On my first visit the door could at least be latched, but on my second, a lock was so placed as to prevent that, just as at Little Brook.  Also, the restroom is in a somewhat more open part of the park, so someone trying to use the ventilation holes to peep would be more noticeable.  But it looks like parks planners of some past date or other just thought women had no business being in far northern Seattle parks.

The freestanding water fountain near the restroom wasn't working June 25 but ran fine October 9.  The restroom, besides having a very dubious door, has no dryer.

I like the park otherwise, so the only photos I took each time were of "neat stuff".  There are big signs presenting the park's history, one in terms of transportation to Greenwood, the other about the site's Japanese former owners:

(Each is accompanied by another sign giving a broader context.)

And there's another proper basketball court, with backboards behind the backboards which, punctured in constellation patterns, and also scrawled in graffiti, really appealed to me June 25, so I took the photos again, but am not now sure why:

The park is nearly done with a small expansion.

Licton Springs Park

is just east of northeast of Greenwood Park, a couple of blocks west of North Seattle College.  It is mostly wetlands:

In the eastern non-wetland area I saw a few picnic tables in June; I didn't circle the park in October.  The western part includes the restrooms and a playground whose pavement and related decorations captivated me at first glance:

However, "Hopscotch Lane", which presents itself as the whole thing though it isn't present in the area shown above, turned out simple when in October I could concentrate on it.

The reason I couldn't concentrate on Hopscotch Lane in June is that in Licton Springs Park, alone of the parks of North Seattle, I found homeless campers hogging the plumbing.

They had one of a dozen or so working water fountains in North Seattle this spring, and this is what they did with it.  And while that was enough to convince me to hike to Target north of Northgate for water that night, they'd taken other measures to deter anyone else from using public property:

The first time I visited, I arrived right around 7 P.M., so I could only hope the locked restroom doors represented parks staff treating these folks as they deserved.  As I left, I noticed the campers speaking of me with fear, as if I were an official, and beginning small, ineffectual clean-up efforts.  In the morning I was amazed to find that some innocent parks staffer actually had waded through all the junk and unlocked the restroom doors.  I left thinking that their future probably included either a social worker signing them up for trash removal, or a phalanx of twenty armed police sweeping them, and while I didn't quite wish a sweep on these losers, I sure wouldn't have objected to one.

As it turns out, their future included neither of those things.  All it took was for the Parks people finally to get fed up with cleaning the restrooms of people with no conception of cleanliness.  In September they got permission to close this seasonal restroom early for the winter:

And away the campers went.

Leaving behind only one, apparently unoccupied, tent:

and not much of their other trash:

except around the water fountains and men's room, where it still was, as shown above, October 9, perhaps as an object lesson.

Not that the campers needed any more sins to their names, but remember that map way up there?  These folks were camping mostly north and northeast of the restrooms - in wetlands.

I think I've seen traces of the diaspora of slobs.  Already in Woodland Park signs of strain, in the cooperation of campers and parks staff over trash, had included a small number of tents obviously not with the program, junk scattered around them.

It was a great relief, both times, to go on to

Mineral Springs Park

This is a four-acre triangle of land between N 105th St, N Northgate Way, and a row of houses more or less where they'd be if Wallingford Ave N had continued north.  Under the name "North Seattle Park", it languished more or less ignored until a crew of disc golfers decided it perfectly met their needs, bringing all their paraphernalia, in the 1990s.  This got the attention of community groups, and by about 2000, two competing visions existed, eventually to become two competing maps:

In a pleasant surprise, the second map, the disc golfers', is much nearer reality today:  Virtue Actually Victorious.  A work of art, Cloud Stones by Stacy Levy, does grace land on both sides of the north-south route between park entrances:

Within the course, the logic of the game has worked with a bit of romanticism to create something neat at the park's remaining corner:

On one side of a thin wall, the traffic of Northgate Way races by; on the other, if you've the guts for it, you can be snug in your nook.  It's perhaps the strangest place in the parks of Greenwood.

A Quick Cal Anderson Park Update

Dear Diary,

Three days ago, I went to Capitol Hill to change sleeping bags and otherwise prepare for the changed weather.  I had several errands to run that didn't happen, which left time for a quick visit to Cal Anderson Park.  Most of the trash I photographed on my last visit was gone; although it remained unusually messy for a Seattle park

it was no longer exponentially the worst I'd seen.

That said, it remains true that Cal Anderson Park is not a park.  I still have not heard an explanation for the closure (of which I saw no sign of enforcement, as usual), and the actual closures of restrooms and water fountain, except the original one of "cleaning and repairs".  I can't believe people on Capitol Hill aren't up in arms about this.  Four months of "cleaning and repairs" do not produce this:

So the supposed closure still is not for its supposed reason, and presumably will never end.  Which wouldn't matter, I suppose, except that it continues to deny running water to those outdoors on Capitol Hill.

Fritz Hedges Waterway Park

Dear Diary,

Last week, I went on a tour of the places the city of Seattle claims as "street ends" in North Seattle.  I still have three to tackle, so won't be telling you more about them tonight, but anyway, I wanted to present them through a more or less consistent and comprehensible approach to photographs.  And it so happens that one of them, arguably the city's most audacious claim in North Seattle, is right next to the new park.  So having gotten there October 13 too late to take pictures - and seen FHWP all fenced in as always - it probably took me less than an hour, on my return the next day, to notice that the fences were down.

So I took some more photos.

Here's the actual waterway, that is, setup for launching and landing boats.

This is just a view along the length of the park.

Unfortunately, as in the expanded Christie Park, all the furniture is metal.  But at least in this park, unlike Christie, it's all painted my favourite colour.

Here I tried an action shot, with a bit more success than usual for me.  Yes, of course the local Canada geese have investigated and adopted the new place.

The beach.

The park's pier.

A view from that pier.

More poorly photographed birds.

There is neither a water fountain nor a restroom I can find.

Next to the waterway is a small parking lot.  No sign says who it's for, but it looks like it's meant for the park.

I found a 2015 article about the planning of this park:

Planning A New Portage Bay Park in the University District by Stephen Fesler for The Urbanist.

It says that in public meetings there was consensus for public restrooms, but not for a parking lot.  It's good to know that the planners were more foresighted than that.  After all, we humans won't always have bodies, but surely we'll always have automobiles.

We've Been Scooped!

Dear Diary,

Isn't it wonderful?  Yippee!  Yahoo!  Both parks and hygiene are now cool enough again in Seattle to get covered by major media!  In the same week!  It's like winning the lottery!

That Sink in the Alley Is Supposed to Be There by Nathalie Graham for The Stranger, October 16

Seattle Opens New Waterfront Park on Portage Bay in 'Spectacular Spot' Where Police Station Once Stood by Daniel Beekman for The Seattle Times, October 17

I haven't seen a "Seattle Street Sink" yet, but did, purely by chance, visit the new park on its first day open last week, so, dear Diary, I hope you're as comforted as I am that we aren't alone now, and I'll get on with putting my ideas about, and pictures of, the new park into you soon.

Still-Foolish Mortal

Dear Diary,

Recently I had occasions to re-read you twice.  And each time I found it really frustrating that my plans allowed neither time nor proper recordkeeping to fix all the mistakes and just plain typos I had disgraced you by writing into you.  So today, dear Diary, I hope to make you a little better.  And this page assembles information about the changes in one place.

May 1 - "The Curious Incident of the Light in the Night-Time" - Inserted pointer to the later page that corrected my errant memory of stall doors at the men's room at lower Ravenna Park.

May 6 - "Go North, Aging Man!" - Mainly corrected my never-true claim that a water fountain was inset into the beach restroom building at Magnuson Park.  Also added some info on the Thornton Creek Natural Areas and on Froula Playground.

May 12 - "Ravennawards" - Fixed the first actual typo I noticed this time, and clarified references to "Thornton Creek Natural Area" and to "Olga Park".

June 7 - "Ravenna Boulevard" - Fixed a typo.

June 8 - "A Shower at Green Lake" - Fixed two typos, corrected my claim that maps of Green Lake Park don't include the golf course, and corrected my claim that there's no water fountain in the northwest of the block the Woodland Park Zoo is on.

June 10 - "Hours and Doors" - Added Green Lake Park's temporary opening time.

June 25 - "History and Parks, part II" - Fixed a typo.

September 6 - "Cal Anderson Park Is Not a Park" - Corrected my claim that the basketball courts there lack hoops to what I meant to say, that they lacked nets.  EDIT 10/25 Except that, as it turned out on a later visit, they do lack hoops, so I probably didn't mean nets.  Re-corrected.  Sigh.

October 4 - "Christie Park, Expanded, at Sunset" - Corrected my misspelling of Rachel Schulkin's name.

October 8 - "Lake Union's North Shore" - Clarified two antecedents.  Corrected falsehoods I'd written related to the Sunnyside Avenue N Boat Ramp.

October 8 - "South of North Once More, Part I" - Added to descriptions of restrooms at Wallingford Playfield and the Green Lake Small Craft Center.

Whew, dear Diary.  Now I'm ready to go make more mistakes, wouldn't you say?

WINTER HAS COME

Dear Diary,

During my travels in the past month, I've found the following park restrooms closed by day:

Magnuson Park - Restrooms near the 74th St entrance

University Playground

Green Lake Park - Community Center

Green Lake Park - Bathhouse Theater

Woodland Park - Leo Lassen (cloverleaf) Fields

Licton Springs Park

Bitter Lake Playfield

Northacres Park and Playfield - playfield side, men's room only

Jackson Park - cafe

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park

Matthews Beach - both sets

Ross Park

Gilman - well, I previously called it by its official name Playground, but it's actually pretty obviously a Playfield

Now, these were closed for a wide variety of reasons.  In particular, the Green Lake Community Center and Jackson Park cafe don't open at daybreak this time of year, so neither do their restrooms.  At Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, the opening was late but not (I assume) exceptional, and if it hadn't been for a harasser and an overfull bladder, I would have kept waiting.  My point in this page is not to complain about specific rooms, but to point out that a picture very like this is coming.

And perhaps quite soon.  I've mentioned before to you, dear Diary, that I assiduously track low temperatures.  I also, though not quite as dedicatedly, track forecast low temperatures.  As of about an hour ago, the National Weather Service predicted the following lows for Wednesday through Sunday nights:  40, 41, 39, 36, 36°F.  The other forecast I follow is the one The Seattle Times posts online, and its predictions for those days are 39, 42, 40, 34, 33°F.

Of the above, only Maple Leaf Reservoir Park and one pair from Matthews Beach were definitely supposed to be kept open last winter.  (I'm not sure about the Green Lake and Woodland Parks examples.)  So nobody reading this should panic.  Just be prepared.

High Technology

Dear Diary,

Last night I slept in a park in Greenwood.  I slept badly, for several reasons.  One was that I thought I'd lost six sheets of paper.

I carry every piece of paper I still have that's related to you, dear Diary, but I can't be paging through them all every time I visit a park, so while hiking I have a smaller set handier, and that's what I thought I'd lost the top half of.  Well, the bench I slept on was very dark, so before I scoured the park in the morning, I looked again in the other half of the park papers and there they all were.

But it got me to thinking that you might be interested, dear Diary, to see some of what you're made of.  The only notes for you that I've kept on the phone I write you on were for "My Book of Hours"; everything else is paper.  This is, of course, how I can today resume a hike I previously took with my old phone.

1) The page above, my itinerary, is on top when I'm stationary.  (On its back is a list of spoiler.)

2-3) Next come my notes, often on top when I'm hiking, "Parks and Photos".  This was last night and still is two sheets of paper.

4) Next my original itinerary for the hike I'm resuming.  It's much stained thanks to a leaky coleslaw container months ago, which is why most of the remaining pages are new and improved.

5) Then "Parks and Photos" for two of the three days' hiking I'm resuming.  (It was very rainy the third day, and only one of the parks I visited has plumbing, so I didn't take notes.)  That page is less stained.

6) Finally, a page listing North Seattle parks with water fountains, and clunkily some relevant info.

These are the six sheets I thought were scattered all over the park last night.  The rest, that were where they were supposed to be, are backup for these.

7-13) Three lists.  One lists Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation parks in North Seattle in three sheets; the third also lists some North Seattle parks not Parks' and some parks elsewhere in Seattle.  This list includes addresses, and, where I know them, areas.  The second lists, on one sheet, the pages of which you, dear Diary, were made as of a few days ago.  And the third lists parks again, correlating them with your pages.  It's three sheets of its own, plus it swiped part of the first list's third sheet. These lists are what I made when I realised it had cooled off enough to go hiking, and why I'll be doing most of the hike in the rain.  Oops.

14) A stained sheet listing North Seattle street ends, with a much more recently written list of North Seattle waterways on the back.  I still hope to have the fortitude to get the "NE" street ends done on this hike.

And the packet ends with a few blank sheets.

What's that, dear Diary?  You think this is a bait and switch?  Personally, I think it's very much a high tech world when a poor man like me has access to both high quality paper and high quality ink pens.  But I suppose you might consider other tools without which I couldn't do these hikes more obviously high tech, such as these two gifts:

My cart:

And the battery with which I charge my phone:

And now I'd better start hiking.  I don't know, dear Diary, when I can next write in you.  Happy days until then.

South of North Once More, Part II: Woodland Park

Dear Diary,

Woodland Park consists of two blocks, which Seattle's real estate people call "Woodland Park Zoo" and "Lower Woodland Park".

The Zoo block is more than half zoo and zoo parking, but in the block's southeast is a rose garden, and in the northwest a playground and greensward; there are a few smaller pieces.  The official zoo map covers the whole block.

The Lower block has seven athletic fields on its east side.  The rest of the block, probably the larger half, is the titular woodlands, with a variety of things (tennis and lawn bowling, for example) scattered among them.  There are official maps of this block's southwest and northwest, but not of the athletic fields.  The reason this matters to me - aside from my having once been a geography major - is that two pairs of restrooms and three water fountains are among them.

They also demonstrate very well something I'd suspected based on my travels among parks in general:  the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation is a site of structural sportism.  The contrast between the parks' cavalier treatment of basketball and their privileging of baseball suggests a racial element too, but in Woodland Park baseball is vaunted over soccer instead.

I don't have a clue how to draw a map on my phone, but I can anyway document the easy part, the fields' north-south extent.

• 1.  Mariners All-Star Field.  A baseball diamond starting a house or two south of 51st and reaching 52nd Streets.
• Citywide Athletics Building.  An office with restrooms, nestled into the northeast of the diamond's area.
• 2.  Playfield #2.  Everything about this field, from 52nd to 54th Streets, shouts "Soccer!", but it doesn't even have a name.
• 3. - 6.  Leo Lassen Fields.  Four smaller diamonds, from 54th to well north of 55th Streets.  A building including restrooms is attached to the southwestern diamond's (field 6's) home plate structure.  Access through a wide path continuing Clogston Way.
• 7.  Playfield #7.  Although this has similar goalposts and markings to #2, it's also surrounded by a track, whose users are warned to beware flying lacrosse balls.  From the northern edges of fields 4 and 5 to West Green Lake Way.

OK, so the plumbing.

Freestanding water fountain behind the first-base-side dugout at Mariners All-Star Field - UNUSABLY DAMAGED (as first reported June 8 in "A Shower at Green Lake", which did a fairly bad job of introducing this park, but does link to the maps)

Freestanding water fountain behind the 3rd-base-side dugout at Mariners All-Star Field - UNUSABLY DAMAGED, very similar to the above (first reported same place)

Restrooms in the Citywide Athletics Building, found open at 6:10 P.M. yesterday and at 10:37 A.M. today, with neither door nor dryer in the men's room.

Restrooms in the 5427 Green Lake Way N building attached to field 6 found closed at 6:23 P.M. yesterday and at 10:47 A.M. today.  From both doors emerges a sound which, last night, I interpreted as hosing down; but now I doubt these will re-open before spring.

Water fountain attached to this building - ON (previously reported as only trickling)

If you climb West Green Lake Way to a currently locked gate, and turn to climb that way, you eventually reach a third pair of restrooms.  All the woodland restrooms are well west of the athletic ones.  All were open past 7 P.M. last night, and I now wonder whether they're currently open all night too.  Hypothesise a deal offered by Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation - trade Green Lake Park for Woodland.  I'd have to be crazy to accept if it meant trading 24-hour restrooms for ones rarely open 12 hours.

Anyway, the men's room at the top of the hill has doors and a dryer.

Water fountains attached to this building - NOT RUNNING (as previously reported)

North of there, restrooms very near the lawn bowling.  No doors nor dryer in the men's room.  There were lawn bowlers there last night, so now I can tell you, dear Diary:

Freestanding water fountain behind a lawn bowling fence - NOT RUNNING (previously reported unknown)

But also:

Freestanding water fountain next to Shelter #6 - ON (not previously reported)

There is a path, partly gravel, south to the remaining restrooms from the hilltop, but it's actually better approached from 50th St.  The southwestern men's room has an old-fashioned dryer but no doors.

Freestanding water fountain outside this restroom - UNUSABLY DAMAGED

Freestanding water fountain on the path that continues Woodland Park Avenue - UNUSABLY DAMAGED

I reported these in June as not running, but not as damaged. Since I did, then, not only mention but photograph the damaged water fountains near Mariners All-Star Field, I suspect the damage to these two fountains is new, but can't prove it.

Finally, one I missed in June, the fountain I thought there should be in the northwestern zoo block, near the playground.

Freestanding water fountain near Phinney Ave and 59th St - UNUSABLY DAMAGED

Yes, these last two are the same make.

On second thought, if only two water fountains are on in all of Lower Woodland Park, I'd have to be crazy to leave Green Lake's profusion anyway.

My experience has been that water fountains are much likelier to be vandalised when not running.  I have no idea how many years we'll be paying for the mistaken belief that metal objects outdoors were good vectors for COVID-19.

Good night, dear Diary.

South of North Once More, Part I

Dear Diary,

As I told you last night, I was reconsidering the long hike I'd begun.  Today when I woke it had already rained without my noticing, and I decided it was silly to panic, so here I am at the Greenwood branch library.  This page tells you about water fountains, restrooms and other things that are probably not going to change any more before the shutdowns of next month.  Its scope is from Gas Works to Green Lake Parks, or in other words the parks of North Seattle whose addresses use "N" rather than "NE" or "NW" in their addresses and are south of 80th St:  the South of North.

Gas Works Park

Introduced June 9 in "At the Centre of the Universe, Does Gas Work?" and in more detail, with photos, June 21 in "Past Work and Gas Works".  Its men's room lacks doors and a dryer; I believe its women's room has doors but also lacks a dryer.  The restrooms have been publicly announced as open 24 hours.  I found one toilet seat in the men's room broken.  The restrooms are open year-round.

Water fountain attached to the restroom building - NOT RUNNING (as I first reported in the June 9 page).  If it were turned on now, it would be off again in a month or so anyhow.

B. F. Day Playground

Introduced in the same June 9 page.

Freestanding water fountain near the playground - ON (I'd reported in the June 9 page that it only offered a teaspoon or so).

That playground gave me considerable cognitive dissonance.  It was the first I'd encountered officially reopened:

but the Fremont Avenue entrance was still locked:

and a big sign promises improvements to the playground, to be completed next month, and unlike a similar issue with Gas Works Park, we know perfectly well where the money went - it got eaten by a virus.

Wallingford Playfield

Introduced in that same June 9 page.  I've never really noticed this park, found anything distinctive about it; my notes say its restrooms were open and the men's room "seemed OK".  (EDIT 10/19 - It has a stall door and a dryer.)  The restrooms are open year-round.

Freestanding water fountain in the playground - UNUSABLY DAMAGED (previously reported just as off)

Notice parts missing from the tap piled in the bowl.  They aren't all there.

Street water fountain in front of the Wallingford QFC - ON (as previously reported in that same June 9 page, and what a relief; I washed and filled my bottles there)

Meridian Playground

Introduced June 8 in "A Shower at Green Lake" with several photos and even videos.  Restrooms open; men's room lacks doors but does have a dryer.  These restrooms will probably close next month.

Water fountain attached to the restroom building - UNUSABLY DAMAGED (as previously reported)

This time I thought a photo from above might be clearer.

I also thought about how I probably hadn't really conveyed how much I like this park, so I took a random landscape photo from the picnic table where I ate my main meal of the day and planned that silly trip to the waterways.

Green Lake Park

Introduced in the same June 8 page, with one photo (a map mentioned below).

I actually started work on Woodland Park first, dear Diary, but most of that work and most of the photos are from today.  Technically that's also true of Green Lake Park, but much earlier in the day.

See, after leaving Woodland Park yesterday evening at 50th Street, I hiked all the way north to the Green Lake library to write in you about the silly trip to the waterways.  This took me past a wonderful spot where construction is blocking the sidewalks on both sides of the street.  Isn't full employment grand?

Anyway, finishing that page so late, I figured I was perfectly placed to settle something I'd been wondering about:  are Green Lake's restrooms 24 hours?  (In the earliest articles listed in the April 26 page "Credits, Tardily", Green Lake was repeatedly mentioned as a site with 24 hour facilities, but it wasn't clear whether restrooms or "sanicans" were meant.)  Well, I found three of the five open on a trip between 1 and 3 A.M., which suggests to me that the answer may be a qualified "Yes, some are open 24 hours."  (Even though the park, normally itself open 24 hours, is currently officially closed from 8 P.M. to 4:30 A.M.)

I haven't found any water fountains away from the restrooms, which are all near the loop path, so here goes:

Community Center restrooms (northeast; year round) closed both around 1 and around 8 A.M.  Unsurprising, since they're staffed.

Freestanding water fountain nearby - ON (previously reported off)

North restrooms (possibly year round) open both times.  The men's room has a dryer but no doors.

Water fountains attached to the restroom building - ON (previously reported off)

Freestanding water fountain nearby (previously reported off) - not seen this time, probably just because I missed it.

Bathhouse Theater restrooms (officially only open for the theatre's summer season, but listed as year round, which is why I'm qualifying those statements; northwest) closed both times.  These are buildings attached to the main theatre, women to the left, men to the right, and if you go around, there are doors to "lockers" in the back of each restroom building.

Freestanding double water fountain in front of the men's restroom - ON (previously reported off)

Water fountains attached to the women's building near the locker door - ON, though the flow in the higher is low (previously missed)

I'd been surprised at how few of my peers I saw during the night hike, and on finding a parks employee here during the morning hike asked him what had happened.  He replied "Lower Woodland".  I did see five tents, most between this stop and the next, but not any of the shell-shocked-looking wanderers who'd stuck in my mind from the previous visit.

Small Craft Center restrooms (south; possibly year round) open both times.  The men's room has a dryer, doors, and an electrical outlet; it even (EDIT 10/19) has coathooks both within and outside the stalls.

Water fountain attached to the restroom building - ON (as previously reported)

Water fountain attached to the adjacent office building - ON (as previously reported)

I drank the last bottle of street fountain water there and again washed and filled all three.  I like this place because it offered water when too many other places didn't, so chose these restrooms for the night photos to back up my claim that they were open:

Southeast restrooms (possibly year round) open both times.  The men's room has a dryer and a door.  I've never found a water fountain in this area, though there may be one.

On June 8 I accused both maps I'd seen of omitting the golf course.  Today I photographed the newer map:

which actually clearly shows it at the south end.  The older map (photo in the June 8 post) shows the same southern edge but doesn't mention a golf site.

Part II, to follow shortly, is all Woodland Park, because I did a terrible job of explaining where things are there in June.  Until then, dear Diary!