Christie Park, Expanded, at Sunset

Dear Diary,

As I mentioned two pages ago, I've finally gotten in to Christie Park.  This is because, a few days after I speculated that the park's re-opening was delayed until our excellent mayor could preside over a big ceremony, it was re-opened, presumably without any such thing.  In other words, no, I didn't pull any strings.  Actually, Rachel Schulkin, communications manager for the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, has had me on her e-mail list at least since August, but she didn't send the official announcement, someone else did.  So I was as surprised to find it open on October 1, three weeks after that announcement, as you, dear Diary, no doubt were to read about its water fountain yesterday.

ANYWAY, as long as I was there, I figured I should take some pictures.  So here they are.

There is a ping-pong table, obviously; the orange thing in the background behind it is a fancy fitness machine.

And yes, that's a fence around the central lawn.  Probably to protect recently planted grass.

Most of the planting is, as here, spare, rather than the lush crowding usual in parks' planted areas.  Between this and the ping-pong, it's easy to imagine an Oriental connection, and a structure at the entrance thanks the government of Taiwan.  However, most of the people who got in the way of my photos were white.

Little did I know, when on my last visit I speculated that the park was still waiting for wooden benches, that in fact all the furniture would be metal.

Between this and the fence, I get the distinct sense that this park is the exact opposite of Ballard Commons, is a park designed to repel homeless people, an impression a 2014 UW Daily article seems to support.  We'll see.

The boats, said to be modelled on those used by a Taiwanese native culture, are by Paul Sorey.  I thought the lines under them were survivals from the pre-expansion park, but apparently not, so maybe they're by Sorey too.  I know nothing about the decorations on the concrete walls, which I think unlikely to be the same artist's work.

Probably the park's biggest attraction for homeless people is something I only noticed because I saw students already using it.  It's lit at night by six fixtures such as the one shown above.  Each of those fixtures has near its base an outlet, possibly suitable (depending on the shape of your charger's transformer) for cell phone charging.  And the use I saw was before the fixture lit, so yes, those outlets have power by day.

The fixtures light up at night one by one, at unpredictable intervals, a bit of art with time.