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.