Dear Diary,
Whew! Just one more page, and I can go back to telling you about October 11 and 12, and then October 16 and 17.
This page is actually sort of about those dates too, as well as about October 9 and 10. Because I saw a picnic shelter discussed in this page on each of those pairs of dates: I slept in Carkeek Park's shelter 2 between the 9th and 10th, and in one of Golden Gardens Park's between the 16th and 17th, and visited Maple Leaf Reservoir Park's rentable shelter both the 11th and 12th. (It isn't at all a good place to sleep, plus I was harassed both dates.) It's worth remembering that each of those nights was rainy; I had to plan those hikes around shelters.
Carkeek Park
Carkeek Park has two shelters, but unlike Magnuson or Woodland Parks, or to anticipate a bit Golden Gardens or Maple Leaf Reservoir Parks, the two at Carkeek Park have very little in common.
I had rushed to Carkeek Park from way across town at Mineral Springs Park. Of course I wanted to check on Carkeek's water fountains, and I had to take pictures at the Blue Ridge parks on Carkeek's other side. But I also expected rain, and wanted a shelter roof over my head very much. When I saw what I'd be getting, I couldn't believe my luck.
The luck held, too. Soon after my arrival, a loud crowd of kids - high school or college, I thought - started trickling in. Apparently they'd planned to have a party in that building, but when they found me there, they gamely went on to shelter 1:
and didn't even reconsider their generosity when a torrential rain hammered their party and got them to flee.
Particularly relevant to this set of pages' focus, shelter 1 shelters no tables at all, shelter 2 (which is indeed the WPA project it looks like) three. This is, of course, reflected in their daily rates at Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation: $120 for #1, higher for #2 - but frankly, the latter is a preposterous steal at just $195. Just compare their rain resistance - shelter 1:
versus shelter 2:
The problem, of course, is location. Carkeek Park's shelters are on the park's main, upper, level, not on its beach; those at Golden Gardens, and the beach one at Magnuson, Parks are all level with their beaches. Separately, location is also the problem for homeless habitation. It's years of hard travel - well, anyway an hour or two, largely on gravel - to the QFC on Holman Road. You could only live in shelter 2 if you had a partner you could trust to protect your stuff, every time you went for supplies. At least there's a working water fountain, but for how long? (Neither shelter's sink was on; I'll spare you the photos I took of them.) Oh, and, of course, the ultimate 21st century deal-breaker: no electricity. So no, I won't be abandoning my doorway for Carkeek Park's palace in the sky.
I suppose what stories I have of Maple Leaf Reservoir, or of Golden Gardens, Parks belong not here but in the stories of the hikes themselves. (I will end the suspense right now on one count though: the young woman quoted in part I has not become the partner I'd need to live at Carkeek Park.)
Maple Leaf Reservoir Park
The rentable shelter is on the upper level of this two-tiered park. It is overwhelmingly made of metal. Seems to me all the parks in this page are even more unlikely to be in the path of a homeless wanderer seeking a seat than Woodland Park's shelter 7. But at Maple Leaf, that wanderer would only find metal seats anyhow. It's $210 per day.
This shelter does have electricity, though.
There's another shelter on the lower level, also all-metal. It's still too small to rent out; maybe in a decade or so it'll have grown big enough.
Meadowbrook Playfield
I only noticed this shelter out of sentimentality. When I was testing the nearby water fountain on October 12, I noticed some kids sitting there. At first I just envied them the shade they had, but then it penetrated my thick skull that they were playing D&D, or something similar, just like my friends and I at their age. Anyway, they left before I did, so I took a picture of another non-rentable shelter.
With, sigh, metal seats.
Golden Gardens Park
As mentioned above, these shelters are practically on the beach. So of course they partake of the beach ethos, that rain does not exist, and neither is really designed as shelter at all, so much as shade. (They're basically identical, including in price, each $120 per day.)
I survived because each does have a table, shoved against its other amenities at the dryest place in the "shelter". I bumped my cart up against the table and sat myself and my satchels on it too.
Well, as shelters at Magnuson and Maple Leaf Reservoir Parks and Meadowbrook Playfield have shown, not all park picnic shelters are listed in the rental list. There are also other kinds of shelter with seating in some parks. In particular, if seeking such, be sure to try the baseball fields' bullpens. But I trust this is enough to show that the parks can't single-handedly provide the sheltered seating homeless people will want this winter. I hope this winter won't be standing room only for me, but it will be for too many of us.
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