Dear Diary,
This page gets us from Webster Point at the tip of Laurelhurst all the way to University Bridge. Most of the photos were taken October 14, but two actually go back to October 13, the day whose first hikes I described not long ago in "The End of the Tour". As I said in that page, after visiting Froula Playground I headed to Wallingford. My main purpose there was to take photos of street ends.
In the introduction to this series I noted that legally, the land claimed by the city as street ends is what the city says it is. That is, the underlying law includes a map, not a theory.
But on October 13 certainly, and I think also October 14, I didn't yet know that. On October 13 I was still trying to make the theory work. The theory holds that the street end is the land between the end of the street and the shoreline. Enough of the street ends fit this theory to make it obvious that the theory had a part in the creation of the map, so it's easy to fall into thinking that the theory is decisive, but it isn't.
On October 13, I was still trying to make reality fit the theory. By October 14, I'd decided to humour the city, to play along with the pretense that the existing street ends matched the theory. Only later, I think, did I learn that the theory really didn't matter.
NE 31st St Street End
This is the western of the two street ends held to be justified by the one block of NE 31st St. Aren't peninsulas wonderful?
Photo 1 - The street that ends
Photo 2 - The land the city appears to claim
Photo 3 - A view over the water
NE 32nd St Street End
Dear Diary, you may have qualms about this project - about the way I photographed the area someone on NE 90th Place probably pays a lot of money to keep private, and pointed out the street sign that identifies the similarly probably-paid-for NE 85th St street end. But at NE 32nd St even I reached my limit.
Because NE 32nd St doesn't exist. There is no street sign this time. What there is, is a driveway, paved in blacktop, that has somehow been represented to mapmakers as a street. The city would have to produce copies of the checks that paid for that blacktop before I'd believe it was public property.
So find it yourself, if you wish - it's easy enough; Google Maps is among the bamboozled - but I took no photos.
Brooklyn Ave NE Street End
Dear Diary, if anyone reading this page attended the UW and spent much time in the southwest of campus, when I say that this street end is where Brooklyn ends at NE Boat St, they may be scratching their heads and saying, "Wait a minute, Brooklyn and Boat, hang on..."
Sakuma Viewpoint
Brooklyn widens at its end, so if the theory controlled, much, but not quite all, of this university open space would be included. The city simplifies matters; its GIS map of street ends explicitly identifies the street end with Sakuma Viewpoint. But the city says nothing louder about its belief that it owns this land.
My belief is that the university and the city made a deal, whose terms included the university's donation of 3.6 acres next door that just opened as Fritz Hedges Waterway Park.
Seems to me it's simple courtesy - and I trust nobody reading you, dear Diary, would wish to be discourteous - to treat Sakuma Viewpoint as one would any university property, even if it may not quite be that. And university open space is public anyway; I'm writing in you, dear Diary, from such a space right now. So let's get on with the photos and move on.
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3
At this point on October 14 I went on to take photos of just-opened Fritz Hedges, which I showed you, dear Diary, a few days later, though not before getting scooped.
It was already kind of late, but I pressed on to four more street ends. Flipside, though, Sakuma Viewpoint and Fritz Hedges had been my last, no photos, stops the previous evening. So for the next three street ends, including the last one on this page, I can use photos from both October 14 and 13, although the latter were taken under my first, defective, ideas about how to illustrate street ends.
Eastlake Ave NE (University Bridge) Street End
As long as I clung to the theory, the bridge street ends - three of them in North Seattle - gave me conniptions. The whole point of a bridge is that it's a street that doesn't end at the waterline. I think the city already owns the land under the bridges anyway, so this whole thing is pretty much an accounting manoeuvre, but it doesn't make much purist sense.
This tempted me to flights of fantasy, and as it happens, there is a street that ends short of the water right where this street end actually is. So ....
Eastlake Place NE Street End ?
Photo 1
Photo 2
This street end is the one the city means, east of the bridge, but there's another shore access west of the bridge, which I photographed the night before:
This one may be private, or at least claimed by a private company.
Photo 3
A night view, from the night before:
And that's it for this page. The next one returns us to "Lake Union's North Shore". Until then, dear Diary.
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