The Wounded Land

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I went to my storage, and had some time left on my transfer, so I went to see what had happened in Cal Anderson Park.  What I found was a more complete victory for the city, as I called one side in the recent disputes, than I'd anticipated.  In particular, I didn't see a single tent.

Yet I'm pretty sure the city would agree that the land they retook is wounded.  They would point to the muddy slope near the entrance at 11th Ave and E Olive St - never in good shape, but rarely in as bad shape as I saw it - at the two still closed restroom stalls, at the graffiti they erase daily.

The side I chose, whom I called the kids, would probably point to the lives disrupted, the arrests about which I'm ashamed to have heard so little, and such details as the still vindictively, wastefully shut off winterised water fountain.

Most people's sense that something isn't right seems to be focused on two perfectly inoffensive ping-pong tables:

Against this, playing devil's advocate, I'll note that the city has managed one thing I'd have expected the kids to be able to handle, but they never did:

They've also done amazingly fast carpentry.  This shelterhouse is done with its days as shelter:

I chose, however, to focus on the same two things I focused on before the climax, signage and plumbing.

I saw one thing I can just about convince myself I'd forgotten seeing before:

But elsewhere, even in a concession to the kids' sentiments, the style is completely different - even here, where it's pointless, the city wants its emblems to look mass reproducible:

Oh, stupid me - that's a banner, isn't it, dear Diary, not paint at all, and certainly mass produced.  Oh dear.

Anyway, let's re-start at the beginning:

Having struggled for months with how to communicate a long, pointless official park closure without a fence, the city now feels the need to shout even though nobody else is raising a voice.

It also feels the need to plead for support, as if its victory were rickety, though it looks solid to me.  It makes offerings to us homeless, the ostensible focus of the recent fight:

and to the solid citizens whose support for the city both sides assumed:

but it can't escape the style it knows, the resource list, the community comment line.  I have no idea whether the people who craft these can even imagine a heart singing.

And, of course, it earnestly wants everyone to dare to believe that Cal Anderson Park is and will remain a park, again and for always.  No more arbitrary closures, no more dangerously silly fortifications, and above all no more of my kind.  So it's mass-produced Cal Anderson Park-specific signs stating standard park don'ts:

and do's:

Well, one thing all these signs help with is distraction from the plumbing, which seems harder than carpentry.

Here's the one success story:

The Post-Its warn that the lock is broken, so would-be entrants should sing out, as at Little Brook and Greenwood Parks.  I chose not to enter.

It turns out there are two other stalls, not one as I'd thought and based my previous photography on; sorry, dear Diary.  This one has no door handle:

and this one I found locked:

I'm afraid, dear Diary, I've already shown you what I thought the restroom building's best side, its back where the BLM banner hangs, the above door beneath.

Now we come to the water fountain.  Seattle south of the canal is a much bigger place than North Seattle, with about three times as many parks; there must be more of these winterised fountains than at Northacres and Cal Anderson Parks, but there can hardly be many.  Of course private companies have long since mastered ways to keep water fountains running through Seattle winters, as witness Jackson Park, the street fountains if one can find any running, in memory or reality, and for that matter University Village, whence most of my water since the shutdown of Burke-Gilman Playground Park's fountain in June.  But the city parks seem to need the reassurance of a winterised fountain to keep one on through the winter, and this one is off.

No video this time.  Instead observe the dry ground under the fountain.  It wouldn't be that dry if the thing were on.

My investigations of the plumbing got the attention of two young men, apparently employees of Parks and Recreation.  I'd heard that the park would be staffed by social service personnel; maybe they were at lunch.  These guys were abject failures as Homeless Repulsion Systems.  One informed me solemnly that the water fountain was shut off to stop COVID, but it turned out he didn't believe it himself, and had asked his bosses to fix the thing.  We communed a little over this.  But then a conversation spilled over about Miller Park, where, apparently, they had gone, they with their tents whom all good citizens loathe.  Maybe these guys were better homeless repellents than they seemed; at any rate, I turned to go.

Construction had blocked the sidewalks both on Nagle Place and on the east side of Broadway, and I grumbled, but both the destinations I was considering were on the west side of Broadway anyhow.  I ignored Dick's to go first to the street water fountain on Broadway E just north of Olive Way.

The recent discussions in Washington of stimulus payments have of course reminded me of the bread and circuses with which Roman rulers pacified their citizens.  But the Romans also understood true necessity; our word "salary" comes from theirs for "salt".  And they built acqueducts and fountains to get water to their people.

I did not go back to Dick's.  I did not spend any of my stimulus payment in my old neighbourhood, on Capitol Hill.  Instead I shook the dust of that place from off my feet, again, and went to the train, where, of course, my transfer had expired.

Good night, dear Diary.