Hike 6C: Far Northeast

Dear Diary,

This is a short page about two parks that I introduced to you much earlier than the previous page's parks.  It also features my first surprise from not reading the map carefully beforehand (and, may I add, from not expecting the worst).  All photographs were taken on January 14.

Northacres Park and Playfield

This large-ish park on the western border of northeast Seattle first appeared in you, dear Diary, May 28 in "Top of the City" part II.  Most of the photos I've shown you appeared November 12 in "To a Land of Water and Honey".  And I've mentioned the park many other times, which brings me to the surprise.

Northacres has two entrances with very different features.  The "playfield" entrance on 3rd Ave NE leads to two big things, baseball fields and to a dogs' off-leash area.  The "park" entrance on 1st Ave NE leads to a playground, picnic area, and miscellaneous other stuff that isn't so big.  Between the two is a woods strewn with trails.  Each of the two has a restroom building; two water fountains are attached to the park building, while one is either attached to or free-standing very very close to the playfield building.

And the reason I called a previous page "To a Land of Water and Honey", as well as mentioned Northacres a bunch more times, is that I'd been told by an employee of the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation that Northacres Park's park-side water fountains would stay on all winter.  Jackson Park, in the same general area, is the only other park where I was told that.

So imagine my surprise to find these on the doors of Northacres's park-side restrooms:

Now, the building these restrooms are in does look kind of old:

but with that old building's shiny new single-user all-gender stalls closed, would the building's water fountains be running?  They would not.

Now, here's the thing.  Northacres Park's park-side water fountains are so made that one has to press the button to call the water for some seconds before the water comes.  I was told that this was so as to make those water fountains safe to run in the winter.  Cal Anderson Park's shiny new main water fountain has the same property, so I assumed it was another winter-safe fountain.  In January I found neither of these running.

I asked Rachel Schulkin, the parks department's communications manager, whether any parks elsewhere in Seattle had such water fountains that actually were running this winter.  This question led to confusion over terminology, and finally to a statement that according to the department's plumber, the department owns no water fountains that can safely run in winter.

This has several implications - for example, does that mean that the water fountains in Jackson Park that run in winter aren't department property?  But I want to focus on one:  Why did the department saddle Northacres and Cal Anderson Parks with water fountains that have an annoying wait built into them if that wait does nothing useful?

The department can't win this one.  Either it has white elephant water fountains, one new last summer, or it has an incompetent plumber, or it has deliberately denied the homeless of Seattle (and the rest of the public) water this winter.  Which is it?

Anyway, I would have been less surprised, though not less outraged, if I'd looked carefully at the restroom map for this winter which I was hiking to check, which clearly said then, and says as of just now, that the open restroom is at "NORTHACRES PARK PF".  PF is, of course, department-speak for "playfield", and while most readers of the map probably don't know that, I did.  Sure enough:

At the playfield side, the restrooms were open.  (Much to my relief by that point.  That day I'd hiked through the parks of Greenwood and the far north, and then found the first restrooms I'd expected to be open, closed.)

The restroom building (not a spring chicken either, and Ms. Schulkin, while we were confusing each other with terminological differences, said it would have to close in real cold):

And this side has a "sanican":

Pinehurst Playground

For this park, see the same November page as for Northacres, but it was introduced in "Top of the City" part I on May 28.

I'd mentioned a messy encampment in "To a Land of Water and Honey".  By January this encampment had grown, though the mess hadn't kept pace.  This mildly surprised me, because this park has a self-defense system which I'd encountered just resting there.  I think it's centred on a local church, but anyway, in my experience a visibly homeless person can't spend an hour there without being offered help.  In October I saw a minister interacting with the then few campers.

So anyway, one of the few attractions the park itself, as opposed to the helpers, might have for the homeless is this:

You may recall, dear Diary, that in "How to Lie to the Homeless", part I, February 18, I noted that there isn't room here for the ADA "sanican" the map still claims is there.  That fence is what I meant.

Well, from Pinehurst I headed, um, home, or anyway to University Village and points nearby.  I'd been away for five days, and although I went three days later, January 17, on yet another attempt to sort out the hours of Green Lake and Woodland Parks' restrooms, I otherwise stayed put until the 19th, five days later.  Which I hope to tell you about tomorrow, dear Diary.