Another Hike along Lake Union and the Fremont Cut

Dear Diary,

There are lots of places to tell you about in this page, and lots of photos to show you, and I think the ground rules are by now pretty clear, so let's get started, shall we?  This page includes the only bona fide park I found by doing this in the first region I hiked.

This page's predecessor is "While Strolling in the Parks One Day", part II.

EDIT 5/11:  Map (the new bona fide park is "C"):

Sunnyside Ave N Boat Ramp

Despite its omission from the 2021 real property report, this park, which is the one I forgot to visit last Saturday, is still there:

and still has a "sanican", presumably for the benefit not only of boaters but also of the vehicle campers still parked nearby:

Harbor Patrol and Shop

This is ostentatiously not open to the public, and also neither parklike nor photogenic, so I took no photos, but it would be silly not to mention it at all.

It's sort of within the western side of Gas Works Park, whose restrooms were still open and whose water fountain was still not running.

North Transfer Station

and its Playground

When I lived in an SRO, as a "hotel" it didn't have to comply with city trash rules, so it didn't.  I therefore trudged to the North Transfer Station fairly regularly to get rid of my recycling.  Then I became homeless; although recycling while I stayed on Capitol Hill and downtown was a bit of a challenge, once I lived at the University I saw no reason to go anywhere else to dispose of my trash.  Moreover, the station was closed from 2014 to 2016 for a complete rebuild.  So I hadn't come back since it re-opened, and it looks like a lot of other people haven't come back either.  I'd found Meridian Playground and Gilman Playfield both crowded both days, but didn't see another human being the entire time I toured this one.

Yes, really, there's now an actual playground at the North Transfer Station.  If approached from the south, the label "playground" might be a bit confusing, because while there are nice wooden benches:

and a proper half-court for basketball:

all there is for "play" equipment is these space-age-ish structures obviously for grown-ups:

(notice the instruction panel in the background).

It turns out that the playground proper is across N 35th St, between Carr Place N and Woodlawn Ave N:

and at 2:17 P.M. on a Wednesday, there were no children there.

Clearly something has gone wrong with this playground's publicity, but there may be another factor.  Wallingford Playfield has restrooms open all year.  Meridian Playground's are open anyway about seven months of the year.  This one?  In principle it has restrooms, in the building:

but we all know what happened to those:

Anyway.  There is also public art, by Jean Shin, using materials from the old building:

The business side of the site is apparently open to the public again after all, but that wasn't what the sign said:

I did glimpse an employee running to her car here.  Anyway, I figured if I wasn't welcome I should leave, and did so, but first took a picture of the promised "sanican", which would be in the left background if it were visible in the photo above:

3500 Interlake Ave N

This site across 35th from the station has a big fence around it, so I didn't take any pictures, but one of the signs on the fence explains that what's being built there is a tunnel for storage of storm water overflows.

The Burke-Gilman Trail

There's a "sanican" a little way south of where the trail intersects Stone Way N.  It evidently isn't city-funded, or they would've claimed credit for it in the map I hiked to check in January, but it's only locked so as to keep it from being locked, see:

 

Land under Fremont Bridge

I'm not actually sure this rather large site, with the notional address of 3101 Fremont Ave N, is actually in Fremont as opposed to Queen Anne, but if it is in Fremont, it's a parking lot.

Lake WA Ship Canal Tower 2

This is infrastructure, and has nothing to do with restrooms or homeless people, but it's very public, very photogenic, and in a park.  Everyone who traverses this part of the Burke-Gilman Trail passes under it.  So here's a photo:

Whew.  One more "another" hike, and after that most hikes will include both parks and other city stuff.  Until later, dear Diary.