Park Restrooms in North Seattle: Some Maps

Dear Diary,

Well, the restrooms went faster than the fountains, because there are only 46 sites of park restrooms in this area, not 78.  So here I am, writing in you earlier than in ages.  Are you excited?

Here's my base map.  With about 5/9 as many dots, it isn't as pretty, but do you like it, anyway?

 

And of course, that's an ideal unlikely to be reached, just as my base water fountain map is.  So let's go again by my hikes.

Spring 2020

The first time many people, including yours truly, really cared about park restrooms.  The default colour is blue, and in this season the only other colour is red; I figure it's worth paying attention to all closed park restrooms if one actually does have a reason to care about them.

Notice all that red down in the bottom of the map?  That's more or less why you exist, dear Diary.  Park by park:

• Cowen Park's restrooms were being ignored at this time.  Later on, in early summer, work must have been done, because the rooms re-opened in late summer.
  
• I removed Green Lake's theatre restrooms from the map, because I didn't visit them during normal park restroom open hours (7 A.M. to 7 P.M.), so don't know for sure they were closed during those hours, though they probably were. 
• I only counted, throughout this series, the driving range restrooms at Jackson Park, because the others' doors open to the inside, and it isn't fair to make Jackson Park look better than other parks just because its buildings were open.  Speaking of which...
  
• Magnuson Park's Brig restrooms are only supposed to open in summer, and I didn't hike last summer.  Of course it's impossible by natural law to open restrooms out of season even when circumstances change drastically enough to make it a good idea, so just pretend that red isn't there.  I will be interested to see if they open this summer.
  
• Magnuson Park's "tower" restrooms have been closed since a fire in 2016, are shut off by a fence, and have disturbing water processes visible.  But they're closed park restrooms in North Seattle, so they're red on these maps.
• Matthews Beach has "shower" restrooms that are only supposed to open in summer.  See above.
• Ravenna Park's "upper" restrooms opened last spring, but only after the date of the page I counted for this purpose.
  
• Salmon Bay Park's restrooms weren't supposed to be closed, but were when I got to them.  The same was actually true on these hikes of Northacres Park's western (playground-side) restrooms, but I went to Northacres again so it got a do-over, which Salmon Bay didn't.  In both these cases I called the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, which led to really fast service at Northacres and much slower at Salmon Bay.
  
• University Playground's restrooms were closed all last year, and are probably closed now, though I don't know.  I've heard it's because of damage to them and I've heard it's to keep homeless people from camping in them - both those from parks maintenance workers.  University Playground was, last winter, treated uniquely (at least in North Seattle) by the makers of a map concerned with park restrooms; I have some fear that this means the parks department has decided it doesn't actually have a restroom building at that park, just a building waiting to be torn down.

Autumn 2020

This was sort of a reconstruction, but not really.  During these hikes I was trying to loosen up about photos, and I was looking at water fountains and shelters, and I didn't even bother half the time to mention when restrooms were open, dear Diary.  But it isn't really a reconstruction because I had not only my memory to rely on, but also a summing up in your page "WINTER HAS COME", and they matched.

The map:

I removed the upper (off-leash area) restrooms at Golden Gardens Park, and those at Soundview Playfield, from this map, because I didn't look at either between 7 A.M. and 7 P.M.  I expect both were open the relevant days, but don't know for sure.

The red list, not counting carry-overs from the previous list:

• Gilman Playground, closed for no reason I ever heard back from Rachel Schulkin, Communications Manager for the parks department, about.  For all I know this was the beginning of those restrooms' winter closure, or it may just have been a one-day thing.
  
• Green Lake Park, both the Community Center and the theatre restrooms.  I visited Green Lake Park that time at both 1 A.M. and 8 A.M., and it's possible that the Community Center, especially, opened later than that, but I don't know that.  Both pairs of restrooms later opened for the winter, the Community Center's unreliably.
  
• Licton Springs Park, closed early for the winter to get rid of the messiest campers I've ever encountered.
• Maple Leaf Reservoir Park's restrooms hadn't opened by 7:35 A.M., when my own need and a harasser's attentions drove me away.  Despite my recent experiences at that park, I figure they were probably opened sometime that day, and maybe even at 7:40 A.M.  They were open when I visited in January.
  
• Matthews Beach, non-shower restrooms:  One was boarded up, and still was when I last visited in early April.
• Northacres Park, playfield restrooms.  The men's room was closed early for the winter, the sign mentioning vandalism; the women's room wasn't.  As things turned out, the men's room re-opened for the winter.
  
• Ross Park, closed, according to Ms. Schulkin, because the restroom opener that day screwed up.  (Well, I doubt that was her wording.)
  
• Woodland Park, cloverleaf restrooms.  Both restrooms were producing alarming water noises.  They re-opened for the winter.
  

Winter 2021

The January hikes, of course, focused on restrooms, so this was easy to map.  I have a lot more to say about this map, so for this page have just produced a version like the others, that shows all open restrooms in blue and all closed ones in red.  Slightly more are red, so this time I'm itemising the blue list.

The map:

The blue list:

• Carkeek Park, which was open 24 hours.
• Dahl Playfield.
  
• Gas Works Park, which was open 24 hours.
  
• Golden Gardens Park, both pairs of restrooms.
• Green Lake Park, all five pairs, but the Community Center's were unreliable and sometimes horrifying.  Two pairs (not including the Community Center's) were normally open 24 hours.
• Laurelhurst Community Center.
• Magnuson Park, beach restrooms.
• Maple Leaf Reservoir Park.
• Northacres Park, playfield side.
• Ravenna Park, lower restrooms.
• View Ridge Playfield, which was open 24 hours.
  
• Wallingford Playfield.
• Woodland Park, four pairs, all but the Citywide Athletic Building's.  Two pairs were usually open 24 hours.
  

Spring 2021 - what I know so far

So far I've visited eighteen restroom sites, which sounds more impressive than saying I've visited ten of the parks with restrooms.  As with the water fountains, I've prepared a map showing what I know from this month's hikes:

 The red list so far:

• Gilman Playground, posted as closed due to vandalism.
• Green Lake Community Center, women's room only closed when I visited, but anyone's guess what it's like today.
• Little Brook Park, probably not yet opened for the year.
  
• Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, probably actually open today but not on my two visits so far.
• Woodland Park, Citywide Athletics Building restrooms, still posted as closed due to vandalism.

In the previous page, I expressed skepticism that vandalism really caused that many water fountain shutdowns, as against, on the one hand, metal theft, and on the other, factors not reasonably attributable to the public, such as wear and tear, policy decisions, and so forth.  However, vandalism is certainly a significant factor in park restroom shutdowns, and the amazing thing is that except in winter, so few do shut down.

I started you, dear Diary, when I made a discovery at Magnuson Park that I wouldn't have made if the person responsible for opening the restrooms at Burke-Gilman Playground Park had actually done so last April 22.  On a day to day basis, it was awful to live in the general area of the University of Washington's Seattle campus and have to rely on park restrooms, and once University Village's restrooms re-opened, I tried pretty hard not to rely on the parks'.  So what amazed me as I hiked around North Seattle, and amazed me again making these maps, is how few park restrooms in other parts of North Seattle I found just randomly closed.  Salmon Bay; Northacres; Maple Leaf; Ross; Golden Gardens upper; a scattering in Green Land Parks; maybe Gilman.  That's the whole set.  As against, um, Cowen, Upper Ravenna, Lower Ravenna, and Burke-Gilman Playground Park, many times each, in my old neighbourhood.  I wonder if the parks people were under the delusion that some restrooms were open to the public on the University campus at the height of the pandemic.  That's a subject for a later page, but the short answer is, that what few were, were inconvenient to most people on campus, around the periphery, unknown to most people on campus, and not open even as long as park restrooms were.

Anyway, this page has gotten long enough, and I should start work on the next.  Until then, dear Diary.