Six Hikes in Brooklyn, part I: Northwest

Dear Diary,

I have to thank the University Heights building's current owners for making me aware of Brooklyn, King County, Washington, a place much less documented than such contemporary villages I've previously mentioned as Ross and Latona.  Apparently the building was originally the school for Brooklyn village, which became part of Seattle in 1891 (not the 1881 the linked page claims).  However, according to Baist's Real Estate Atlas of Surveys of 1905, specifically plate 17, University Heights was an actual neighbourhood north of Brooklyn.  So I've decided to treat everything south of 45th St as Brooklyn, and everything north of it as University Heights.  None of this has anything to do with the place in Pacific County now known as Brooklyn.

The UW Libraries hosts a colourful, but not always comprehensible, account of the early years of the area.  In fact, much of the area thus defined as Brooklyn is now owned, and a somewhat different much of it is now used, by the University of Washington, but in the area this particular part covers, from I-5 to Roosevelt Way NE and from NE 42nd to 45th streets, there are only a few such buildings (two owned and used:  UW Medical Center Roosevelt; one not owned but not used:  Jack Straw Cultural Center; edit November 4th).  There are just as many open, more or less park-like, spaces, that is, three.  A map you'll see six times before we're done, dear Diary, this time coded for this part:

The six hikes were December 22nd, 2020, and five this month:  October 8th, 16th, 23rd, 25th and 29th.  Of those six, this part features photos from October 8th, 16th and 23rd.

A note on the buildings

As I've mentioned already today, the maps I've been using in talking about the parks between I-5 and 25th Ave NE, and between the water and NE 65th St, show university buildings as open to the public (bright blue) if it's literally possible for a random person to walk from the street into them.  For the buildings in this area, this criterion isn't misleading:  it's not only possible but acceptable to walk into the UWMC Roosevelt buildings (but NB state law still requires masks there), and it isn't possible, most of the time, to walk into Jack Straw, though I gather events sometimes change that.  (EDIT November 4th:  It isn't possible unless one pushes the button marked "Press button for entry".  Then it depends on who's there.)   That said, anyone looking for a public restroom in that neighbourhood should try the northern UWMC building, not the southern.

Or ideally wait.  I don't understand at all the idea, quite prevalent in the U-District, that public restrooms should be found in medical buildings, of all places.  Seems to me public restrooms are by definition dirty, and medical buildings by aspiration clean, and never the twain ought meet.  And it isn't that far from this area to public restrooms in less fraught places.  But someone who's really desperate in northwestern "Brooklyn" should probably head to that northern UWMC building.

Christie Park (A on map)

On October 8, I went here and took three photos meant to show that two water fountain bowls both worked, and one photo of the grassy area in the middle of the park, no longer fenced off:

On October 14, the water fountain was still running, and since drinking water hasn't been my problem on subsequent hikes of this area, I haven't been back.

East of I-5, area 8 (B on map)

The land east of I-5, south of the 45th St exit, and north of 42nd St, is all fenced off.  I think in some cases it's people's back yards, but only at the dead ends of 43rd St and of Pasadena Place can a passerby really look at any of it.  I took this photo October 16th at 43rd:

East of I-5, area 9 (C on map)

This is much like area 4 in University Heights:  south of a major road between an exit and the freeway, accessible thanks to tampering with the fence, but little inhabited, and mostly full of overgrown grass.  There are two major differences.  This time, instead of just opening a gate, a substantial part of the fence is torn down.  And this time, there's construction work of some kind going on at the north end of the area, visibly in an area where homeless people had been, with a different kind of fence around it.

More grassy, uneven land with occasional trees:

The fence:

(The orange netting visible in that photo is the fence around the construction area.)

Where the fence has been torn down:

The end the fence used to have, some feet back from the "Pedestrians prohibited" sign; I took care each time I visited to climb between the fence end and that sign.  This is the only photo in this part from October 23.

A note on other buildings

Between 42nd (further north than in the area this part is mostly about) and 45th, and between Roosevelt and 15th Ave, UW has, by one way of counting, thirteen buildings.  Maybe that unlucky number is why only one offers public restrooms, the UW Book Store.

All for now, dear Diary.  One more part is entirely about land the UW doesn't own; two are about a mix of UW- and non-UW-owned parks; and two are entirely about UW-owned parks.  I probably won't be writing any more parts tonight, so a happy night or nights, and however many days, until we meet again.