Three Hikes in Ravenna, part III: Southeast

Dear Diary,

Hello again.  This time we're back to just three hikes - Saturday, October 8; Wednesday, October 12; and Sunday, October 16.

Map:

 

On October 12, I went to properties listed in the City of Seattle's real property report for 2020.  (I prefer that because a bunch of properties of interest to me have been left out of later reports; it seems to have to do with the extent to which the city owns rather than leases the property.  The 2022 report has new problems, such that it's pretty nearly useless to me.  Sometime when it's raining too hard to go hiking, I should look at the now ten reports available online and do a detailed comparison.)

Ravenna P-Patch (A on map)

This P-patch is actually adjacent to a stairway, equivalent to 52nd St, which I've mentioned to you before, dear Diary, and even shown you a photo or two of, if I remember correctly.  Here's a photo meant to be of the P-patch, but I seem to have gotten rather too much of the stairway into it; if I can rely on my memory, this will have been because at least one person was gardening in the P-patch at the time.  Anyway, the photo:

Ravenna Woods (B on map)

This is an actual Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation park, but I don't think I've had much to tell you about it, dear Diary, because I experience it mostly as a dead end.  However, it turns out the park ends way north of where I thought it did, and most of my travel there has been on private property.  Anyway, I found an actual way to escape it this time, an obviously unofficial stairway adjacent to a building.  But I didn't want to risk that sleep and unsteady path a second time, when I finally thought of something to photograph.  Of course, here's an ordinary landscape, showing how much of this park is really its gravel trail:

But the first time I told you about this park, dear Diary, I mentioned some kids I thought homeless, who'd been cooking in front of a shed.  I'm pretty sure I found the shed, and I'm pretty sure, looking back, that it's actually on private property, which puts those kids' activity into a much more questionable light.  But anyway, here's a photo that includes part of the shed.

The Burke-Gilman Trail (C on map)

Something big has changed, at the Burke-Gilman Trail and NE 47th St.  A new apartment building decided to supply a new exit from the trail, a much more impressive thing than most exits:

There's also new signage:

including a feature I'll have a lot more to say about when I get back to downtown.  And finally, there's a new water fountain there.  I don't know if the money came from the building's developer or owner, but the fountain appears to me to be on park property, and is a design Seattle's parks department uses a lot:

Anyway, that's it for this page of my hike on October 8.

On October 12, I was mainly doing other things, but did photograph the whole of this next park.

17th Ave NE Center Strip

After the two boring photos I showed you in the previous part of this page, it dawned on me that I'd better change how I photographed the rest of the boulevard (which is what this is, just a fairly boring boulevard).  So here goes.  On the block from 55th to 52nd streets, I first tried an angle shot:

Then I found what I think is the first furniture put on this boulevard so far this academic year.  In "Ravenna Boulevard", I'd mentioned that as the clearest way of distinguishing between the blocks of this boulevard.

What I meant was furniture at least potentially useful to people visiting the boulevard islands, but since mentioning it in that page, I've walked 17th Ave many more times, and found other kinds of furniture also abandoned there.

Next, I figured since this tree on the island from 52nd to 50th was the best thing about that block, I should photograph it:

Over the last two blocks, the boulevard deteriorates, no doubt because it's more walked on, so I went back to conventional shots.  50th to 47th:

And 47th to 45th:

University Presbyterian Church (D on map)

On the 16th I visited things I'd noticed on Open Street Map while making earlier drafts of the maps I've been showing you, dear Diary.  This church is where I was sent by, I think, a staffer at another church, during one of the UW's snow closures.  At least at that time, it was allowing people to stay inside only a limited time, I think a quarter or half hour, I think so people sheltering there wouldn't too badly outnumber the staff.  On the 16th, I'd arrived much too late for their regular posted hours:

So I settled for trying for a postcard shot of the building:

Thanks, guys!

Another stairway park (E on map)

Fraternity Row infrastructure isn't exactly my idea of Ravenna, but actually, this parklet is just a block from Ravenna Woods.  Around the stairway, it's really overgrown:

But further south it flattens out, and there it's grassy:

All for tonight, dear Diary.  My landlord has started showing the room next door to me, so I probably can't keep writing so late much longer.  Tomorrow, I hope to write "Four Hikes in University Heights", and the page about the UW and visitors to its buildings.  A good night and day until then, dear Diary.