Six Hikes in Brooklyn, part VI: Southeast

Dear Diary,

I'm sorry it's so late.  I've been reading UW's planning documents and lost track of time.

This part concerns the hikes of December 22nd, 2020 (except for Fritz Hedges Waterway Park, my photos of which from that date already appeared in "Canalwards, Foolish Mortal", January 2021); October 8th, 2022 (Fritz Hedges and Sakuma Viewpoint only); and October 29th (the other two only).

Anyway, here's the map:

I took the opportunity to make a few corrections.

Let's get started!

Sakuma Viewpoint (W on map)

I already introduced this place in "Street Ends: North Union and Portage Bays" in December 2020, but even though I already had a lot more photos of it by then, restrained myself to the three appropriate to that series.  So five of the photos in this part are of Sakuma Viewpoint as of 23 months ago.

Sakuma Viewpoint is in a tangled ownership state.  In my oldest map of UW, dated October 2017, the one I used in making all these hikes, it's coloured in as part of West Campus.  But when I visited the Husky Union Building for the buildings of UW project, I found two more recent maps, one from September 2019, and one from February 2021 (inside a Visitors Guide 2022).  And neither of those shows Sakuma Viewpoint coloured in as part of any campus.  The current UW Seattle Campus Master Plan (327-page PDF), however, on page 27, which lists property owned by others within the campus, notes that only the part of Sakuma Viewpoint which is also the Brooklyn Ave NE Street End is not owned by the UW (because of the 1990s land grab which the street end program basically is).

Anyway, Sakuma Viewpoint is one of the nicest campus parks.  It and Olympic Vista (which is not one of the nicest campus parks) are the only West Campus parks the master plan commits the UW to preserving (page 41; and it reserves the right to make Olympic Vista better).  So that December I took lots of photos.  If Sakuma Viewpoint were all Brooklyn Street End, it would be hands-down the best street end in North Seattle, but since I don't know where the property lines are, I simply left it out of candidacy for that honour.

First of all, I should give credit where it's due to Agua Verde Café next door.  In December 2020, lockdowns still everywhere, I found this sign:

Unfortunately, my jubilation at finding this out was immediately tempered by another sign:

I don't remember now when I first found the current "No Public Restrooms" sign; that part of campus was never a high priority for me.

Anyway, here are my December 2020 photos of, and, since it is a viewpoint, from Sakuma Viewpoint:

At the time I was under the misapprehension that Fritz Hedges Waterway Park, next door, didn't have wooden benches, so I was very pleased to find so many at this place.  It also has great views; of course, so does Fritz Hedges, but (given that I rarely visit that park either, when I do visit) often other people have beaten me to the places those views can be seen from.

Also, because for years I used UW's restrooms, and had just found a set theoretically open to me even during the lockdowns, I was prepared to forgive Sakuma Viewpoint not having any; but I already knew by then that the City of Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation had been urged to include restrooms in Fritz Hedges Waterway Park and had refused.  (Which made the hike of December 22, 2020 rather painful, eventually.)

On October 8, knowing I had all these, and finding the place fairly crowded, I settled for a single achievable landscape:

Isn't it weird, dear Diary, how much greener Seattle is in late December than in early October?

Fritz Hedges Waterway Park (X on map)

Knowing that I'd already shown you, dear Diary, lots of photos of this bona fide Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation park, I settled for one this time too:

No, correction, two:  I also photographed the parking lot this park so urgently needed even though it didn't need any restrooms:

Fishery Sciences Courtyard (Y on map)

What got me started reading planning documents today was that I was looking for a reference in one of them to this courtyard for an official name.  But in the master plan Final Environmental Impact Statement, Volume 1 (819-page PDF), page 230, it only refers to it loosely and under a name that doesn't sound right:  "the Aquatic and Fishery Sciences courtyard".  That's not what that building's signage calls it.  So I used this name.

Open Street Map calls it "Tikvah's Garden", and thereon hangs a tale.  Tikvah Weiner, 1978-2013, was dying of cancer when she enunciated a wish to see a garden established, from which students in her department (Environmental Studies) and other departments could learn.  She wanted this garden to be built north of John M. Wallace Hall, where she'd worked.  After her death, somewhere along the way the project was moved to the larger space of the courtyard under discussion here.

Money was raised for it, and in 2017 a request for funds was made to the Campus Sustainability Fund, which awarded about half the amount requested and reports to the world that the project is in "post-implementation phase".  Indeed, in September 2017 Weiner's department announced it themselves, with lots of photos.

Here are my photos from December 2020:

Notice those weirdly curved benches on the paved area.  I've been reluctant to sit on them, but I sure think they look neat.  They turn out to be the work of students in the Department of Landscape Architecture.

That's Fishery Sciences, specifically the seductive series of eight doors on its southern east wall, in the background.

Here I'm looking east toward parking lot W35.  This must be the planted part of Tikvah's Garden.

And here I'm looking a bit north of east, toward Fishery Sciences' southern end, at what remained of the original lawn.  I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't have considered this courtyard a park at all without the work done on the garden.

Now, the public part of the courtyard is boxed in between three things.  In 2021, the Haring Center, in the South Campus, got a big donation to enable renovations.  This matters because the building basically houses a school largely (though not entirely) for disabled kids, but parts of it weren't ADA-compliant.  So the school's staff were ecstatic about the prospect of renovations, but had to move the school out while the work is done.

So parking lot W35 now holds a bunch of large sheds or small buildings which currently house the school.  A large planted area just west of parking lot W35 is fenced off with orange netting to protect several trees and one very long log.  And the paved area is fenced off with a real fence to hold the playground equipment.  What's left is a paved path from one end to the other, with a grassy area where those cool-looking benches now are on one side of it, and something like an incipient jungle on the other.  There's a gravel path through the growth, but I found that thorny sticks had fallen partway over it, so I couldn't pass unscathed.

I thought I'd found the tree I'd originally photographed:

Those hoardings are from the school; I think that tree is now surrounded by the playground.  What I'm less clear on is how I could've seen W35 from east of this tree.  Anyway, here's the would-be jungle:

And here's my best guess as to what's become of the lawn I photographed two years ago:

So I don't know much about Tikvah's Garden, but I've told you, dear Diary, everything I can currently figure out about the Fishery Sciences courtyard, which isn't much either.  Except what I'm saving for tomorrow's part of both this page and the buildings one.

The Burke-Gilman Trail (Z on map)

In counting Brooklyn's parks, I neglected the fact that this concerns two different areas.  Each is a big grassy sward adjacent to the trail, and each has picnic tables and benches.  I'm only using my photos from December 2020 here; the only change worth mentioning is poorly illustrated by my October photos.

The bigger one (mapped as Z2) is between University Way and Brooklyn Ave:

It has three of those picnic tables; I think that photo shows all of them (two very small).  The smaller is between Brooklyn and (on the north only) Cowlitz Road.  It has one picnic table and one bench.

This one is right next to the Brooklyn Trail Building, where the Center for Child and Family Well-Being used to be.  So I always figured it was more or less the back yard for the kids to play in, and tried to limit my use of that bench.

Unfortunately, this one is now going to seed.  In each of my visits to this area the past couple of months, I've found the same discarded items just lying there.  I don't know whether this is because UW (which owns the Burke-Gilman on campus, as I've already told you, dear Diary) is short of grounds keepers, or because the School Psychology Clinic now in the Center's former home doesn't get visits from kids who need the space any more, or what exactly.

So that's another sad ending, dear Diary.  I'll have to see whether I can contrive a happy one for tomorrow's page.  Until then, a good night and a good day.