Updated maps

Dear Diary,

Congratulations!  Thanks to my recent loquacity, this is your 200th page.  Did you ever expect to get so big?

This morning I did a bunch of work on the base maps of water fountains and of restrooms.  For water fountains:

• I added the fountains I recently found at Bitter Lake Playfield and Carkeek and Green Lake Parks.
• I added, using black dots instead of blue ones, the fountains at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks.
• I put the western fountain on the Burke-Gilman Trail back where it belonged.

For restrooms, I just added those at the Locks, again using black dots.

I corrected the location of the western Burke-Gilman Trail fountain on the old maps.

And I made maps representing what I now know on the basis of hikes in May.  I think I probably can finish visiting North Seattle's park water fountains and restrooms by the end of the month; all that's left is most of "NE".

I'm beginning to draw moderately disturbing conclusions about the basis on which water fountains have been turned on or restrooms have been closed, but would like to do two things before voicing these so far tentative thoughts:  hike "NE", and see if anyone else, on the basis of the recent pages and these maps, jumps to similar conclusions and comments or e-mails me.

Anyway.  Maps.

Here's the water fountain state of affairs:

The dominant colour is white, thirty-four fountain locations shut off but not obviously damaged.  Next is red, eleven fountain locations nobody could drink at:

• Bitter Lake Playfield, playfield-side fountain:  Spout removed from one of two bowls, which I assume makes it problematic to turn the water on.
• Baker Park on Crown Hill:  Fountain never installed.
• Loyal Heights Playfield, playground-side fountain:  Fountain, previously damaged but running last October (unfortunately I didn't show you a photo, dear Diary, so I'm not sure now what the damage was), now removed from construction site.
• Green Lake Park, street-side fountain:  Controls entirely removed.
• Woodland Park, northwest fountain:  Everything that projects above the bowl removed.
  
• Burke-Gilman Trail, western fountain:  Fountain, previously eviscerated by metal thieves, removed.
• Woodland Park, two fountains near the "50th St" restrooms:  Everything that projects above the bowl removed.
• Woodland Park, two fountains near Field #1:  Eviscerated by metal thieves.
• Meridian Playground:  Everything removed except the frame by metal thieves.

Finally, blue, ten fountain locations actually running:

• Jackson Park
• Bitter Lake Playfield, playground-side fountain
• Virgil Flaim Park
• Pinehurst Playground
• Licton Springs Park
• Crown Hill Park
• Greenwood Park
• Ballard Commons
• Gilman Playground
• Sunset Place

Also black, the four fountain locations now known to me at the locks, all running.

Here's the restroom map, much better though not perfect:

The dominant colour is blue, for twenty-four restroom locations that have been open every time between 7 A.M. and 7 P.M. that I've recently visited them.  Five, closed as far as I know, are in red:

• Little Brook Park, visited twice
• Licton Springs Park, visited once
• Ballard Community Center, visited once
• Gilman Playground, visited several times
• Woodland Park Citywide Athletics Building, visited several times

Two are in mixed red and blue:

• Green Lake Community Center, men's room open, women's not on one visit in May, with similar conditions visible by night on a visit in March
• Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, open only once of three recent visits

And two, at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, are in black because they aren't city-owned.

Once I've hiked "NE", I'll re-visit Licton Springs Park and Ballard Community Center, and while hiking "NE" I'll probably look in on Little Brook Park.  But I'm aware that it's unfair to single out Maple Leaf for what's probably my bad luck in running into early closings, late openings, and neglect on weekends, and I should be visiting other parks more or less randomly to check on such things.  We'll see how much energy I have to do that.

Oh, one other thing.  I don't get as much e-mail from the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation as I used to before I called certain people there liars, but one e-mail I did get recently advertised summer jobs.  This suggests that the hiring freeze is no longer on, in which case it wouldn't be at all unreasonable to expect that summer restroom hours - closing at 9 P.M. - could come back.  Somehow I doubt it'll happen, though.  Oddly, in this case, it would be more convenient for me if the parks department does the wrong thing; it's much easier, given the hours I'm constrained to, for me to watch 7 P.M. closings than 9 P.M. ones.

Good night, dear Diary.

NW finished; one more water fountain; one more closed restroom pair

Dear Diary,

Are you bored with the titles of recent pages?  So am I, but there'll be two or three more like that.  Today I didn't get to NE, but did finish NW, with what's become the usual need to go back to one site to see whether its restrooms are really closed or not.

I visited nine city parks today, in six hours - street grids are such wonderful conveniences for hiking!  Predictably, all the slow parts were when I went off grid, to find the Burke-Gilman Trail's western water fountain and to investigate whether water fountains were running in the place I will, here, just call the Ballard Locks.  (About two of those hours went to that, with two city parks involved.  So the other seven took just four hours.)

Let me start, again, by function, then go by park.  As on previous of these hikes, most of the photos of restroom doors and water fountains are at a public folder on my Google Drive, URL:

<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cfrNdJI9NVY3ux7OoGI7B8Vg3Klq3liT?usp=sharing>

but most of the photos in this page aren't in that folder.

Restrooms - Ballard Community Center's restrooms with doors that open to the outside, which are two gendered single-user stalls, weren't open around 3:50 P.M. today.  Also, at about 4:07 P.M., the restrooms at the Seattle Public Library's Ballard branch were unavailable due to a staff break.  The Portland Loo at Ballard Commons was available, but we'll get to that.  Gilman Playground's restrooms are still closed.  All other restrooms were open, including all those at the Locks.

As on previous of these hikes, I've been counting major items at men's and all-gender restrooms.  For each restroom for which I indicate such a count, unless I say otherwise, I tried the sink, it did not splash my clothes, and the dryer, if any, worked.

Water fountains - I've yet to find the water fountain at Ballard Commons not running; it ran today.  Gilman Playground's still runs.  Every single water fountain I found at the Locks was running, even though the Locks still have a mask rule applied both outside and inside.  I found no other running water fountains; the one on the Burke-Gilman Trail, eviscerated by metal thieves last year, and one at Loyal Heights Playfield, damaged last year, have both been removed.

Now by park.

Loyal Heights Community Center and Playfield

All three water fountains ran last October, but the north one (near the basketball area and the playground) was damaged.  Last January the baseball field was a construction site, and the water fountain attached to the Community Center was running; I couldn't find the northern or southern free-standing fountains.  In the case of the southern one, that's because it isn't as far south as I looked; it's closer to the ballfield's third base than to its home plate.  The northern one was within a construction site in January, and still is, but this time I was able to see through the fence that it had been removed, whether because it was damaged, or in order to prevent more damage, or what, I don't know.

The men's room in the Community Center with a door that opens outside has one toilet [EDIT 5/24:  with a stall door], one urinal, one sink, no dryer, and one soap dispenser.

The Loyal Heights Community Center is not yet swayed by the siren call of re-opening:

The schedules on the left are for the first quarter of 2020.

Salmon Bay Park

This park is nowhere near Salmon Bay, or any body of water; some developer had boats on the brain, naming streets north and south of this park "Canoe" and "Sloop", and the park itself wound up with a name that confuses even park staffers.  (I called once about the restrooms here being closed, and it took a while before they'd believe me as to the park's location.)

Anyway, its restrooms were open and the attached water fountain isn't running.  The dryer in the men's room is not the usual no-touch thing found in most park restrooms that have dryers:

 

Privacy in the men's toilet here is not much better than at Dahl Playfield.  There, someone walking in has to turn in such a way that he'll then see anyone on the toilet unless he makes an effort not to.  At Salmon Bay, someone walking briskly probably won't notice someone on the toilet, but otherwise...

That's intended as the view from the doorway.  Note the thing on the left; that's the toilet.

Also, Salmon Bay Park's men's room has no urinal.  One toilet without a stall door, one sink, one touch-driven dryer, one soap dispenser.  I did not look for yellow spots on the toilet seat, but because this park has no sports facilities, it wouldn't have been a fair test.

Webster Park

I then cut hard west to get to this park which just has a water fountain (which only trickled last year, both in June and in October).  Now it isn't even trickling.

On going south, I found myself at the Locks, and figured it was already late enough (1:19 P.M. for my first photo there) that I was unlikely to make it to "NE" by 7 P.M.  So I might as well spend my spare time exploring the place.

Hiram M. Chittenden Locks

None of the photos in this section are in the Google Drive folder.

The first place I went was the Visitor Center.  Now, strictly speaking, this is outside your remit, dear Diary, seeing as how it's a building whose doors opening to the outside don't, far as I know, include restroom doors.  But I wanted to find out how open the Locks actually were.

This was partly because CDC or no CDC, the Locks still have a mask requirement:

and I figured, what's the point (to a housed person) of turning on water fountains in a place where nobody can drink from them?  But I hadn't reckoned with the no-nonsense nature of the federal government, and in particular its squarest single institution, the U.S. Army, a post of whose this place actually is.  (Really.  See its website if you don't believe me, dear Diary.)  So although the website doesn't deign to mention water fountains...

That's the Visitor Center's.  I decided not to try to photograph restroom doors this trip, partly because the Visitor Center was pretty crowded, partly because the whole place was thronged.  I also didn't take tourist photos, not even when an adjacent teenager pointed out a seal to her parents, but I sure photographed a whole lot of working water fountains.  The men's room in the Visitor's Center has one toilet, one urinal, one sink, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.  I don't think I tested the sink and dryer.  The Visitor Center is currently open only Friday through Sunday, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M., so is not a major factor in a homeless person's decision about where to live, but I have some reason to think that might change soon.

The rest of the place, however...  Its hours are 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. seven days per week, and although the restrooms might well open later or close earlier, I saw no reason to think so.

The city's employees might reasonably object that the Army can provide a lot of effectively free labour, but how much of that labour is plumbers?  I was impressed.

These show a double fountain near the main restrooms.  Those have - prepare to stay calm, dear Diary - two toilets, four urinals, three sinks, two dryers, and three soap dispensers.  I did not try all the sinks and dryers; the one of each I tried worked fine.  One of the soap dispensers did appear to be low on soap.  Now, this is the kind of thing where more or less free labour makes a big difference - cleaning and maintaining a monstrosity of this size.

This is a water fountain by what appears to be the Locks' main tourist attraction, the chance to watch boats actually locking one way or the other.  As a result, it's hard to get to while observing social distancing; patience is an asset to those who wish to drink from this fountain.

These are the two attached to the southern restrooms, which actually, dear Diary, aren't in North Seattle at all, but they're such a short hike from North Seattle that I decided to tell you what's in the men's room anyway:  two toilets, two urinals, two sinks, two dryers, and yes, we're in a very square place indeed, two soap dispensers.  But there turn out to be limits to free labour, and these photos show that:  both these fountains are badly overshooting their bowls.  I would be reluctant to fill a bottle at either, and the second one, the one on the right as one faces the building, also back-splashes enough to give my newspaper its first water damage of the day.

Still, wow.  Don't you wish we lived in a city that worked this well, dear Diary?

Carl S. English, Jr. Botanical Garden

Has no restrooms open to the public nor water fountains available to the public, at least not along any of the paved or the more obvious of the gravel trails.  Does have many attractive and interesting plants.

Some day, dear Diary, when we have time for park appreciation again, I'll tell you as much as I reasonably can about the whole place, but right now, a drought's on, everywhere except downtown and the Ballard Locks, so it'll have to wait.

The Burke-Gilman Trail

Somehow recently I'd convinced myself that the western water fountain on this trail was way east of what I've previously told you, dear Diary.  So I walked all the way to, I think, 26th Ave NW looking for it, eating lunch on a bench outside the Nordic Museum again on the way, before realising my mistake and turning back.  Then I walked all the way to the NW 60th St Viewpoint (which is today's extra, no plumbing, park) without seeing the fountain.  Finally I had to consult your old pages that mentioned it - "The Ballard Seacoast" part I and "The Water Fountains of Ballard" - to find it, and even blow up the photos.

This is the current state of the BGT's western water fountain:

In case anyone reading you goes looking for it and even that much is gone, the clue I found it by is that it's at the NW 57th Street Street End, left of the entrance as one faces the water, near a yellow fire hydrant.  (And no doubt that's why there's water there available for a fountain.)

Ballard Community Center and Playground

I couldn't get close to the building, because the front was crowded and the back was taped off, so I couldn't ask its opinion of the "re-opening" concept.

However, its outside-facing restrooms were closed.  I think this is the first time I've found them so.  I will, of course, go back to see whether they stay that way, but my guess right now is that, thanks to where homeless people are nearby, they probably will.  Still, today was Sunday, the day when people outside are expected to fast, so there is another explanation, and I'll just have to add it to my list of things to investigate.

The water fountain was also off.  Nope, nothing for homeless people here, now just move along...

Ballard Commons

As noted above, I've never found the water fountain here off, and that includes today.  This park also has water on the side of the "Portland Loo", and in a hand-washing station, but the SPU sink I found here in January has been removed:

Also, the dryer on the side of the "Portland Loo" has been fixed and now delivers air.  However, I've yet to get results from the soap dispenser, either January or today around 4:03 P.M.

The "Portland Loo" has one toilet, no urinal, no sink, no dryer, and no soap dispenser.  Outside its door is a microscopic analogue to a sink with water, plus an old-fashioned dryer, plus an empty or broken soap dispenser.

On my way away I took a look at the Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library.  The sign announcing that the restrooms were open was clearly visible:

but it was one of the two days off "curbside services" (well, that's better than "pickup" anyway) currently have at that location, so wasn't a real test.

Gilman Playground

Kitty-corner from this park's northwest corner I saw an unexpected sign:

Let me translate for you, dear Diary:  Someone's trying to build an SRO.  In Seattle.  In the 21st century.  I can hardly believe it, but am awfully glad they're trying.

It would take about a hundred of those or more, to bring every homeless person in Seattle inside.  The entire time I was homeless here, I figured Seattle would only be serious about housing the homeless when it started talking in thousands, the number there actually are, rather than hundreds, the number it's convenient to build for every year.  One SRO is not the answer, but adding SROs back to the city's toolkit is an important step toward the day in the 22nd or possibly 42nd century when Seattle might be ready to consider the answer.

I can't tell you, dear Diary, what's in Gilman Playground's men's room, because it's still closed.  The park's water fountain is still running.

Ross Park

The restrooms are open, the water fountain not running.

The men's room, which I had to use, since I hadn't been near an open men's room since the Locks and hadn't used any since leaving home, has one toilet with a stall door, one urinal, one sink, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.

I used to enjoy swinging on University Playground's swings, when I slept near there, until there were so many uncertain people around every time I went there that I wasn't willing to leave my stuff unprotected while I did so.  Well, there were no visibly homeless people at Ross Park this early evening, and no families using the swingset to annoy, so I swang away.  Yes, I share the bias against homeless people, and did even when I was homeless, but that doesn't mean I wanted everyone denied water.  There's a difference between bias and hatred.

Whew.  I've managed to tell you about this hike the same day, dear Diary.  I have no reason to expect the NE hikes to be like that, but they might be.  Anyway, I expect to spend tomorrow on other stuff, including but not limited to updating (and correcting) the maps, and updating (and expanding) the spreadsheet that's in the public folder.  I'll probably show you the updated maps when I'm done.  But until then, good night and a good day, dear Diary.

The Ballard Seacoast: Parks Not Parks', part I

Dear Diary,

Yesterday morning I woke up with a bunch of dishes to wash, so it was clearly time to go back to Laurelhurst Community Center's hot water taps.  Since the Playfield's water fountains still aren't on, I then had to hike to Burke-Gilman Playground Park for drinking water.  Now, I've made this trip before, but I'm not actually all that observant, so this was the first time I noticed a park on 47th Ave NE.  It's called SUN Park, and it may be owned by Forterra, which was Cascade Land Conservancy before discovering the joys of hiring consultants.  A couple of photos:

There are actually lots of parks and park-like places around town that have nothing to do with the City of Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation.  Just for starters, many of the public elementary schools open their playgrounds' doors to the public on a schedule.

My choice to focus on Seattle's official parks has been justified by one thing I've yet to see any other kind of park do:  offer running water in toilet, sink, or water fountain.  That is, of course, why I started writing you in the first place, dear Diary.  But that doesn't mean I have to ignore all the other things parks do.  One of which is, offer beaches.

I came to Seattle the day I turned 39, and even before then wasn't much of a beachgoer.  So although I knew of, and had even been to, Magnuson, Gas Works and Green Lake Parks before moving north in 2014, I hadn't much clue about Golden Gardens or Carkeek Parks before this spring.

But these are two of only four Seattle Parks' parks on the Ballard seacoast.  There are eight other places that offer public access to the coast, for some value of "offer", as far as I know.  One of them even offers restrooms and water fountains, just not in its park-like areas.  It would be asinine to leave them all out.

So the page's title isn't really a paradox.  Many of the parks here aren't Parks'.  That's all.

When I left Sunset Hill Park, around 4 P.M. on June 23, my next destination was Eddie Vine Boat Ramp.  The map quickly showed that the only sane way to get there was to go all the way back south to the Ballard Locks, whose east gate I'd taken in the day before:

and choose the road not taken, which has dozens of names, but which for simplicity I'll here call Seaview.

So to start with,

The Ballard Locks

er, that is, I mean,

(United States Army Corps of Engineers) The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and Carl S. English Botanical Gardens

Google Maps says the gardens actually pretty much dwarf the locks for sheer area, but there's at least a sense in which the locks represent the end of the canal and the beginning of the sea.  However, as is the case for Woodland Park's Zoo and Rose Garden, both are coronavirally closed.  Speaking of dwarfing, what I could see of the gardens from the outside consisted largely of extremely tall, straight conifers with reddish bark:

Anyway, from the west gate begins a gravel track that I explored on the 23rd.  All the parks I found can easily be reached from the adjacent Burke-Gilman Trail, but are more easily found from the gravel track that actually links them.  The first actually precedes the gravel.

(Seattle Public Utilities) Salmon Bay Natural Area

This presents itself as pretty much a viewing area with some benches.  The first time I went, I met a homeless couple, the man white, the woman looking Native American.  He told me it was tribal territory, a former burial ground.  I couldn't find it in the city's real estate report, so I suspect he was right, but anyway the signage is Seattle Public Utilities'.  There's a Native-looking statue, sculptor Marvin Oliver:

I think this photo of a view that I shot yesterday must be from this spot:

At the next interruption in the fence south of the Burke-Gilman Trail, if you look back east you'll glimpse

(?) Seaview Picnic Park

This is a very poorly documented place which would've been called "NW Market Street End" if it had been named consistently with its northern neighbours.  It's got a "Public Shore" sign, but whichever agency owns it doesn't seem eager for credit.  To fit its name, yesterday I photographed its view and its picnic tables:

(Dear Diary, we've been seeing things lost from the delay in writing in you about this trip - if nothing else, I've forgotten most of the excruciating hills - but this page and its sequel are solid gains, incorporating photos and explorations on the 22nd, the 23rd, the 24th, the 26th, and the 29th.)

The next interruption in the southern fence has something of interest besides a park; it has another disabled Burke-Gilman Trail street water fountain:

but of course it does also have a park:

(?Seattle Public Utilities) NW 57th Street End

This is the first of these actually providing access to the water, so it's less about the views.

I vaguely remember people fishing there on the 23rd.  Notice that gritty black and white sand; there's more of that ahead.

NW 60th St Viewpoint

I hadn't been quite sure the wonderful viewpoint at the end of 60th St was really the park so named because I hadn't found its sign.  So you can imagine how I felt when I rounded a corner and saw this:

right where it was supposed to be on Seaview Ave.  It has benches, unlike the viewpoint above it; that late afternoon, those were occupied.  Here's a view of Magnolia, not from a bench:

(Private) Point Shilshole Beach

Google Maps was my guide in this middle part of the trip, and it said there was a beach and put-in roughly level with 64th St above the bluff.  You reach it either by walking a narrow public access path or by cutting through the parking lot of a long-suffering neighbour.  Rules are posted:

but I still don't have a clue how it makes its owners any money.  I didn't explore much (and so can't assess Google Maps's curious claim that part of this beach is public), because it was crowded and because I was totally unprepared for this:

I'd seen no sand at NE 130th Street End and only a silly fringe of it at Matthews Beach, and had started to think Seattleites objected to sand.  Guess not.  Marvelling, I continued north to

(Port of Seattle) Shilshole Bay Marina

and marvelled again when on the place's front door I saw a sign:

There are probably more "No Public Restrooms" signs in the U-District than hours signs; it was a shock to see the opposite.  The building's hours make the advertised restrooms uncompetitive except for people who get caught short on the long hike up Seaview.

Much of the length of that hike consists of the marina itself, which runs from about the equivalent of 68th St right up to the next park at not-80th.  As seen from Seaview, most of that space is parking for cars, but I expect the surface lots are so big largely to match the water room needed.

Anyhow, the park-like elements are in a much smaller area around not-74th.  They include, besides the welcoming building (the main office), an area with benches behind the building, a garden south of them, and furthest south, a statue of Leif Erikson:

However, a sign at the garden says it's temporary, just until a new restaurant occupies the spot, at which point the benches will presumably become its outdoor seating.

Continuing north we finally reach

Eddie Vine Boat Ramp

The parks department may choose to treat this as a separate park from its much larger northern neighbour, but it sure doesn't post anything on the ground to warn when going from the 24-hour ramp to the currently much shorter hours next door.  Now, even if I hadn't heard about it, I figure Golden Gardens Park is one of the famous parks I won't photograph - at least, it currently closes at 8 P.M. - so it's a good thing the rom-com-ready pier from which I photographed these views is next to, and I claim part of, the boat ramp.

The first is of the beach, and I suppose it's my first in you, dear Diary, to include people by intent, but I don't think anyone's identifiable.  In the second, I figured I'd shot the Olympic Mountains enough times, so I tried to get the Olympic Peninsula north of the mountains.

Let me leave you there for a time, dear Diary, with me looking at Golden Gardens Park but refusing to admit I'd already entered it.  Both my visits to that park, the night of the 23rd and, um, various daylit times on the 24th, I made sober and sensible decisions that should be recorded for the instruction of younger generations, and I need to think about the most serious way to do so.  I hope to write not only that page, but the following one that belongs to today, before night, but we'll just have to see.