Ballard's Playgrounds and Commons Today

Dear Diary,

On Thursday, I mostly slept; in the evening I ran a few errands, one of which took me to Ballard.  I visited Gilman Playground while there, and decided to get back there today.  In the end, I stayed long enough today, and bought enough, that I couldn't make myself go on to downtown, so either I'll walk through rain tomorrow, or it'll have to wait another week.

Anyway.   Four parks in "NW" south of NW 65th St (not that that's a major street in "NW") are reputed to have restrooms.  Three are considered "playground"s by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation; I've disputed two of those labels, most recently writing about them in a page in you, dear Diary, that I think deserved more readers than it got, "What's in a Name?".  I've also disputed in your pages the use of the name "Ballard" for the southeastern corner of "NW", where one of the "playgrounds" is.  But the easiest way for me to title this page requires me to pretend that there really are three playgrounds in southern Ballard.  Enough of that.

Photos relevant to this page are in subfolders at a publicly viewable Google Drive folder:  Ballard Playground, Ballard Commons, Gilman Playground, and Ross Park.

I found all water fountains at these parks running.  This will probably change soon, perhaps within days, but for a year and a half now, I've found the same set of fountains left on most of the time, during winter and both years' "Durkan Droughts", by the "NW" maintenance people and/or plumbers.  Two of these are in Ballard Commons and in Gilman Playground.  Another is in Sunset Place, sort of near eastern Ballard, but not close to any of these parks.  The first two were, and one of them still is, near important homeless encampments, but Sunset Place never was, so I'm not sure to what extent this list may have held before the pandemic, and how it might change going forward.

Ballard Playground and Community Center

New lighting is being installed at Ballard Playground's playfield.  The contractor, a sign I neglected to photograph informs us, considered it best if the entire playfield were closed (in fact, fenced in, and nope, no photo for that either).  And by some strange coincidence, the "field closure" has led to:

The restrooms built into the Ballard Community Center are closed each winter anyway.  This obviously isn't because they lack heat, so ought to be because of "historic low usage".  But I think it's because they're close to downtown Ballard, where many homeless people live, and the good folk who live a few blocks west of downtown Ballard have no wish to see those homeless people visit their neighbourhood.  At any rate, I have to say, I'm not surprised that, with Gilman Playground's restrooms closed all year, the parks department came up with an excuse to close Ballard Playground's too.

Of course, Ballard Playground has an actual playground as well as a playfield, and that playground was in use today.  It's on the other side of the Community Center from the restrooms, water fountain, and playfield, but like most community centers in North Seattle, the building isn't open to the public at present.  However, it's well known that all small children are perfect angels, and as such never need toilets or sinks, so they won't be bothered by the restroom closure, right?

Ballard Commons

Ballard Commons has a "Portland Loo" in it.  Inside, there's a toilet and a spot for sanitiser, which in the Ballard Commons Portland Loo has been rendered unuseable.  Outside, there's a tiny inset alcove masquerading as a sink, with buttons to push for water, soap, and air (for drying).  I've never found all three buttons working; today, only the water one was, but there was a bar of soap handy in one of the bowls of the water fountain nearby.  The parks department considers the Portland Loo a "restroom".  I beg to differ - one whole point of a "restroom" is that one should touch as little as possible between excretion and washing, which should be indoors; but it's certainly more like a real restroom than the "sanican" I at first thought it.  Anyway, there are also three actual "sanican"s there, and a hand-washing station.

The same source that indicated a coming sweep of Woodland Park also mentioned one coming to Ballard Commons.  Well, it hasn't been swept all that recently.  I didn't stay long, but this is my second visit, I think, this year in which I didn't notice any conflicts among the people there, homeless or housed; comparably short visits earlier had consistently encountered people arguing or fighting.  Perhaps what I've called that park's "terrible feng shui" has somehow been ameliorated a little bit, though still not enough actually to attract housed people to the place.

Seattle Public Library, Ballard branch

I didn't risk going in, unfortunately for my bodily comfort; what if I found a Korean drama I really wanted to watch?  But the Ballard library is one of those already open seven days per week:

Gilman Playground

All park restrooms in "NW" are seasonal or coastal, with few exceptions.  Two years ago, the restrooms built into the Loyal Heights Community Center were announced as open all year.  Last winter, only Golden Gardens and Carkeek Parks, profoundly inaccessible to most people in "NW" who might need public restrooms.  Also, the Portland Loo doesn't close in winter; and to be fair, restrooms were open at the Ballard library from April 2020 on.

The reason for closing Gilman Playground's restrooms is "historic low usage", not the building's vulnerability to cold.  Considering that there was a large homeless encampment at that park the entire winter of 2020-2021, there can hardly have been a more flagrant example of current higher usage anywhere in North Seattle, but these restrooms were closed last winter.  They were then apparently re-opened early enough that by the time I got to them in the spring, they'd been closed again for vandalism.

And closed they still are, although the homeless have certainly moved on.

There are several "sanican"s, and again a hand-washing station.  However, here as at Cowen Park, I haven't encountered evidence of closed-restroom-related fire, as at Bitter Lake Playfield, University Playground, and Licton Springs Park.

Ross Park

The parks department calls this park Ross Playground, and it fits among the playgrounds as regards, for example, size, but not comfortably - it has far more of the things the department considers "amenities" than most playgrounds.  (A playfield for baseball, a basketball hoop, a playground, art, restrooms, water fountain.)  Anyway, the parks department sign at the most convenient entrance calls it Ross Park, and so do I.  Additionally, I consider the residential neighbourhood between Fremont and the industrial part of Ballard, where this park is, to be "Ross", after a village that existed there in the 1890s, partly as retribution for the way some Ballard parks stuff other elements of 1890s local history down one's throat.

Anyway, Ross Park is the only park in southern "NW" with open restrooms this year.  Unsurprisingly, I saw evidence that some mobile homeless people had moved in, difficult though it is for most to find places to sleep in such neighbourhoods.

Probably within days, they'll have to move again.  Ross Park's restroom building is vulnerable to cold, and so must be shut down pretty soon.  (In general, I'm a big fan of replacing such buildings with heated ones, but this one has such a nice mosaic, I can't help wondering whether there's a better way.)

I have a great deal more to tell you about Ballard, dear Diary, but I'd forgotten that I intended to consult a book at the Central Library first.  Oops.  So I'll go at least that far downtown tomorrow, and probably visit Freeway Park too; but I make no promises about parks further north in downtown that I still haven't told you about.  Until tomorrow, then, good night and good day.

More details of yesterday's hike

Dear Diary,

Now that I can write in you from my laptop again, it turns out I already told you everything that mattered from Saturday's hike in "NE" and elsewhere.

My plan for yesterday's hike was actually more ambitious than just for "NW", but, well, I haven't hiked for you in summer before, dear Diary, and as I should've remembered from long summer hikes in years past, I don't move as fast when it's hot out.

Anyway, there are some things worth mentioning from the parks of southern "NW".

I'm sure you remember, dear Diary, but perhaps people who read you need to know that all the photos of running (or not) water fountains and open (or closed) restroom doors are in a public Google Drive folder.  All these photos are dated partly by including the relevant day's newspaper, and photos of those newspapers' front pages, for comparison, are in a sub-folder titled, um, "Front pages".

Golden Gardens Park

The park's hours are being cut, lumped in with Alki as a violent beach (apparently for good reason).  Before the pandemic, the park was open the usual schedule, 4 A.M. to 11:30 P.M.  During the lockdowns, it was one of the parks whose closing time changed every few months.  And now that that's apparently over, it isn't going back to normal, but to the less common standard schedule, 6 A.M. to 10 P.M.:

In more pleasant news, the external water supply that enables showering has definitely been turned on.  I saw the lower spigot used, and the amount of wet pavement, plus an actual puddle (not shown in this photo), near the spigots makes it plain:

The only water fountain I found that I couldn't elicit water from yesterday was here.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't running, and it had a hole in it that suggests it was disabled, but based on a previous photo, it has an unusual control:

Yesterday I didn't notice that control:

Okay, looks like I didn't ignore that dial, but rather it was actually missing.  The thing intruding into the lower photo's bottom is one of the earpieces on my glasses.

Loyal Heights Community Center and Playfield

At the Community Center, child care is still the main thing going on.  As a result, during summer at least, the entire upper half of the Playfield, which was a construction site when I last visited, has replaced construction's metal fences with orange plastic fences.  Nobody showed hostility to my photographing the water fountain.  But remember, children are still ineligible to get vaccinated, so for them, the pandemic is still in full swing.  I saw a sign urging that park visitors mask up and keep distant, and couldn't justify photographing it as an oddity.  Anyone who visits upper Loyal Heights Playfield anytime soon should mask up and keep distant.

On the other hand, this sign still stuck to the fence of the playfield proper, lower down, is surely past its time:

Is anyone really going to try to close a park in Seattle this summer because it's busy?

The water fountain attached to the Community Center, but in the lower half of the Playfield, is running, but its drain seems to be clogged.  The bowl was full the entire time I was there:

Webster Park

The water fountain which only supplied a trickle of water all last year is now actually running properly:

Seattle Public Library, Ballard branch

This time, the door to the restrooms appeared to be locked, as on a previous visit, but the security guy was right next to the door, ready to let people in.  On the other hand, that won't last much longer:

Now, naively, this looks like bad news.  But the restrooms at Ballard Community Center are open, if not too reliably on Sundays.  Or if one specifically wants library restrooms, the Green Lake branch is open Mondays, and the Northeast and University branches are open Sundays.  And,y'know, the libraries have been expanding their hours every couple of weeks; it's possible, if somewhat unlikely, that by July 21st, the Ballard branch will actually be open seven days per week.

Or, of course, people could just discipline themselves not to need restrooms on Sundays and Mondays.  Isn't self-discipline what homeless people need most anyway?

Speaking of downtown Ballard and homeless self-discipline, during my visit to Ballard Commons yesterday, I didn't hear any yelling or arguments.  How unusual.

The Burke-Gilman Trail

In Seattle Public Utilities's pseudo-map of street water fountains, one is listed with an address of "6049 Seaview Ave."  Now, assuming this to mean Seaview Ave NW, it turns out 6049 is a real address, quite a few yards north of the NW 60th St Viewpoint:

It's private property.  I didn't see any water fountains, street-style or no, in any of the areas more or less publicly accessible, nor on the verge.  There is a street fountain on Seaview, but it's half a mile south, near the NW 57th St Street End, and also on the Burke-Gilman Trail, which in the relevant block is the sidewalk on the south side of Seaview.

Mind, SPU has done something rather impressive here.  That fountain had been knocked over and eviscerated by metal thieves.  It takes some guts to put another in the exact same place.  But I don't understand why they're advertising the wrong location for it.  Metal thieves are very unlikely to consult SPU press releases to find targets.

 

Anyway, the new fountain's water is good.

OK, that seems to be it for yesterday's hike.  Something different soon, dear Diary.  Until then, happy days and good nights.

Hike 8C: Near Northwest

Dear Diary,

Of course I didn't hike to Ballard on January 19, as recounted in "Hike 8A" March 21 and "8B" March 23, and then skip downtown Ballard.  I actually had to go there twice, and one reason I've dawdled so much to tell you about those hikes, dear Diary, is that I wanted to present the two visits in one page.  But I haven't found a way to make that work.  So this page is strictly about my first visit, in mid- to late afternoon of January 19.

The Urban Rest Stop, Ballard branch

My first stop was a dud.  Because I hadn't checked the map first, I hadn't looked at this place's open hours, which turned out to end at 2:30 P.M. that day.  This is certainly as good a postcard shot as I could reasonably hope to take:

but because I got there at 3:21 P.M., gives a mistaken impression.  This is one of the two reasons I came back to downtown Ballard on the night of January 21, as a future page will recount.

Ballard Commons

Rachel Schulkin, communications manager for the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, had finally filled me in on why the department claims there's a "restroom" at Ballard Commons:  they mean the "Portland Loo".

Now, dear Diary, when I've told you about this sad little park before, June 25 in "History and Parks", part II, and December 16 in "The Water Fountains of Ballard, mid-October 2020", I've mocked that "loo" as a fancier "sanican".  This turns out to have been untruthful of me:

An outhouse retains our excreta indefinitely.  A "sanican" retains them for a few days.  A toilet removes them promptly.  Clearly, the "Portland Loo" offers a toilet.  My apologies.

Ballard Commons also does have "sanican"s:

but I didn't find that hand-washing station working.  Nor were either of the push buttons on the side of the "Loo", which apparently are supposed to deliver water to wash with and air to dry with:

Fortunately, this is the last of the three parks in northwest Seattle whose water fountains had been left running:

I haven't been back to check its current status, but have noticed SPU sinks replacing hand-washing stations elsewhere, so hope that's happened at Ballard Commons too.

Seattle Public Library, Ballard branch

When I got there, there was an actual crowd - you're too young to remember crowds, aren't you, dear Diary? - anyway, a crowd waiting to pick up library materials.  There were also a lot of tents along the edges of the sidewalks.  Navigating my cart among all this was challenging, and I just couldn't find evidence that the restrooms there were open.  I also found taking a real postcard shot hopeless, but here's the best I could do:

Anyway, after several minutes of confusion, I decided to knock on the door to the restrooms, which I found locked.  A library security guy answered; he had to spend a few seconds doing something that sounded like removing tape before he could open the door.  I introduced myself and you, dear Diary, and said I wanted to take a photograph that would demonstrate that the restrooms were open (even though they plainly weren't!).

His reply was nearly classic.  He pointed out that a pandemic was happening.  And then said "So if you aren't here to pick up library materials, and you aren't here to use the restrooms, I'm going to have to ask you to move along."

You could tell how gratified he was to have an opportunity to use that last phrase on an actual homeless person, just like before the pandemic.  Although I generally consider it a little presumptuous of me to claim the title "journalist" on the basis of you, dear Diary, I do find myself wondering whether a housed journalist would've gotten quite such a reply.

Anyway, soon thereafter, I had recovered enough from my confusion to notice this:

It was adjacent to the front of the pickup line, which may or may not have been optimal placement.

So there it is, evidence that the Ballard branch's restrooms were open in mid-January, whether or not they actually were.

Ballard Community Center and environs

Well, hully gee!  The map I took these hikes to check on had seemed frozen for some time.  Now it's getting populated with what looks like summer data.  In particular, it claims tonight that these restrooms are open.

But that doesn't mean it's incorporated all the info I e-mailed to the people responsible.  My last e-mail, covering all my January hikes not already summarised, was sent February 15.  (I figured I should give them a chance to digest what I'd sent before publicly calling them all liars, which is why I put that off until February 18.)  But the map still doesn't show this:

It was across the street from Ballard Playground, in which Ballard Community Center with its then-closed restrooms sits, on January 19.  It was also in the street, which means it was on city property.  I should think, then, that it was there because of a city contract with the Honey Bucket people, but it wasn't and still isn't mapped.  I wonder whether it's still there.

Anyway, the Ballard Community Center.  An attempt at a postcard shot:

The closed door:

The closed doors:

I think my return to Ballard a little over two days later is about five pages away in this story.  I'll probably write another page tonight that isn't part of that story.  Until then, dear Diary.

History and Parks, part II

Dear Diary,

I planned this trip with a fairly simple method:  having mapped all the relevant parks, I then grouped them by picking big arterial streets, and went either east to west (as in this first group, south of 55th or Market Streets) or west to east.  So the next two parks (first group) represent the beginning of downtown Ballard, but I then go pretty far west (second group) before returning to downtown.  This second group covers 55th/Market to 65th Streets.

Parks north of 65th place much less emphasis on history, or at least on Ballard's 18 years of independence or its settlers' Scandinavian roots.  To put it another way, they're less boring than some of these.

Two small parks in south downtown Ballard

These are actually on the same block of 22nd Ave; about where the first stops, the other starts across the street.  I reached them by taking Leary Way from Fred Meyer, then Ballard Ave, which meets 22nd at the first.

Marvin's Garden

This is not one of the boring ones, as long as you're careful.  It's a small space stuffed to the gills with plaques, but the only ones you need to read are those identifying "Marvin":

Anyway, my guess is that the people who made this park were so obsessed with plaques that they left all the landscaping to someone or ones who knew what they were doing.  So in spite of the fact that it's essentially a concrete plaza surrounded by less than fascinating plants, it has a rightness to it that money couldn't buy; not that I really know what I'm talking about, but I feel that this is a Classical garden.  A big part in creating this aura is played by a bell tower:

Unfortunately, all this is a considerable contrast with

Bergen Place

I don't trust my memory when it says this has less of a plant border than Marvin's Garden, but I do believe that my initial impression was of a typical downtown windswept concrete plaza.  It's meant to honour Seattle's sister city relationship with Bergen, Norway; I think I found it more crowded than such plazas usually are, but I still didn't think it did much honour.  That said, the park flies the five Scandinavian flags, and I always like the surprise of seeing a non-American flag in the air:

EDIT 6/29:  I saw a sixth flag from the bus today, so figured I should investigate if time allowed, which it did.
     The reason this park is more popular than a typical bare windswept plaza isn't hard to find:  It isn't bare.  As I suspected when writing the above, I'd forgotten a plant border, sandwiched between benches and pillars, the latter topped with things I did find icky.  Observe:

   As for the sixth flag, I dunno.  It's longer and narrower than a normal flag, and in Norwegian colours.  It isn't a flag of Bergen, but could be a military or maritime variant of the Norwegian flag.  I decided to make a video to make the flags clearer:

As I understand it, they are, left to right and order of focus in the video, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, uncertain.

From there I took Market St past the National Nordic Museum (and to be fair, ate lunch on a bench they provide) to the Ballard Locks (or rather their gates), but I'm saving them for two pages from now, maybe within a day or two.  Our next stop also isn't a Seattle city park, but it took me a whole day to figure that out.  See, I went up 32nd Ave to

A viewpoint on 60th St that is not the NW 60th St Viewpoint

There's a railing at the end of 60th - the westernmost 60th in town - and that railing affords an evidently popular but surprisingly complex view.  The complexity is because you can, from that railing, see not only the water, and the Olympic Mountains across it, but also the much nearer Burlington Northern Railroad.  Oh, and northernmost Magnolia.  So I took four pictures.  The train:

The Olympics behind the train:

Magnolia behind the train:

And the Olympics without the train:

Next I hiked back to 32nd and south to 58th and 

Thyme Patch Park

This is a small, pleasant place, shady in a summer afternoon, where I caught up on my notes and rested.  It has no plumbing except that required by the P-Patch.  It has two styles of art, and for once the one I liked is the one credited.  Roses added to the entry rails by Chuck Nafziger:

(The other art is goofy-looking frogs.)

A hop and a skip away, at 60th and 28th Ave,

Ballard Playground and Community Center

This is one of only two Community Centers in "NW" - the other is in the next page, which I probably can't write in you, dear Diary, today.  In contrast, "NE" has six.  ("N" has two.)  Two of "NE"'s (Laurelhurst and Magnuson) and both of "NW"'s have external restrooms, as does Green Lake in "N".  (I plan to reach Bitter Lake, the other "N", later in this trip.)  Of "NE"'s two, Magnuson's are seasonal and weren't open when last I checked; I've found all the other external restrooms open.  (A revisit to Magnuson is for later in this trip.)  Is anything wrong with this picture?

Anyway, yes, Ballard Community Center has two restrooms open, I think ungendered, one of which has a working dryer.  The double water fountain nearby was not running, even though it's this set's westernmost; that remains true the rest of the way north.  So no, I haven't really found a western border to the dryness, just an isolated western working fountain, like Burke-Gilman Playground Park's in the east.  (As I write this, not having bought and carried a gallon jug, I'm parched.)

Ballard Playground is, as usual, proudest of its playground.  I liked both a formal sculpture by Chuck Greening, "Ballard Boat", and an uncredited piece of playground equipment behind it in this shot:

(The piece I like is the tall one I see as black with white polka dots in the photo.)

Improvements planned seem not to have universal approval:

Ballard Commons

Despite the famous sweep at a time of no sweeps, the first thing I saw of Ballard Commons both times I went there (along 57th St) was a tent.  And if Gilman Playground got the best of those swept, those who stayed put or have returned can't be too far from the worst.  On each visit a loud dispute broke out shortly after I arrived.  Why do they stay in such an inauspicious place?  One reason might be that it has a triple, running water fountain.

The park's biggest claim to fame is, believe it or not, the "Portland Loo", in other words, a "sanican" variant identified with another city.  There are also three more conventional "sanicans", and two hand-washing stations besides that built into the "Loo", which was out of water while I was there.  I don't get it.  First you design a park - a classic downtown windswept concrete plaza, at that, a design notorious for repelling the housed - to attract the homeless, and then when we show up you kick us out?

So iIt does have a skatebowl, and the seashell sculptures through which, in other years, water flows for play, are cute:

Also, when SPL stopped offering Wi-Fi at Ballard, I started being notified of a "Ballard Commons Free Wi-Fi".  But I never got it to work, and it's the opposite of communal anyhow.

Interested people are aware of what one might call the site's terrible feng shui.  They want to add a playground, and that would probably help.

But it might not, with an existing playground so close.  And I'm not sure you can sidestep a place's essence.  Ballard Commons is downtown.  Shouldn't it have something less common?  My thought was a bandstand, not just a literal stand but with outlets for electronic equipment, and maybe a well-built shed for a piano.  Well, whatever; it's not really my business.

But if you want the homeless out of Ballard Commons, give us water supplies elsewhere, for Heaven's sake.

Ballard Corners Park

This small park is at 17th Ave and 62nd St.  It basically features two sculptural re-creations of mid-20th Century life, with a very short trail between.  The park is where an old convenience store used to be, of the kind I can remember from my own early childhood elsewhere, and the park is very proud of Nathan Arnold's soda counter.  But if you approach from the south, you'll see Arnold's other sculpture first, and I won't spoil the surprise.

Gemenskap Park

One aspect of Seattle's current mayor's administration that's been surprisingly little discussed is her revival of former mayor Mike McGinn's road diets, which in his hands were hugely controversial.  Admittedly, the most obvious example is quite recent, so there hasn't been time for full-blown hysteria; I mean, of course, the "Stay Healthy" streets.

But here's another.  This one is actually a literal McGinn legacy:  the planning began in his term, burbled along under the intervening mayors, and the park opened in 2018 under the current mayor.  Basically, Gemenskap Park is two lanes subtracted from 14th Ave between 59th and 61st Streets and turned into a park.  It's essentially grass in one lane and a wide promenade in the other, and the night I visited was very popular.

All for now, dear Diary.  My feet are killing me from standing typing, and I need to find things to drink.  I should next have Wi-Fi when I reach the Broadview branch of the library, luck and SPL willing, and then be writing at a steady clip when I return to campus.