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.

Canalwards, Foolish Mortal

Dear Diary,

I spent several days in December making short hikes, as I told you some time ago I intended.  These hikes took me to arguably seven parks owned or managed by Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation, all south of 43rd St in the University District and Laurelhurst.  And in most of them I found problems with what I've told you, dear Diary, before:  some outright errors of fact, some weasel wording to avoid other errors, and plenty of omissions.  So this page is my attempt to do better by these parks.

None, unfortunately, have restrooms, and only one (the only one this page isn't apologising to) has a water fountain, which I found not running today.

I discovered the hard way in writing this that it's really dumb to copy a modern web page into a Blogspot page as one writes the latter.  (Because Android and/or Chrome wouldn't let me copy just the paragraph I wanted.)  I think the ill effects are confined to me writing this, but I trust, dear Diary, that if anyone reading you sees, in particular, an annoying blue horizontal bar, they'll complain in the comments.  (EDIT 1/1:  Actually, I think I've fixed it.  Let me know if not.)

December 22

Fritz Hedges Waterway Park

This park is on Boat St, west of Brooklyn Ave.  Introduced May 13 in "Down by the Canal", then given full treatment October 20 in "Fritz Hedges Waterway Park".  In the latter page, I wrote:

"Unfortunately, as in the expanded Christie Park, all the furniture is metal."

Nope.

See those discolourations in the long concrete benches?  There are four total; in that shot, one is hidden by the shade.  Let's take a closer look at that one.

I was wrong.  (Heck, I was technically wrong just because of the concrete benches, even without their wooden inserts.)

North Passage Point

This park is between Northlake Way and the water under I-5.  Introduced in "Down by the Canal", and I seem not to have mentioned it to you since, dear Diary.  In that page, I noted that other people being around had cramped my photography.  I also made a big deal out of this park having land, unlike, for example, the next one, so downplayed this park's water views.

Well, on December 22 none of that was an issue.  Here's a landscape:

Now, the builders of I-5 of course chose a narrow point in the water to cross, specifically the strait between Portage Bay and Lake Union.  This means that from this park, one can look at either of those water bodies, or in between, at South Passage Point across the water.

Portage Bay, seen through the University Bridge:

South Passage Point:

Lake Union:

Northlake Park

This is basically a viewpoint on Northlake, a block east of North Passage Point.  I introduced it rather badly in "Down by the Canal", then never mentioned it again.

One of the things I did wrong was spoil my photo of the view with a finger in the shot.  That's what I focused on fixing this time.

Peace Park

This is between 9th and Eastlake Avenues on 40th St, which puts it right next to the University Bridge.  Introduced in "Down by the Canal" with the following wording to avoid saying what I just did:

"This isn't on the canal, but is essentially built into one of the bridges over the canal, the University Bridge."

I did so because the parks department page propounds the cockamamie notion that the park is actually at the intersection of 40th and Pacific Streets, and I refused to believe the evidence of my own eyes, and the street signs there.  In my lists of parks, that's the address I use.  So I went there December 22 to establish the real address.

(To be fair to the department, they may simply mean that the park is on both 40th and Pacific, and indeed I showed you, dear Diary, a photo of the boring Pacific Street side.  It's still an inadequate and misleading address.)

December 23

Fritz Hedges Waterway Park

Yes, it's wooden.

December 29

Union Bay Boglands No. 1 and No. 2

This park, so to speak, is on Surber Drive from 41st St to a little south of 38th St.  Introduced rather confusedly and perfunctorily May 13 in "Back East, Where the Gardens Are Pretty".

What I know now that I didn't know then is that from 1926 to 1966 the city had a landfill there, where about half of the university's east campus is today.  My guess now is that when the city conveyed most of the land to the university, they held back the Surber Drive edge in hopes people would build more mansions with pretty gardens, hopes that were not to be fulfilled.

My further guess is that the two parcels exist because a Seattle Public Utilities pumping station is between them.  At any rate, No. 1's address is "Surber Drive NE & 41st NE", while No. 2 is at "3905 NE Surber Drive".

When I first went there this time, my eyes immediately flew to a green space north of 41st.  A bunch of people had parked there, but it turned out not to be part of the huge Talaris property next door.  Oops:  it's actually an unimproved block of 38th Ave.

(Those photos are actually from December 28.)

The best clue came from the university's own map, which stops short at 38th.  And if you go into the area, differences emerge between the university's Yesler Swamp and the city's Union Bay Boglands.  One is that the swamp's famous boardwalk seems never to come too close to the eastern edge.  Another is that in the city side, but not the university side, there's lots of that welcome green in winter, conifers:

(Yes, I know the green up front is ivy.  Look behind it.)

January 1

And happy new year, dear Diary!  Did you ever expect to get so old?  I certainly didn't expect it of you.

Christie Park

This park is on the southwest corner of 9th Ave and 43rd St.  Introduced May 6 in "Go North, Aging Man!" and then corrected the same day in the first "Foolish Mortal" page; lavishly depicted October 4 in "Christie Park, Expanded, at Sunset".  It's the furthest north of these parks, and the only one I don't (as far as I know) owe an apology to, which, yes, means it's also the one with a water fountain.

In this case, as of today I still can't find any furniture that isn't metal.

Peace Park

I continued south on 9th, which means I reached here.  I decided to see whether Sadako of the Thousand Cranes had been given Christmas candies, but to my surprise found a few actual (and rather bedraggled) cranes, so took a picture.

Northlake Park

This was my main destination today.  One main reason I introduced it badly is that I wanted to complain about the parks department page more than I actually wanted to introduce the park.  The page's text indeed is gibberish to the uninitiated (such as me when I wrote "Down by the Canal"), and focused on things of no interest to most:

"The 7th Avenue NE Street End is not on 7th Avenue or a street end. The property is part waterway, part street right-of-way for NE Northlake Way. The site is located on the southwest edge of the University District, between I-5 and the University bridge, at the intersection of Lake Union Waterway 14 and NE Northlake Way, and across the street from the terminus of 7th Avenue NE. The upland portion of the waterway is owned by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources and the remainder of the property is street right-of-way owned by Seattle Department of Transportation. The property was included as part of the 2000 Pro Parks Levy to “Develop park at 7th Ave NE street end at Lake Union.” "

I wanted to complain that Northlake Park is not on the official lists of either street ends or waterways.  The writer's cute opening sentence shows that he (I'd bet this paragraph was a man's mistake) anticipated that.  Most of the park is textbook 7th Ave NE Street End, but since 7th wasn't on the list the city adopted, that doesn't matter.  (Now I'm probably speaking gibberish to the uninitiated.  See, please, "North Seattle Street Ends:  Introduction", December 20.)

As for waterways?  With ashen face I discover that the map of Lake Union which, in "Lake Union's North Shore:  Waterways and Street Ends" (October 8) I recommended as listing all the waterways, omits five of them:  7, 10, 12, 13 and 14.  Oops.

So.  I think this is the "upland" part that could have been a very steep waterway (i.e., place to put boats into the water or take them out):

That's on the left as one faces the water.

Thinking as I went there that it really was a street end, I took my standard three photos.  But the street that ends is no beauty, and the land the city claims (though not under the street end law) doesn't look like much in my photos.  So that leaves only the park's main point, its view.  My third try:

Good night, dear Diary.

Street Ends: North Union and Portage Bays

Dear Diary,

This page gets us from Webster Point at the tip of Laurelhurst all the way to University Bridge.  Most of the photos were taken October 14, but two actually go back to October 13, the day whose first hikes I described not long ago in "The End of the Tour".  As I said in that page, after visiting Froula Playground I headed to Wallingford.  My main purpose there was to take photos of street ends.

In the introduction to this series I noted that legally, the land claimed by the city as street ends is what the city says it is.  That is, the underlying law includes a map, not a theory.

But on October 13 certainly, and I think also October 14, I didn't yet know that.  On October 13 I was still trying to make the theory work.  The theory holds that the street end is the land between the end of the street and the shoreline.  Enough of the street ends fit this theory to make it obvious that the theory had a part in the creation of the map, so it's easy to fall into thinking that the theory is decisive, but it isn't.

On October 13, I was still trying to make reality fit the theory.  By October 14, I'd decided to humour the city, to play along with the pretense that the existing street ends matched the theory.  Only later, I think, did I learn that the theory really didn't matter.

NE 31st St Street End

This is the western of the two street ends held to be justified by the one block of NE 31st St.  Aren't peninsulas wonderful?

Photo 1 - The street that ends

Photo 2 - The land the city appears to claim

Photo 3 - A view over the water

NE 32nd St Street End

Dear Diary, you may have qualms about this project - about the way I photographed the area someone on NE 90th Place probably pays a lot of money to keep private, and pointed out the street sign that identifies the similarly probably-paid-for NE 85th St street end.  But at NE 32nd St even I reached my limit.

Because NE 32nd St doesn't exist.  There is no street sign this time.  What there is, is a driveway, paved in blacktop, that has somehow been represented to mapmakers as a street.  The city would have to produce copies of the checks that paid for that blacktop before I'd believe it was public property.

So find it yourself, if you wish - it's easy enough; Google Maps is among the bamboozled - but I took no photos.

Brooklyn Ave NE Street End

Dear Diary, if anyone reading this page attended the UW and spent much time in the southwest of campus, when I say that this street end is where Brooklyn ends at NE Boat St, they may be scratching their heads and saying, "Wait a minute, Brooklyn and Boat, hang on..."

Sakuma Viewpoint

Brooklyn widens at its end, so if the theory controlled, much, but not quite all, of this university open space would be included.  The city simplifies matters; its GIS map of street ends explicitly identifies the street end with Sakuma Viewpoint.  But the city says nothing louder about its belief that it owns this land.

My belief is that the university and the city made a deal, whose terms included the university's donation of 3.6 acres next door that just opened as Fritz Hedges Waterway Park.

Seems to me it's simple courtesy - and I trust nobody reading you, dear Diary, would wish to be discourteous - to treat Sakuma Viewpoint as one would any university property, even if it may not quite be that.  And university open space is public anyway; I'm writing in you, dear Diary, from such a space right now.  So let's get on with the photos and move on.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

At this point on October 14 I went on to take photos of just-opened Fritz Hedges, which I showed you, dear Diary, a few days later, though not before getting scooped.

It was already kind of late, but I pressed on to four more street ends.  Flipside, though, Sakuma Viewpoint and Fritz Hedges had been my last, no photos, stops the previous evening.  So for the next three street ends, including the last one on this page, I can use photos from both October 14 and 13, although the latter were taken under my first, defective, ideas about how to illustrate street ends.

Eastlake Ave NE (University Bridge) Street End

As long as I clung to the theory, the bridge street ends - three of them in North Seattle - gave me conniptions.  The whole point of a bridge is that it's a street that doesn't end at the waterline.  I think the city already owns the land under the bridges anyway, so this whole thing is pretty much an accounting manoeuvre, but it doesn't make much purist sense.

This tempted me to flights of fantasy, and as it happens, there is a street that ends short of the water right where this street end actually is.  So ....

Eastlake Place NE Street End ?

Photo 1

Photo 2

This street end is the one the city means, east of the bridge, but there's another shore access west of the bridge, which I photographed the night before:

This one may be private, or at least claimed by a private company.

Photo 3

A night view, from the night before:

And that's it for this page.  The next one returns us to "Lake Union's North Shore".  Until then, dear Diary.

Fritz Hedges Waterway Park

Dear Diary,

Last week, I went on a tour of the places the city of Seattle claims as "street ends" in North Seattle.  I still have three to tackle, so won't be telling you more about them tonight, but anyway, I wanted to present them through a more or less consistent and comprehensible approach to photographs.  And it so happens that one of them, arguably the city's most audacious claim in North Seattle, is right next to the new park.  So having gotten there October 13 too late to take pictures - and seen FHWP all fenced in as always - it probably took me less than an hour, on my return the next day, to notice that the fences were down.

So I took some more photos.

Here's the actual waterway, that is, setup for launching and landing boats.

This is just a view along the length of the park.

Unfortunately, as in the expanded Christie Park, all the furniture is metal.  But at least in this park, unlike Christie, it's all painted my favourite colour.

Here I tried an action shot, with a bit more success than usual for me.  Yes, of course the local Canada geese have investigated and adopted the new place.

The beach.

The park's pier.

A view from that pier.

More poorly photographed birds.

There is neither a water fountain nor a restroom I can find.

Next to the waterway is a small parking lot.  No sign says who it's for, but it looks like it's meant for the park.

I found a 2015 article about the planning of this park:

Planning A New Portage Bay Park in the University District by Stephen Fesler for The Urbanist.

It says that in public meetings there was consensus for public restrooms, but not for a parking lot.  It's good to know that the planners were more foresighted than that.  After all, we humans won't always have bodies, but surely we'll always have automobiles.