Gilman Playground and Woodland and Green Lake Parks Tonight

Dear Diary,

From downtown this evening I went to Fred Meyer in Ballard, the only other errand I'd left myself time to run today before tomorrow's hiking.  I'd mis-remembered an article in Publicola as implying that both the RVs adjacent to Green Lake Park, and the campers in Woodland Park, were to be swept soon.  This is not true; the article in fact specifically says the campers have until January.  But anyway, 

Oh, dear, dear Diary.  I've even told the city (in the form of the Seattle Public Library) my adress, but haven't told you.  I live on NE 64th St between Ravenna Boulevard and Green Lake Park.  So I figured I could walk home from Ballard, and look into Woodland Park on the way.  And from there, Gilman wasn't much of a stretch.

Gilman Playground

The restrooms, of course, remain closed - no park restrooms in southern Ballard stay open in winter.  (Ross Park's restrooms have to close in cold weather.  Gilman Playground's don't have to, but ought to close, so homeless people lose an alternative, because human Number Two is such an excellent decoration for Ballard's streets.  And Ballard Playground's restrooms don't at all have to close, they're in a much bigger building for crying out loud, but there's no way the people who live near there want their neighbourhood to have the only open park restrooms in Ballard.)

Anyway, the real news is that the water fountain, which had consistently run ever since my first visit in June 2020, even that winter, was off.

Well, I guess it deserved a rest after all that time, but I was a little shocked and more than a little disappointed to find that.  I didn't take any photos there.

Woodland Park

This was a pretty focused visit; I visited the three restroom buildings in the western, upper, part of "Lower" Woodland Park, and some of the water fountains in that area.

I found the men's room of the "50th St" restrooms open at 7:40 P.M., the women's room closed, according to the sign due to a "malfunction or freeze".  The nearby water fountain, though considerably repaired before the last time I'd seen it, wasn't running then, so I wasn't in the least surprised that it wasn't running tonight, as nightly lows head towards the point when most water fountains really need to be shut down.  (Hing Hay Park's water fountain has been shut off for nearly a week, although the one in "lower" Ravenna Park was still running Friday night.)

So, um, I was pretty unprepared for this:

That's one of the two fountains attached to the "Pink Palace" building in the centre-west of "Lower" Woodland Park.  As with most of the fountains I've found running lately (Magnuson, Ravenna, Bitter Lake, not so much downtown), its drain is blocked with sand, but it's exuberantly running.  Now, I've argued, as long ago as November 2020, that water fountains attached to heated restroom buildings are, based on Jackson Park's experience, good choices to keep on in winter.  I haven't noticed Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation paying much attention to that argument, though, and based on what I found tonight in Gilman, here, and at Green Lake, I strongly suspect the fountains still running at this point are simply those near remaining homeless encampments in or near the parks.  (Ravenna is a counter-argument, but its fountains' harder water may give them a bit more leeway with cold.)

The rest of the social contract that seems to me to have existed between the campers and the parks staff at Woodland Park has survived, so far, to varying degrees.   I checked all the shelters, something I've previously had trouble doing at night, but tonight a full moon helped, and so did Christmas lights at three of the shelters, including two in the southern area where I hadn't previously seen good evidence of electricity at all.  All remain occupied except for shelter 7, where I'm profoundly disappointed to have to report that only one bench remains; all the other benches and tables are gone, presumably for use as firewood.  I found not only electrical cables, but also water hoses, running across a street in the north of the park from shelter 6.

Where the social contract has most obviously broken down, besides the stolen furniture, is in trash handling.  Lots of bags haven't been picked up.  Possibly in reaction to that, lots of trash is now there unbagged, including at the presumably former pick-up stop adjacent to that water fountain whose photo I showed you, dear Diary, pages and pages ago.  There are two water fountains there, adjacent, but the one on the right, nearer in this photo, though also running, has a small bag in its bowl.

But actually, the program that supplies trash removal to encampments includes supplying bags, so I'm guessing both removal and bags are no longer available.  One of the best things mayor Jenny Durkan ever did for homeless people was to ramp that program way, way up early in the lockdown, and then the City Council doubled her request for its 2021 budget.  So maybe this is just a blip, depleted funds, and come New Year's Day garbage removal at Woodland Park will resume, and the campers will have a lot of tidying to do.  Or maybe, since their sweep is planned for January, nobody will bother.  Dunno.

Anyway, I also found the fountain running at shelter 6, which had not been running the last time I visited, in, um, October.  So what the heck is going on here?  My guess is that parks staff are continuing to bend over backwards to be nice to the Woodland Park campers, even with them the most likely suspects in the denudation of shelter 7, and the trash problem is just the blip I speculate about above.  Maybe the parks people are aware that the tiny house village spots that had been planned for the campers have gone elsewhere, so the campers probably face a pretty bleak future after January, the past eighteen or so months probably the best of the homeless parts of their lives, and parks employees are being models of forbearance in the meantime.  But anyway, after I tell you, dear Diary, that I found the "Pink Palace" men's room open but the women's, and both "lawn bowling" ones, closed, and that all the door shots are at the Google Drive folder, that's it for Woodland Park.

Except that I still hadn't found a single sweep notice.  I've recently seen a sweep near where I work, and although nobody played entirely fair there, still, there was a notice, and it wasn't hard to find.  So why not at Woodland?  Because I got the date wrong, of course, but the point is, then I went on to Green Lake Park to look for the notice there (as well as because it was on my way home, of course).

Green Lake Park

Of course, what that Publicola article actually said was that only those camping along West Green Lake Way N are to be swept.  And they did get a notice, but it took a strange form.

For me, this is fitting.  My mother was widowed when I was 8, and I went through high school young, from 11 to 15.  So she refused to let me take driver's ed, because it would send her auto insurance rates skyrocketing, and I'd never been able to afford it, time and money at the same time, since.  As a result, I'm one of the few Americans for whom "gas" and "parking" don't have similar visceral resonance to, say, "electricity" and "phone".  I can intellectually understand when people say the vehicular homeless have huge extra worries, specifically gas and parking, but it just basically doesn't make sense to me.  So of course, given that I don't understand them, I'd expect their sweeps to take a different form.  And that they do:

Ho ho ho!  Happy Christmas!

That notice includes a URL which the Seattle Department of Transportation, which posted it, says explains about "temporary no parking zones".  This it does.  Temporary no parking zones are things private companies and individuals normally pay SDOT for permission to impose, and that's all well explained, and indeed mapped, at that site.  But zones imposed by SDOT itself for sweeping purposes?  The site certainly does not enable one to find those (not even through the map's GIS features).  The particular temporary no parking zone of interest here isn't even on the map yet:

SDOT seems determined to play the Grinch this year.

Mind, the Publicola report also refers to tents in Green Lake Park near all those vehicles, and I did see some tonight, and even exchange greetings with a resident.  So does "No Parking" cover them, too?  Or where is their sweep notice?

I certainly didn't find it at the Green Lake Small Craft Center, where the restrooms were open (well, it wasn't 9 P.M. yet).  The restrooms were also open at the "65th St" location, as they should be.  The latter has no water fountains, but those at the Small Craft Center were running.  These, too, are attached to buildings that are presumably heated all winter, so again, they fit my advocacy.  Problem is, the Woodland Park shelter 6 water fountain is free-standing, and if that shelter were heated, well, shelter 7 would still have its furniture.  So I think the water fountains still running in Woodland and Green Lake Parks are still running, not because, in a normal Seattle winter, they can safely run most of the time (as Gilman Playground's free-standing fountain showed last winter, when there were homeless in that place), but just only because the parks department is trying to be nice to the campers.

Which is certainly a happier thing to close on than what SDOT is preparing to do to the campers' more mobile peers.

Good night, dear Diary.  Tomorrow, I hope to hike the parks of northeastern downtown, and finish that series at last, except for the artist credits.

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.

Today's hike: Most fountains running in southern NW

Dear Diary,

I'm writing this page on my phone using the app, which means I can't do much with it, so will keep this brief.

Today I went to Golden Gardens Park, Loyal Heights Community Center and Playfield, Salmon Bay Park, Webster Park, Ballard Playground, Ballard Commons, the parts of the Burke-Gilman Trail that include both the actual and the published locations of its western water fountain, NW 60th St Viewpoint (which is near the published location), Gilman Playground, Ross Park, and Sunset Place.  So I went to every park water fountain known to me in "NW" south of 85th (but not to the imaginary one at Baker Park on Crown Hill), every park restroom ditto, and here's what I found:

All fountains were running except the southern one at Golden Gardens Park.  I drank from those at Ballard Playground and on the Burke-Gilman Trail, and found their water OK.

All restrooms were open except Gilman Playground's (still posted), and Ross Park's, but that was at 8:40 P.M.  Even if park restrooms are keeping their advertised hours for summer - 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. - that's within a reasonable amount of leeway.

I'm beginning to hope that year two of the Durkan Drought is finally over, at least in North Seattle.

All for tonight, dear Diary.  Tomorrow I'd hoped to hike again, but I hurt too much, so should have plenty of time to tell you whatever else needs telling about the two latest hikes.

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.

A Hike in Southeastern Ballard

Dear Diary,

It looks like putting time between pages isn't going to work for me, so I'll try to get the last three pages about yesterday's hikes done as soon as I can.  This one concerns three places, as the title says, in southeastern Ballard proper, as opposed to Ross.

EDIT 5/11:  Map:

We left off at Leary Way NW and NW Bright St.  You may remember, dear Diary, that long ago, in the page about Ravenna Boulevard, I explained that streets not named "Street" or "Avenue" put their directionals before or after their names on the basis of whether they go mostly east-west or mostly north-south.  Leary Way, for much of its length, is strictly east-west, but another long stretch goes southeast-northwest; that's actually the definition of a "way", in Seattle, a street that changes direction.  But in this case, there's a place along it that probably could happen elsewhere, but I hope only Seattle is actually stupid enough to post a sign at the intersection of Leary Way NW and NW Leary Way.  Really.  I didn't take a photo, but if you go there, you'll see it.

A short distance after that, at 14th Ave NW, I reached

Leary Substation Site

Apparently this is no longer needed by Seattle City Light and is being rented out.  I wasn't sure while I was there, and noticed a huge, stately building in the middle of the block with a rather graceless wooden entrance tacked onto its north end (away from busy Leary, that is); I figured maybe that was full of electricity generating machinery.

But part of what makes that building inaccessible is a huge construction site surrounding it on three sides, and this is what the explanatory sign says:

 

Nickelsville in Latona, a food bank here - Seattle City Light just seems to be doing good all over the place, doesn't it?

Greg's Garden

As further evidence that southeastern "NW" isn't all one neighbourhood, here's another P-Patch.

Notice that unlike Ross's P-Patch, this one can be navigated on the level.

Gilman Playground

This park and the surrounding sidewalks were recently swept of many tent campers, and when I visited yesterday, none had returned, although quite a few of the vehicles parked nearby looked inhabited.  Instead the park was full of baseball players; one game seemed wholly adult, another partly, although there was definitely coaching of children going on in that one too.  I'd taken a bunch of photos in this park in January, so stuck to business this time.

Rather to my surprise, the restrooms, which had been closed due, said the signs, to "vandalism", had not re-opened as soon as the campers were gone.

There are now even more "sanican"s there than I'd found in January, presumably because baseball players outnumber campers:

The water fountain, thank Heaven, still works; I took a long drink that enabled me to finish hiking this region last night, and the water was good.

Although I wasn't here during February's snow, as far as I know this water fountain has run throughout the pandemic.  It's one of two in Ballard of which this is true; the other is a few blocks further north and quite a few further west.  Not coincidentally, the two parks in question have been repeatedly full of campers.  Imagine that, human beings needing water; what a strange concept, isn't it, dear Diary?  Anyway, while I'm personally as well as civically glad this water fountain is still running, my point is that it doesn't refute my hypothesis that the city is re-enacting its water fountain approach from last year, no doubt as part of some arcane ritual that unfortunately seems all too likely to culminate in human sacrifice, if only indirectly.

I hope to consume some water showering tonight, and then write the last two pages about yesterday's hikes.  None of the places I'm going to tell you about in those two pages have water fountains or restrooms, dear Diary, so anyone who's reading primarily for those can skip those pages if they wish.

Hikes 12 and 14: All Night Long, Redux

Dear Diary,

We're entering a new era.  This is the second page, not the first, about hikes I've taken since getting housed - more specifically, hikes I've taken without my cart.  But this is also more or less the first page since December not mainly concerned with the lies put forward by the city government in the form of a map purporting to show restrooms open this past winter.  The map's still there, mind, and I'll check its summer edition starting soon, but for now we're free of it.

In hike 12, I re-visited most of the park restrooms in North Seattle that I thought might be open all night; that hike extended from March 25 to March 26.  In hike 14, I followed up things I thought I'd seen in Woodland Park that night, going there in the evening but with light still in the sky, April 4.  So "All Night Long" really applies mostly to hike 12, but I did pay that topic a bit of attention in hike 14, and it made no sense to split the two hikes up.  Anyway, here goes.

Hike 12 - March 25 to 26

I took only a few photos on this very long hike at night.

Woodland Park

The "Cloverleaf" restrooms were closed at 9:25 P.M.; the sign saying they were only open dawn to dusk was still up at the men's room but gone at the women's room.  The Curative COVID testing site that had been east of those restrooms, and had had "sanican"s nearby, was no longer there, but the "sanican"s were.  The "Rio" restrooms were closed at 9:31 P.M., and again there was still a sign at the men's but not at the women's.  This struck me as such an odd pattern (usually signs last longer at women's rooms) that this time I took photos, the only ones I took that night at Woodland or Green Lake Parks:

The "50th St" restrooms were open at 9:47 P.M., the "Pink Palace" ones at 10:03, and the "lawn bowling" ones were closed at 10:08 P.M.

I got the distinct impression that far fewer tents were visible in the areas of Woodland Park I visited that night than I'd have expected to see based on prior night visits.  Also, when I went downhill from the "Pink Palace" to Green Lake Park, I noticed no extension cords crossing that road, where there had formerly been three; but there was one I hadn't noticed before, crossing the path from the "Pink Palace" to the "lawn bowling" restrooms.  Someone on the west side of that path (away from the shelters) had used to run a loud generator quite often, but it was silent that night.  Essentially these were the topics that brought me back to Woodland Park ten nights later.

Green Lake Park

The "Shellhouse" restrooms were closed at 10:21 P.M.  The "65th St" ones were open at 10:34.  The Community Center ones were closed at around 10:50, and there was caution tape across the entrance to the stairs to the women's room, but not the men's.  (See what I mean, dear Diary?)  The "wading pool" rooms were open at 11:00, and the "Bathhouse" pair were closed at 11:14.

I bought a newspaper on my way to the next park.  I'd been buying them, mindful of the Seattle Times's role in my becoming housed, but I also wanted to use this one as a prop; I had the fantasy that I'd tell you, dear Diary, about this hike before the next newspaper came out.  Um, sure.  Anyway, here's its front page, so people who read you can identify it in the upcoming photos:

Hey, speaking of which, I got vaccinated today, with the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine.  I can hardly wait.  Within a year I might even be able to forget about masks, and wear glasses in public again.

Carkeek Park

I found the restrooms open at 1:04 A.M.:

I found a dramatic change at one of the "sanican"s, the one at the Environmental Learning Center which had been full of experimental gear and papers.  Observe:

That sign in more detail:

Ooh, I'd forgotten that lock.  Let's see - has the map I'd been checking noticed that lock yet?  No, it has not:

It sees three "restrooms" at Carkeek Park, which means the entire restroom building as one plus two "sanican"s.  But only one of the "sanican"s was available that night, and I bet that's still true.  Since I've been calling the authors of the map liars pretty much every time I write in you, dear Diary, I haven't been e-mailing corrections to them, but I hope they notice this one before the century, or anyway the mayoral term, ends.

View Ridge Playfield

Its restrooms were open at 4:35 A.M.:

So that's every park restroom I believed to be open 24 hours this past winter in North Seattle, except those at Gas Works Park, which had been officially announced so were, I figured, very unlikely to be closed.  Sooner or later, I'll also check on the claim from last year (denied then by Rachel Schulkin of the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation) that the restrooms at Bitter Lake Playfield are open 24 hours.  But in the meantime...

Hike 14 - April 4

Woodland Park

My goals for this hike were to observe by day the changes in number of tents, and access to electricity, that I thought I'd seen the night of March 25.  But one of the easiest ways to judge access to electricity is to be around when the sun has recently set, so I went pretty late.  I found the "Pink Palace" restrooms open and the "lawn bowling" restrooms closed at around 7:30 P.M., the "50th St" ones open at 7:45.

There were indeed no electrical cords crossing the road from the tennis courts up to the "Pink Palace" and nearby shelters, as had been there in the past.  One, which I don't think was one of the former three, was present, but not going anywhere:

For something to do while I waited for the sun to set more fully, I wandered around exploring.  This helped me get a clearer picture of the largely unmapped park, but also brought me within view of various "sanican"s, which reminded me of the Curative site.

They'd put up a sign:

Where all the "sanican"s in Woodland Park had been across the path from the testing site, now they were scattered hither and yon, so only one stands behind that sign.  An ADA one had moved to the testing site's new location, near the Citywide Athletics Building and the closed "Rio" restrooms.  This photo is pretty dark, but the testing site is the blue and white box on the left, the ADA "sanican" the green box on the far right:

What looks like another ADA one had moved to the opposite end of the path through the cloverleaf (Leo Lassen) baseball fields, to face the north tennis courts:

When I went back uphill, I found darkness prevalent not only around shelters 1, 2, 3 and 7, whose campers had never had electricity, but also around shelter 4, which had had access to it.  Shelter 6, which I suspect may be the only source, was really the only brightly lit thing around, other than the restrooms; what tents remained near it (they'd be to its right in this photo) were in darkness:

I took that photo at 8:23 P.M.; this visit didn't take all that long.  Soon after, I ran into a Real Change worker calling himself Merlin.  He and a companion with whom I didn't talk much had both spent a lot more years homeless than I had.  He said the park's population hadn't changed, but more campers were hiding.  However, he estimated the population at 50 or 60, and I was pretty sure I'd seen more tents than that in October.  He speculated that maybe the generator I hadn't heard (again) had stopped working.

PubliCola reported today that the sweep of Gilman Playground has been scheduled and that of University Playground has already happened.  Here we see that even the favoured campers at Woodland Park are losing the gifts they'd been receiving.  It's important to remember, while COVID-19 continues to stalk the land, that our city government is already in a post-COVID world, in which it can indulge its love of cruelty to the homeless after too long an abstention, without risking public health by doing so.  Must be nice.  I wonder; if I worked for the city, could I already be forgetting masks and wearing glasses again?

But if the city is really in a post-COVID world, why aren't the community centers, pools, and libraries re-opening?

Maybe the city just considers mistreating the homeless a greater public good than following CDC recommendations or re-opening libraries.  Beats me.  But camping in parks is looking to be a riskier and riskier strategy, and I expect to find even Woodland Park becoming less welcoming - and less populous - as the days go on.

Partly because of my vaccination, I've planned to spend the next couple of days housebound, dear Diary, among other things doing some behind the scenes work on you that having a laptop makes possible.  The Gilman sweep is apparently scheduled for Friday, and I have an errand in Ballard sometime soon, so we'll see.  I also have errands soon that should enable me to see what's happened at University Playground.  But I probably can't stay housed and also be much of a real reporter with my ear to the ground for you, dear Diary; and at some point, my long expectation that I'd be done writing you may well come true.

Hike 15: Northwest

Dear Diary,

Wonder of wonders!  The map actually told the truth about at least nine restrooms!  Let me explain.

This morning I checked the map the hikes in January were checking on, and found six parks whose restrooms were clearly announced as re-opened.  (There may have been others hidden by the lying setup whereby a "sanican" is mapped the same as an open restroom; I didn't spend long enough with the map to investigate.)  The six:

1. Ballard Community Center.  Previously covered April 4 in "Hike 8C".
2. Loyal Heights Community Center.  Previously covered February 8 in "Hike 4B".
3. Meadowbrook Playfield.  Still to be covered in hike 9C.
4. Ross Park.  Previously covered March 23 in "Hike 8B".
5. Sandel Playground.  Previously covered January 25 in "Hikes 3C and 6A".
6. Soundview Playfield.  Previously covered February 13 in "Hike 5A".

Well, I had an errand in Ballard today, so I figured I should check on the five in Northwest.  Then realised this left only two parks there with regular restrooms to look at, and they were both convenient, so why not?  (This omits, of course, Golden Gardens and Carkeek Parks, which aren't on Ballard's street grid, are way downhill from the rest of Ballard, are time sinks, and were open all winter anyway.)

So here goes:  Which park restrooms on Ballard's street grid opened today?  Wonder of wonders, the map was almost entirely truthful.

Sandel Playground

This is the only place where the map was off.

So far so good, but...

Soundview Playfield

I'd gotten a newspaper before starting, but forgot to use it at Sandel.  Here's its front page, for easier recognition:

So.  Soundview has two effectively all gender single user stalls.

I used the one shown with door open.  It turns out to have the kind of sink that sends water mainly horizontally to soak the user's clothing, a kind of sink I've noticed more of recently.  That one is the one that faces south towards NW 90th St.  (I didn't try the other sink, which may or may not do the same.)

Loyal Heights Community Center

No, the map didn't announce that the Community Center had re-opened.  Both Community Centers in Northwest have restrooms that open to the outside, and are effectively the restrooms for their parks, in this case Loyal Heights Playfield.

In winter 2019-2020, Loyal Heights was announced as staying open for the winter, the only one of these so announced.  This winter, it was on the map as open, but closed anyway; I speculated that this might be because of construction nearby in the playfield.  The construction is now uphill from these restrooms, and this time they really are open when the map says so:

Salmon Bay Park

Previously covered February 8 in "Hike 4B".  Has yet to be shown as open on the map, and I've yet to find it open since October.

Yes, I forgot the newspaper again.

Ballard Playground

Obviously, one reason I came back to Northwest in such a big way today was embarrassment at having to say, over and over as I wrote three days ago, that I didn't know the current situation.

Well, these doors should have been open all winter, but they're open now:

One of the things I was unsure about was a "sanican" at the east side of 26th Ave NW, across that street from Ballard Playground.  It's gone now:

Ballard Commons

Previously covered April 4 in "Hike 8C" with some similar uncertainties; the other of the two places still to be covered in hike 11A, besides the Ballard branch of the Urban Rest Stop.

In the page from April 4 I made a mistake.  I said there were two buttons on the side of the "Portland Loo", for washing water and drying air, and neither worked.  This was inobservant of me in January.  Look:

I'd only noticed the left lower button, not the right lower one, which as you can see, dear Diary, in fact draws water.  The upper one, for air, and the lower left one, probably for soap, are the ones that didn't work in January nor today.

In fact Ballard Commons is overflowing with water.  It has a working water fountain, running now:

And on top of both those sources, I'd speculated it might have gotten an SPU sink.  Nope, but it does have a much bigger hand-washing station, and it was working today:

Notice all the wet pavement.  The green object in the corner is a bottle of hand soap.

Gilman Playground

Previously covered March 23 in "Hike 8B".

Apparently the restrooms here opened back up sometime when I wasn't looking and have already closed again:

I wonder who vandalised them.  There are again plenty of tents in Gilman Playground.  Oh, and yes, I forgot the newspaper again.

Gilman Playground does still have running water:

Ross Park

It only takes one picture to show both restrooms as open:

And yes, that's the mosaic I've complained to you, dear Diary, so many times, that I couldn't photograph.  So even before taking the shot above, I took this one:

This goes to show something important about recent photos I show you, dear Diary.  My phone has decided that the proper way to respond to sunlight is to get very dim.  As a result, when photographing by day, all I can do is point, pray, and shoot.  I'll have to go back to Ross Park with some other camera some day.

Meanwhile, I'd obviously better get on with telling you about hikes 8D through 11C, from January, before everything has re-opened.  But not tonight.  Good night, dear Diary.