Four or More Hikes in University Heights

Dear Diary,

Sorry it's a day later than I predicted.  It turns out I can't keep all the geography of I-5 in the U-District in my head at once; I went out twice yesterday and once today to look at it again.  Anyway.  This page concerns hikes on the 8th, 14th, 16th and 18th of this month, and the dozen places I think fit best here.  That's rather a lot, so let's get started.

We're going to need two maps for these places.  Here's the first, which shows most of them:

 

On the 8th, as with the other parts of this region of North Seattle, I wanted mainly to visit places owned, leased or otherwise controlled by the City of Seattle, according to the city's 2020 real property report.  (The main reason I don't use later reports is that they only inconsistently include leased property.)  I'd started with Ravenna, and then taken the Burke-Gilman Trail to the area south of University Heights, Brooklyn.  So this was the last area where I took photos that day, though I then unwisely returned to Ravenna chasing an SPU property that turned out to be a mirage.

University Neighborhood Service Center, take 1 (A on map)

I was a quarter hour too late to go inside this rented space, because I'd been looking for ball point pens at the University Bookstore a block south.

On the way to my next stop, I noticed an informational pillar.  It's good to know the U District Partnership is on the ball, keeping up with things timelier than I do:

University Heights Plaza (B on map)

Dear Diary, two and a half years into this, I think I've got the hang of this.  University Heights Plaza, a park owned by Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation, is a rectangle that's mostly a basketball court, right?

The King County parcel viewer seems to agree.  As I've previously mentioned to you, dear Diary, the "sanican"s and hand-washing station that had been in the plaza during the lockdowns are now gone, so this park is even less a part of my usual rounds than it had been then.  The street sink the cited page mentions isn't on the plaza, but on University Heights's private land, a little north of the P-patch.  Speaking of which...

University Heights P-Patch (C on map)

I think I'm obviously the wrong person to see what, if anything, is distinctive about particular P-patches.  This one at least doesn't have any stairs.

Fire Station 17 (D on map)

When I visited Fire Station 9 in Fremont last summer, I photographed a bunch of signage showing COVID-related closures of various kinds.  Not so here this time:

So my doubts about continuing to point the fire stations out are returning.  I'll have to think about that and let you know, dear Diary.

University branch Library (E on map)

From the downtown hikes of September, I've concluded that it's silly to keep taking restroom and water fountain photos inside buildings, since defects in these things are rarely tolerated for long, unlike in parks.  Also, people inside buildings seem much readier to take offense than people in parks at the use of a camera near restrooms.  However, the only photo I took here, this time, that wasn't a restroom or water fountain shot was a similarly boring door-signage one:

University Playground

The restrooms here have been closed since before the pandemic.  There's still a "sanican", without hand-washing station, in the park, but it's no longer at the back of the restroom building, instead near the northwest exit from the park.  The water fountain works fine.  Relevant photos from October 8th and several past visits are in the Google Drive folder.

I took a landscape shot, unsure whether I'd be back before the next encampment makes such a photo more difficult to take, given my rules:

It occurs to me, dear Diary, that I mostly don't have a clue who reads you any more, so should explain my rules for photo taking again, since they'll be relevant pretty soon.  I don't deliberately photograph people, originally because I didn't want to negotiate image rights while socially distanced, now mainly because I don't really want to negotiate them at all.  I take pains not to photograph homeless people's tents.  I bend these rules where necessary (e.g., photographing anything near Pike Place Market) as long as the people or tents are significantly distant, and even then strongly prefer that the people's faces aren't visible.

Anyway, the remaining stops from October 8 are on the other map, which we've seen before in the first part about hiking Ravenna:

Two snippets (F on second map)

Real property reports mention lots of "parcel"s and "snippet"s.  In previous cases, I've only intermittently been able to identify these.  My record is now a little bit better; I'm pretty sure these protrusions into 8th Ave NE are the two intended by 799 NE 56th St and 810 NE 55th St, 56th first:

I'd rather the report listed the reasonably attractive street circle at 8th Ave NE and NE 56th St:

but although that's pretty certainly city-owned, it isn't what's meant.

Shiga's Garden (G on second map)

Another P-patch:

As implied, that's it for the hike of October 8th in this area.  On October 14, I went to places suggested by Open Street Map, specifically two of them, plus I went back to the Neighborhood Service Center.  But first...

Notes on the land east of I-5 here

In the northwestern part of this region, there's little land east of I-5, as opposed to reasonably generous amounts west of it, enough for a park (NE 60th St Park) and a volunteer garden/orchard (Freeway Estates).  South of 53rd, that all changes, and down to 42nd or so, all the land worth mentioning is east of I-5.  This is partly, but I think not entirely, because of lots of entrances from and exits to the U-District.

The story of this land that I'm prepared to tell today and most likely tomorrow is a story of fences.  For whatever reason, much of the land is fenced in, or fairly recently was fenced in.  Much of the fenced land is steep, which argues that safety is the main concern, but I doubt that's all or even most of it, because much of the fenced land isn't steep, and there doesn't seem to be much correlation between steepness and fencing.  At least one substantial park housed people could plausibly enjoy would be possible near I-5 in the first area I'll discuss below.

Another element of the story:  Some of this land is currently inhabited.  In general, dear Diary, I haven't identified homeless people's use of the land since the previous mayor ramped up sweeps again sometime in 2021.  As I predicted in "Away from the Manger", the last part of my Christmas triptych last year, homeless people have metastasised throughout the city, no longer allowed to be anywhere in numbers, but still finding enough nooks and crannies in both public and private land to avoid (at least as far as I've seen) having to risk using residential porches.  However, in this case some of the land (south of the area this page covers) has recently been swept of holdover encampments; this suggests that the use of the rest (mostly also by holdover encampments) is known to the sweepers.  And I can't tell the story of the fences without talking about the ways in which they've been circumvented, which obviously suggests the land's homeless residents as the agents of circumvention (though hardly the only possible ones).

East of I-5, area 4 (H on first map)

The circumvention here, going south toward 47th St from 50th St, is simple.  The fence has a gate in it, not far south of 50th, and that gate has been open every time, in the over two weeks I've been hiking for these pages, I've gotten close enough to check.  (Mind, that's only been three or four times, but still.)  Near as I can tell, nothing was destroyed unless there was a padlock or some such on the gate.

There aren't many tents here, and it's easy to avoid them while hiking south much of the way to 47th in this substantial area.  It's mostly overgrown grass:

with occasional outcrops of thicker vegetation:

I can't see why these however-many acres have been abandoned like this.  Maybe because of the same sluggishness, on the part of the State of Washington Department of Transportation, that has exasperated the city's leaders because WSDOT hasn't gone all-out to sweep homeless people from its properties as the city has.  But if WSDOT is finally doing sweeps now, I have to wonder why it can't also do something positive at least with this space.

University Child Development School's playgrounds (I on first map)

Dear Diary, when I started writing you, I wondered what the U-District had done, that most of its playgrounds were locked.  There are at least three examples on the UW campus, there's the University Heights playground (on the first map above, but no photos), and then there are these.  Obviously private land owners, like U-Heights and UCDS, have the right to lock up their playgrounds, but where are the public ones that could make such locked private playgrounds irrelevant?  University Playground, whose restrooms haven't been open for years.  And in other neighbourhoods.  That's where.  What's wrong with the U-District having more and better?

Anyway, typical signage for the private playgrounds, emphasising private property:

University Neighborhood Service Center, take 2 (A on map)

On the afternoon of the 14th I managed to get inside this place.  I didn't get anywhere near the counter, there were so many people in line.  I noticed that the public use computer that had been on a desk in the front of this rented storefront was gone; some people were at that desk filling out forms.

This is meant to be a general place for residents of Seattle to deal with their government, and its signage still sort of reflects that.  But they've adopted a sideline that now more or less wags the dog.

From the things they were holding and the things they were saying, I'm pretty sure that all the people I saw in line, with maybe one or two exceptions, were there to get passports, which isn't even a city function.

Unable to reach the staff, I couldn't ask whether they offered a public restroom, but I'm pretty sure I remember their not having one when I visited while homeless a few times, and because where I stood while assessing the situation was near the storefront's back door, I could see signs warning the public away.

Since the 14th most of my hiking has been about loose ends and University of Washington buildings.  You already saw a few signs of the latter, dear Diary, in the third Ravenna page; the first map above has more; Brooklyn's map has tons, which is why I've left that area for last.  But for this region and Brooklyn, the main loose end has been that my record-keeping setup wasn't adequate to handle the land near I-5, so the rest of this page concerns those areas.  I went to these next two on the 16th.

East of I-5, area 5 (J on first map)

This area sandwiched between I-5, an entrance, and an exit, north of 45th St, is pretty seriously inaccessible, even though, as best I can tell, it isn't fenced at all.  I doubt it's inhabited.

East of I-5, area 6 (K on map)

As you can see in the above photo, dear Diary, and still more in this next one, this area, the accessible one north of 45th, is quite steep:

This area is thickly inhabited, so I didn't explore it much.  I think it's possible that the fence survives entirely.  That fence appears never to have enclosed the area shown in blue on the first map, but there are tents on both sides of the fence.  A door-sized gap in the fence along 45th St, where there may have been a door-sized gate, now stands empty; this is presumably how people in the western, fenced-in, tents get out.  Unlike University Heights Plaza, this encampment still has "sanican"s, and an SPU sink that I found running on the 16th, although I screwed up photographing that.

I think most of this area is steep enough that there probably isn't anything more worthwhile to be done with it than what's happening now.  I realise that for the haters of the homeless so common in city government that isn't enough reason to leave things as they are, but I hope whoever makes the decisions about this space continues to make sweeping it a low priority, maybe even contingent on treating the people living there as if they were actually people.

East of I-5, area 7 (L on map)

This area north of 50th St is another steep area, but differs from area 6 in that the hilltop is long, wide and relatively smooth, sort of flattish.  There are several places to climb to it; the further north one goes, the easier the climbs are.  Most of the tents are on or near the hilltop.

There are at least two fences.  One, a typical chain link fence, starts from the bridge and runs some distance along 50th, then turns north.  The other fence, which comes from the north, is made not of metal but of some stone, perhaps concrete.  The hilltop is between the two fences as they now exist.  I find it hard to believe homeless people have done anything to the stone fence, because its present endpoint looks orderly; I don't fully know what the state of the metal fence is, but certainly the two fences don't meet now, if they ever did.  The map above shows my best guess as to what areas WSDOT intended to fence.

Photographing this area was my main loose end for the 18th.  I'd been put off the first time by the density of tents and the difficulty of the climb I chose that time.  So first I photographed the hill side itself:

And then took two views of the other hill side, from the bridge, the first close-up, the second not:

Finally, dear Diary, maybe you've noticed the smaller "M" on the first map.  I went back out today to look specifically at that space between 7th Ave, an entrance and an exit, into which 47th St ends.  It isn't very big at all, but even so, there's a single line of fence running its length, probably to discourage people from trying to walk or drive across it and into traffic.

Well, dear Diary, that's it for now, and since I haven't even started the map for Brooklyn, probably it for today.  Happy hours until we meet again.

How to Lie to the Homeless, part IIA

Dear Diary,

As I told you yesterday, I went to both the Broadview and the Lake City branches of the Seattle Public Library that day.  Although it was the first day of re-opening for the Ballard branch, which I was near that day, I didn't go there.

So although I did take pictures of the water fountains, showing that despite the signs saying they're closed:

the reason the librarians would give, if asked, for why one fountain at each of those branches is wrapped up, as one has been for months at the Ballard branch (whose restrooms and fountains have been open for about a year, after all), is social distancing.  The other fountain at each branch:

is running fine.  But as I was saying, although I took pictures of the fountains at each, I didn't even bother to investigate the restrooms, settling for my own seeing that they were open.  After all, a library probably wouldn't stay open for a full day if they weren't.  What I was really after at the libraries was these:

Yep, dictionary definitions.

I believe that I presently own massive representatives of three major lexicographic traditions:  Merriam-Webster, whose publications go back to 1806, the Oxford English Dictionary (1884), and the American Heritage Dictionary (1969).  Unfortunately, since, as I told you, dear Diary, in "A Visit to Everyday Music" last month, I haven't had the chance to excavate much from my storage yet, I've had to put off for a very long time a page in you that needed dictionary references.  Finally I gave up on consulting the books I owned and settled for those I could get through the slowly re-opening Seattle Public Library.

This even though my trust in librarians has been eroded a good bit recently.  That misleading sign shown above isn't the only one they've put up.  Here's another, from "Hike 11B":

I noted at the time that this claim that University Heights offered public restrooms was false.  And later in that page concluded that this falsehood was based on a different definition of "restroom" from that I use.

This issue of the definition of "restroom" has also come up every time I mention the "Portland Loo" at Ballard Commons, which the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation bills as a restroom, a claim I consistently have doubted.

So I wanted to consult recent dictionaries - more recent than those I own, actually - to find out whether I was just being an old fogey, or whether our city government is actually trying to re-define an English word.

I consulted two physical books and three online sources.

1. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Reference Center (SPL's access), which incorporates a Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
2. A paperbound 2016 edition of The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (SPL's copies).
3.  Oxford English Dictionary (SPL's access)
4. A paperbound 2012 edition of The American Heritage Dictionary (SPL's copies).
5. The American Heritage Dictionary (SPL's access).  This is supposedly just an electronic version of 4 above, but they do differ.

So what do they say about the relatively recent term "restroom" ?

1. a room or suite of rooms providing personal facilities (as toilets)
2. a room or suite of rooms that includes sinks and toilets
3. Originally: a room (usually in a public building or workplace) set aside for rest and relaxation (now rare). In later use (U.S.): a lavatory in a public building or workplace.
4. A room with toilets and sinks for public use.
5. ProQuest, which hosts the e-book in question, repeatedly failed to find this definition.

So two out of four think a restroom has to have a sink, one arguably doesn't, and one punts.  What does the OED have to say about "lavatory" ?

1. holder
2. holder
3. Definition 5b:
   
   A room, cubicle, etc., having a toilet or toilets as well as washing facilities
   
   Definition 5c:
   
   A fixed receptacle into which a person can urinate or defecate
4. holder
5. holder
    

(Apparently Blogspot won't allow incomplete numbered lists.  Sorry, dear Diary.)

So the online Merriam-Webster doesn't require sinks at all.  The physical Merriam-Webster does.  So does the physical American Heritage.  The Oxford English offers an alternative:  if a "restroom", being a "lavatory", doesn't have a sink, it can instead be the appliance itself, in other words what most Americans would call a "toilet".

The "Portland Loo" certainly includes a toilet.  What the sign at the University branch of the Seattle Public Library was pointing to was "sanican"s.  Would the Oxford English Dictionary really countenance this meaning?

Well, "restroom" isn't the only word I looked up.  I also checked all five for "lavatory", "toilet", and "bathroom", and the three online ones for "comfort station".  Let's look at "toilet":

1. Definition 2a:
   
   bathroom
   
   Definition 2b:
   
   a fixture for defecation and urination that consists essentially of a water-flushed bowl and seat
   
2. Definition 2:
   
   bathroom
   
   Definition 3:
   
   a fixture for use in urinating and defecating; esp : one consisting essentially of a water-flushed bowl and seat
   
3. Definition 9a:
   
   A room, building, or cubicle fitted for people to urinate and defecate in, usually with facilities for hand washing
   
   Definition 9b:
   
   A fixed receptacle into which a person can urinate or defecate, typically consisting of a large bowl (with a ring-shaped liftable seat and usually a lid) connected by plumbing to a system for flushing away the waste into the sewer; a lavatory, a water closet; (also) a similar appliance where the waste is disposed of in the earth or treated with chemicals.
   
4. 1a. A disposal apparatus for defecation and urination.  b. A room or booth containing such an apparatus.
5. 1. A fixture for defecation and urination, consisting of a bowl fitted with a hinged seat and connected to a waste pipe and a flushing apparatus; a privy. 2. A room or booth containing such a fixture. 3. The act or process of dressing or grooming oneself. 4. Dress; attire; costume. 5. The cleansing of a body area as part of a surgical or medical procedure. 6. Archaic A dressing table. ety. French toilette, clothes bag, from Old French tellette, diminutive of teile, cloth
   

So the online AHD demands a flush toilet.  Both Merriam-Websters and the OED say that's the norm.  Only the physical AHD doesn't care.

I'll put the text document into which I copied all the definitions mentioned into the public Google Drive folder I maintain for park photos:

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

I'll also put there the dictionary definitions I photographed at Broadview.  (I did want to go to both branches, so I picked Lake City for a book Broadview also owns, the M-W.  But Broadview's copy of AHD is hidden, so I had to go back there later, which is what I was doing before I found the running street water fountain at 85th & Greenwood.)

As my placing this stuff into the parks folder, and not the smaller libraries folder, implies, while I'm disappointed in the librarians, they aren't my main target here.  Nowhere is the attempted re-definition of "restroom" to exclude sinks more prominent, in Seattle, than in the city's materials targeted at the homeless.

In the first part of "How to Lie to the Homeless", I noted lies the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation was telling by submitting data to a map that's still online, a map meant to show restrooms available to the homeless during the pandemic.  I also noted that these lies weren't too surprising given the longstanding hostility between parks personnel and the homeless.  Not long before that, Rachel Schulkin, a communications manager for that department, told me that all the Department of Human Services did was host those data.  I'm pretty sure, though, that DHS also designed the map and wrote the legend text accompanying it.  And my main purpose here, to which all this has simply been prologue, is to explain the lies DHS's division for the homeless told last winter, and is continuing to try to tell, to the population they supposedly exist to serve.

Next page, dear Diary, coming as soon as I can write it.

Details of southern NE Seattle, part I

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I really didn't want to go hiking, so I decided to start with the toughest job left:

Magnuson Community Center and Park

As you already know, I found two restroom pairs open, the usual two closed, and, also as usual, no water fountains running.  The central men's room has two toilets without stall doors, two urinals, one sink, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.  The beach men's room has two toilets without stall doors, two urinals, one sink, one dryer that I haven't found working since last May, and one soap dispenser.  Anyway, there were also other things worth telling you about.

Near the entrance this sign currently stands:

Now, way back in October, in "Water Fountains - An Interim Report", part II, I wrote as follows about the joys of approaching Magnuson Park:

| Of course there were also tears and the gnashing of teeth 

| along this route - not on 75th, and not in the neighbourhood 

| of switchbacks between 75th and Sand Point Way, but rather 

| in the epic struggle to walk the three blocks from 77th to 74th 

| Sts along Sand Point, a part of it not designed for the human form.

So never let it be said that the current city administration has done nothing for me.

The Cross Park Trail (officially the South Cross Park Trail, but since the North one doesn't cross nearly as much of the park, I don't care) reaches the lakefront path halfway between the beach restrooms and the "tower" ones.  I turned south towards the "tower" first.  Along the way I spotted a sign on a tree.  I like it when parks make it possible to identify plants - we'll see an example on a much bigger scale later - so I stopped to look at the sign:

What Green Seattle Partnership aren't telling you in this sign is that because this tree isn't native to Washington, they'd just love to have the chance to uproot it.  That's why they make an issue about its being native here at all; they just can't help themselves, even when they're trying to be politic and not tell people that the tree providing those people with shade ought not to be there.

Anyway, speaking of uprooting, I think something's changed at the "tower" since I first visited it, although I'm not sure just when.  The change is that the water fountain there is now considered a risky thing to approach:

I was going to say that it had never hurt me, but actually, when I first visited this fountain last May, I vaguely remember that the controls then existing, as opposed to now, actually sort of bit my thumb.  So I suppose this caution is warranted.

I put an extra photo into the Google Drive folder where I keep all the boring shots showing me trying to get water from water fountains and observing open (or, on this trip, closed) restroom doors.  Let me repeat it here:

That's one of the two shower controls for Magnuson Park's beach showers.  Notice that it can't be turned.  Neither can.  Now, this could be vandalism, even metal thievery, but I've been coming to believe that this kind of controls-disabling is actually done by employees of the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, and this is a case in point.  Why would metal thieves have stopped where they did?

The Magnuson Community Center is under construction:

and could thus be excused if it were ignoring the idea of "re-opening" as much as other Community Centers are.  But actually, when I went to its temporary home at the Brig (west entrance), this is what I found:

Much better than when I looked for it in January and couldn't find it.

Burke-Gilman Playground Park

Its water fountain, whose water I really like, is off.  Its restrooms are open.  The men's room has one toilet with a door that doesn't latch or lock, one urinal, two sinks, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.  The bench I liked still has not been repaired.

The Burke-Gilman Trail

It's been a long time since I showed you a video, dear Diary, so I thought I'd show you this one, although it's very short.  Its point is that the Burke-Gilman Trail's eastern water fountain, one of only two park water fountains running in southern "NE", is not in ideal shape.

It's dripping both at the control and from the opposite side of the fountain.

In order to make sure I actually got going, I left the house without taking time to pack food or water (though I did drink some before leaving).  To make matters worse, I got a bag of tortilla chips for breakfast, where I got the newspaper.  So I was pretty thirsty by this point, and, ignoring the damage, washed and filled both the empty bottles I was carrying there.  The water proved good, as it has been in the past.

Speaking of the past, this fountain is part of why I'm suspicious of controls vandalism.  Last winter the controls were visibly damaged, but when the fountains came back on the controls of this one were magically healed.

Since I had water, I didn't need to get it from University Village, and so was free to get my day's healthy food at Safeway.  But I didn't like what they had available, so went to Chipotle in U-Village anyway.

Ravenna Park

Neither men's room is open, only the lower women's room is open, and neither water fountain is running.

I took, and uploaded to Google Drive, two photos of the upper women's room door, one a close-up trying to show the latch that locks it.  I remember doing the same with the men's room but the photo doesn't seem to have taken.

The lower men's room door bears a sign blaming the closure on vandalism.  Both upper rooms' doors bear signs blaming the closure on all four choices:  seasonal closure, vandalism, malfunction or freeze, and maintenance needed.

Near the lower restrooms is a sandbox that constantly spills sand onto the pavement nearby.  A man was sweeping the sand away, blessed be he, and when he saw me taking pictures he introduced himself and explained, with rather slow speech, his job, involving programs at this park.  Someone better equipped than I should try to get this guy the fifteen minutes of fame he seems to want.

On my way between the lower and upper restrooms and water fountains, I stopped at a Little Free Library.  While I looked, a parks employee drove up and hailed me; it was the man I'd met at Northacres Park.  He'd regaled me with tales of closed restrooms then (one involved an unhappy rabbit in the women's beach restroom at Magnuson); this time, he just listed them to me.

Nevertheless, I took a big risk and ate my burrito and drank a bottle of water near the picnic shelter near the upper restrooms, not knowing where I could take care of the probable results.

Cowen Park

Neither restroom was open.  This time only the "malfunction or freeze" box was checked.  You may remember, dear Diary, that in "Some Odds and Ends" I mentioned having seen the men's room here open on March 23, with the water running.  Since UW, nearby, recorded 36° F on the Atmospheric Sciences Building rooftop as recently as April 11, a freeze wouldn't be much of a wonder.

The water fountain also isn't running.

University Heights Plaza

As I told you, dear Diary, I'd worried about the SPU sinks.  Well, in the U-District, they're still there:

Here's a close-up of their new decoration:

On my way to the next park, I stopped by the University branch of the Seattle Public Library.  It thinks there's plenty of time left before it has to worry about anything like "re-opening":

University Playground

This park was recently swept.  So, as at Albert Davis Park, this was the first time I could shoot a landscape at this park without catching a tent, so I did that, even though the landscape of this park is singularly uninteresting:

The restrooms remain closed without explanation.  I've heard two explanations of very different kinds from the two parks employees with whom I've talked the most (one, the guy mentioned above), so I don't know what to think.

On the way to the next park, I verified that the SPU sink is still at the encampment at I-5 and NE 45th St.  Remembering that I hadn't actually tried the one at U-Heights, I decided to photograph this one running:

And there I'd better stop, because I have more photos to show you, dear Diary, and this is sort of a natural stopping point.  Until later today, then.

Hike 11B: Near Northeast, part I

Dear Diary,

Oops, I made a mistake yesterday.  Hike 11 was on January 22; January 21 was hike 10, in Green Land and Woodlake Parks.  (Or someplace like that.)  I've already corrected the dates in "Hike 11A", which I wrote in you yesterday, but hope by emphasising the mistake here to alert people who'd read that before the corrections.

Anyway, then, on January 22, I woke up early in Bergen Place in downtown Ballard, ran the two errands that had dragged me there through darkest jungles that damaged my cart, and then headed back to the U-District and "home", such as I then had.

It turns out I took so many photos there that I'll have to split this into two pages.  But let's get started with the first one, which conveniently enough covers everything I can imagine is really part of the U-District.  The next page will cover Ravenna and points east.

The Urban Rest Stop, University District branch

Unlike the Ballard branch, this is one I've used often.  During the 2018-2019 school year, abbreviated as it was, I went there most weeks to shower, leaving my stuff in relative safety in the obscure part of Suzzallo Library I then spent most days in.  (Once per month I went to my storage, got clean clothes out, and showered and changed at the downtown branch.)

At first this branch had several advantages.  Not only was it close to the University, but it had larger shower rooms than the downtown branch, so it was easier to deal with whenever I did have to bring my cart along.  And it was relatively quiet, meaning that most of the time one could take one's time showering.  However, during the aforementioned school year, this laxity apparently offended the Urban Rest Stop Powers That Be, and after a change of personnel, rules changed considerably, and kept changing, so things were much less predictable.

I already told you, dear Diary, on June 8, in "A Shower at Green Lake", about the last time I went there, which was on May 13.  Of course by then I was living outside about 23 hours per day, and had nowhere safe to leave my cart; I was astonished, as I wrestled it up the steps, to be told not only that I couldn't bring it in but also couldn't have brought my backpack in either, if I'd still owned one.  So unfortunately, my last memory of the U-District branch of the Urban Rest Stop at that location is an unhappy one.

Because, you see, dear Diary - oh, let's get the postcard shot out of the way first:

No, not much of a postcard shot, but that was the only outside entrance, and yes, the door was always plastered with notices like that.  But let's take a closer look at one of those notices:

Now this is just weird.  No, not that it had closed.  That was actually predictable, because the church building it was in is slated for demolition.  I remember news stories about the Roots shelter, which also used the showers, relocating.

What's weird is that that Urban Rest Stop location was funded by the Seattle Department of Human Services.  Yes, the same people who made the map these eleven hikes in January were meant to check.  But the map still showed it being open on January 22, at the same address, and still shows it open to this day:

 

Why can't Human Services keep track of their own contractors?  Maybe because their contractors can't keep track of themselves, either.  As of today, the Urban Rest Stop's own website continues to claim this branch not only is open, but is open at that same location.  But on March 11, while the closure notice was gone, the closure remained:

I'll go back there soon.  If I come back with a picture of demolition rubble, will people stop pretending the Urban Rest Stop is still offering restrooms amid that rubble to homeless people in the U-District?  Of course the branch should relocate, not fold, but it should do so and then publish its new address, not send people with urgent needs on wild goose chases.

University Playground

Yes, dear Diary, I tried to cover this one in hike 1A, "Inconvenients", about which I wrote in you way back on January 3.  But I couldn't get all the photos this series of pages is supposed to include for every restroom building.  So I stuck it back into the queue.  The postcard shot:

The closed doors:

The "sanican":

At first, I assumed the map I was checking was intended to truthfully show what hygiene resources were available to homeless people, and I figured the fact that the map showed only a "sanican" here, and didn't make hay out of closed restrooms, was only to be expected.  But by this time, January 22, I had a list of restrooms that were supposed to close for lack of heat (the list I posted part of April 8 in "Park Restrooms in North Seattle") - and University Playground's weren't on that list, even though they obviously don't have room for a furnace.  Now, I think the fact that the city didn't lie over the winter about this restroom building, the way they lied about so many others where a "sanican" was available, simply means that in the view of the Department of Parks and Recreation, this restroom building doesn't really exist, isn't expected ever to re-open.  Which is pretty upsetting.

The Seattle Public Library, University branch

I wasn't done with surprises for the day, although this one, I could've avoided by checking the map, which truthfully represented this particular situation.

I'd covered this in "Hike 1A" too, but made myself go look again, and there'd been a change:

 

I was particularly perplexed by the claim that restrooms were available at University Heights, since I knew that wasn't true, so I went there next.

University Heights Plaza and the nearby building

What the sign was referring to, of course, was these:

This was actually my first chance at two kinds of sinks that had become available during the pandemic, the SPU sink pictured, and one of the original Seattle Street Sinks.  The SPU sink was quite convincing:

Unlike the one I'd found in Lake City, it was working.  I observed that it didn't allow the user to control either the temperature, the strength, or the duration of the water flow.  I also observed that the sink bowls were too small to fill a water bottle at, and I shudder to contemplate trying to wash dishes in them.

The Seattle Street Sink appeared abandoned, although it sounds like it's supposed to be in this kind of environment:

I'm pretty sure it wasn't working, but I could see that it also wouldn't allow its user much control over the water flow.  However, it provided ample room for bottle filling and dish washing.  Of course, that isn't what the city wants homeless people to be able to do, because that would promote the health of homeless people, and we can't have that, can we?

But had anything changed at U-Heights?  Last I'd found, they claimed, like every other building on University Way NE, to have "No Public Restrooms".  How could librarians have gotten something so straightforward wrong?  Anyway, I took a postcard shot:

And then waited a good while for a porch to empty of children and the people taking care of them, so I could look at the signage, and here it is, same as before:

Of course, what we're actually seeing here is two different definitions of "restroom".  I think a restroom is a single room containing at least a toilet and a sink, and it looks like whoever wrote the sign just above agrees with me.  Whoever wrote the library sign seems to have a much wider definition of "restroom".  I will return to this topic later, dear Diary.

Cowen Park

I'm not fond of this gravel- and stairs-infested park even now that I no longer push a cart, but it was one of the core parks I told you about first, dear Diary, in "Our Main Characters" last April 25, "The Curious Incident of the Light in the Night-Time" May 2, "Go North, Aging Man!" and "Foolish Mortal" both May 6, "Ravennawards" May 12, "Home Dry Home" June 4, "A Thief" July 9, "COWEN PARK'S RESTROOMS ARE OPEN" July 30, "My Book of Hours" part III August 30, and, um, "Some Odds and Ends" April 4.  Wow, I neglected it for a while, didn't I?  Well, here are six more photos.

Two opinions as to the best face of the restroom building:  the chalk area:

or the roof with a view:

The closed doors, just as the map then said:

A close-up of that poster, which is actually complimenting the parks department:

And this park's surprise.  (The next page is going to be so boring in comparison...)

Of course, now that the map has caught up to the "sanican" being there (it was moved from Ravenna Park, as I confirmed not much later that day), it claims the restrooms are open too.  On the other hand, it's warm enough now that they should be open, so that may not be a lie.  Yep, more reason for me to go back to my old neighbourhood soon.

But first I should finish telling you about January, dear Diary.  I hope to write two more pages today.  Until then.