I haven't done anything major this week to tell you about, but have noticed a few things worth mentioning before I head west again tomorrow.
Yesterday I had greasy dishes to wash and some free time, so I started the day at Laurelhurst Community Center's restrooms. I'm now sure that they can be locked from inside. As of yesterday, none of the water fountains in Laurelhurst Playfield were running. And here's a photo from the peak of the bridge mentioned last time, towards the playfield:
It's lucky I did start the day there, because when I got to Burke-Gilman Playground Park for water, its restrooms were locked - apparently we're back to Friday closures again.
Today I had occasion to go back to the University branch of the Seattle Public Library to do Number Two. They aren't exactly thronged with customers, so they only have one room open, and I noticed today that the lock it normally has has been removed. On the other hand, last time I was there, the water fountains were wrapped and unusable; I complained about that. So I was pleased to see that today they were open, and the man staffing the area even offered me a drink.
All for now. I'll be on the road for several days, and am not sure whether I'll write anything in you, dear Diary, while gone, but the next page, whenever it comes, should be about Gas Works Park and maybe Waterways 18 and 19.
You may remember a page long ago about "Water Fountains" in which I presumed that the reason for recent neglect of both park and street water fountains was a lonely struggle to mend Seattle's reputation as a town soft on water addiction.
Well, today for the second time recently I passed a fountain at 1st and Pike (downtown, not "NE") that wasn't and isn't running. This time I could take pictures, from which you'll see, dear Diary, that this is a typical street fountain.
Now, 1st and Pike is one of the city of Seattle's front doors, a place tourists flock to. I'm concerned that they may draw the wrong message from the non-functional water fountain. They may have heard of how Seattle coddles addicts of all kinds, even such lowlifes as water addicts. They probably have not heard of our present mayor's attempts to fight the scourge of water addiction. As far as I know she hasn't announced this initiative, and I seem to remain the only journalist to report on it.
So I suspect tourists who encounter this fountain will think "How incompetent!" instead of seeing it as the glorious blow it really is in the struggle against the water barons.
Mayor Durkan, it isn't enough to walk the walk; if you don't talk the talk too, you'll just confuse people. Own your proudest accomplishment, your reversal of decades of "Seattle Nice" toward those who facilitate innocent children getting hooked on water. Construct a context for that water fountain, declaring it the first blow in a new War on Drugs. A grateful nation, weary of the gang warfare over water rights and the desperation of the waterless, will acclaim you as a leader for our time.
Last night, I kept at another project of mine way too late. And then around 12:30 A.M. I suddenly needed to go do Number Two. My options included Safeway, if I could get there enough before 1 A.M.; View Ridge Playfield; or Gas Works Park. Since I was, as usual, in the northeast of the main campus, the easier direction by far was east, towards Safeway and then, since I got there at 12:57, View Ridge. Fearing all the while that I'd been misinformed, last week, and the playfield's restrooms wouldn't really be open.
I needn't have feared. (More precisely, I needn't have feared that. I should've feared the cliffs in nearby sidewalks more.) Yes, dear Diary, it's the return of the dreaded door shot:
I remembered that in the page in which I'd forgotten View Ridge's restrooms, I'd been paying attention to privacy. View Ridge's men's room is in the common category of not-quite-worst: the toilet stall has no door, but does face a wall at the far end of the room from the main door. In this particular case, you can see that there used to be doors; I have no idea why two of them:
One aspect of the playfield had puzzled me on both previous visits, because it involves stairs. Since the park was deserted, it seemed a good time to walk away from my cart and climb those stairs. Now, all I've seen people do at the top of the stairs is turn around to look at the view, which doesn't work at all well at night, but here is, as promised, a night view of the playfield:
There turned out, though, to be an open door at the top, and I couldn't resist going through it. There I gradually found what seemed a whole new park: a ballfield, a playground, picnic tables ... ? Finally came View Ridge Elementary School, and light dawned. The neat stuff I found there, a mosaic near the picnic tables, is almost certainly on the school side of the border, but here's a picture anyway:
One of the few who've been reading you, dear Diary, in the slow time that I hope will end soon, asked me a question the other day. He wanted to know what I thought of the current protests. I replied, essentially, that they've become too big to have a single opinion of. I can't forget, for example, that I shop daily at a store that was attacked under cover of a protest.
But that evades a central aspect of the question. I have continued to write you, dear Diary, instead of running off to join the rallies, so I suppose it's only fair that I be asked, but my answer is unambiguous: Black lives matter, and should not be taken at anything like the current horrendous pace by those who claim to protect and serve us.
Several of my first publications were about race relations in Chicago. My work on a student newspaper there is almost my only published writing not available online, but if you watch this page, currently pretty much up to 1984, eventually you should find: "A Study in Black and White", early 1989, history; a story about crime in spring 1990; and two items in September 1990, "Analyze Don't Memorize: There Will Be a Test", chronology, and "Segregation", maps.
So here's the last thing that got my attention in View Ridge Playfield last night:
And here's a display in front of University Unitarian Church, not far away, that names some names:
I want to try to return to the conversation a name that hasn't been said nearly enough, these last weeks. In my first publication in Seattle, I made the following extravagant claim: "as a mentally ill homeless man, I give thanks daily that I haven't found myself in law enforcement's gunsights."
Extravagant, but mostly true to this day; and if I don't fear police as much as might a black man in my shoes, I still do fear them. That's due to several attacks on people like me, but especially the murder of John T. Williams, 1960-2010, in my old neighbourhood.
Williams was, like me, not black, but unlike me he wasn't white either. He grew up in a First Nations village on Vancouver Island. He became a carver, as is often said, but rather less often have we been shown his work; here's an example from the 1980s. We hear that he also grew up alcoholic, and he was living at 1811 Eastlake, not technically homeless, when shot; but he was also, apparently, separately, mentally ill. He was known to the policeman who shot him.
Apparently there was some saying of indigenous names on Capitol Hill lately, so by rights he should already be known to many protesters; but it was time anyway for me to say his name.
Bye for now, dear Diary. I'm currently planning a very long trip to take in all the remaining North Seattle parks known to me, to begin next week if the weather actually does improve, as forecast.
In telling you at such great length about the parks of north-central Seattle the past two days, incredible though it may seem, I left something out. As I've told you before, Seattle parks have two main schedules, open either 4 A.M. to 11:30 P.M. or 6 A.M. to 10 P.M. In the "NE" parks I covered earlier, the shorter 6 A.M. schedule is pretty common:
Albert Davis Park
Laurelhurst Playfield
Matthews Beach
Northacres Park
Ravenna Park
University Playground
This schedule is much less common in southern "N":
Gas Works Park
Another schedule, unknown in "NE", is more common in "N": parks open 24 hours. This applies to:
Green Lake Park
Sunnyside Ave N Boat Ramp
Wallingford Steps
And as in "NE" Jackson Park has a unique schedule, in "N" the Woodland Park Rose Garden does: 7 A.M. to 10 P.M.
Of course, most of Jackson Park is managed by a concessionaire. This is also true of the rose garden, of the zoo and lawn bowling greens in Woodland Park, and of the golf course in Green Lake Park.
The coronavirus has wrought massive changes in these schedules. Sunnyside Ave N Boat Ramp has gone from 24 to 0 hours; the Woodland Park Zoo and Rose Garden, both run by a single outfit, are also closed. I'm not sure about the lawn bowling; the Green Lake Golf Course, like the Jackson Park one, seems to be modifying its methods but not its hours.
Also, however, there's the extremely soft new closing time, 8 P.M., for the big and popular parks. In "NE" this applies only to Magnuson Park, where I don't remember seeing the signs recently, so I'd thought it was over with, but no, in "N" it's alive and well. The following parks I've discussed in those two pages theoretically close at 8:
Gas Works Park
Green Lake Park
Woodland Park
If you'll remember, dear Diary, I mentioned Green Lake Park restrooms as open or closed up to 10 P.M., and nobody bothered me.
Now that Green Lake Park has a closing time, it needs an opening time, but I haven't been able to find it. Maybe it's now officially closed 24 hours, like the Sunnyside boat ramp. (EDIT 10/19 - Nope. Rachel Schulkin, communications manager for Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation, told me long ago now that Green Lake Park, while not open 24 hours, opens at 4:30 A.M.)
To switch topics. I was supposed to go south today; what happened? I woke up, saw rain, and got lazy. Rainy days I spend mostly in a place where there's nowhere to sit, so the previous days had been hard. Soon after I got to the day's first park I made a deal with myself: look at the local restrooms, and I could goof off the rest of the day (which was already drying out). What with the apparent return of unpredictable closures, I meant today to bring back door shots, but Blogspot won't let me upload pictures today, lucky for you, dear Diary.
Executive summary: Burke-Gilman Playground Park either opened really late or closed, otherwise normal.
Burke-Gilman Playground Park, 8:55 A.M., closed.
Lower Ravenna Park, 10:33 A.M., open.
Upper Ravenna Park, 11:41 A.M., open.
Cowen Park, 12:04 P.M., closed.
University Playground, 12:32 P.M., closed.
Still no water from the water fountains at lower Ravenna and Cowen Parks and University Playground.
Two pages back, I wrote about the parks with "N" addresses, as opposed to "NE" or "NW", between about 45th and 80th Streets. I neglected to mention two things.
First, I spent the night of June 5 in bus shelters near Meridian Playground. So I saw that park both at night and in the morning, and saw Woodland Park mainly in the morning and afternoon of June 6.
Second, park restroom stalls without doors are pretty much the default in that area, though there are certainly exceptions.
OK, then, it's time to move south. Since I'd just finished (ha) with Woodland Park, I stayed that far west, so started with Fremont, which has no large parks, and only one water fountain. Fremont has much more folklore than most Seattle neighbourhoods, most of which I suspect I'll never get, not being a baby boomer. In particular, it's called the centre of the universe. Well, then, the centre is seriously under-parked.
Small Fremont Parks
The only kind there is.
Fremont Peak Park
I reached this by going south on Greenwood until I could switch to Palatine. This is a silly route even if, like me, you're coming from Woodland Park. Much better to just take 45th St to its end, and then turn south a little. Anyway, this park is primarily about its view, which I found boring, but it has a sort of mini-Stonehenge meant to tell the seasons:
which looks cool whether or not it works. The park knows this, too, using circle imagery in a couple of other places.
Fremont Canal Park
Verizon pretended to be unable to retrieve the parks department website most of the afternoon of the 6th, so I didn't learn until I was much further on the trip that I'd ignored this park's western half. It spans two long blocks between the Burke-Gilman Trail, which there runs alongside the Ship Canal, and the street (Canal Street). The eastern block is full of dinosaurs:
OK, yeah, topiary ones, but still. The western block is in "NW" anyway. By this point it was clear enough that I'll have to go to Ballard after all, so I'll just look at that block then.
A. B. Ernst Park
This is next to the Fremont branch library. It's basically a transformed stairway: riotous vegetation all around it, and the upper half turned into a gentle ramp, along which are some weird tiers. It's apparently slated for expansion (and presumably construction), so if this interests you more than it does me, you might want to hurry there.
Troll's Knoll Park
No, this doesn't include the famous sculpture by, um, Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter and Ross Whitehead, which is about the only bit of Fremont folklore that works for me. It's to the left, as you face the troll, where all those concrete bollards are that you always see people leaning against. The park apparently wants to move those people way uphill to a small grassy strip next to a P-Patch; fortunately, instead the kids and the gardeners stay at a distance. The park is more successful in its claimed ambition to assist people in getting uphill; it features a fully paved, gently sloped trail with lots of switchbacks that took me from 36th St almost to 38th.
B. F. Day Playground
This park is, at 2 1/3 acres, not only the biggest in Fremont, but bigger than the other four put together. This gets it not only a water fountain, but one that gave a tablespoon of water before going dry when I tried it. It also, at the opposite end of the park, has a "sanican", not something I saw many of in this trip. It's easiest entered from Linden Ave, just south of 41st St.
Four or More Wallingford Parks
Wallingford Playfield
This is bigger than all the Fremont parks added together. That is, it's 4 1/2 acres. By this point I wasn't up for much exploring; the park is easy to find along Wallingford Ave at 42nd St, the open restrooms and non-functional water fountain easy to find within.
A Detour
This was as close as I'd gotten to a supermarket all day, so I went and bought my daily salad, and also a bottle of water. Which latter made me feel very stupid when I found this in front of the store:
The Wallingford Steps
Exactly what it sounds like: stairs by which Wallingford Ave continues to the canal. Or anyway to the next park. What makes it a park is the usual luxurious plantings, plus some gussied-up landings, of which this one, by Benson Shaw and Clark Weigman, has pride of place:
Gas Works Park
I think every time I've visited this park I've been in a hurry, tired (as this time), or both, so I've never really explored it. Maybe I'll try to do it justice before I finish writing you, dear Diary, but it isn't actually that close to the U-District - along Meridian same as the playground by that name, but way south. Anyway, this is the closest to the U-District of the parks whose restrooms have been opened 24 hours, not that I've tested that. I did want to use those rooms, but a look at the way both men's toilet seats appeared to be decorated with Number Two dissuaded me. The water fountain attached to the restroom building isn't running. But I don't know whether there are other restrooms or water fountains elsewhere in the park.
Waterways?
Either at the eastern end of Gas Works Park, or adjacent to it, are Waterways 18 and 19. The parks department website doesn't list them. The City of Seattle real estate report (PDF) I'm using for areas lists 19 but not 18. I didn't explore either at all thoroughly: I couldn't bring my cart, and my getting anywhere near one enraged the nearby crows. They don't look like the kinds of parks, or parts of parks, that have restrooms or water fountains.
Sunnyside Ave N Boat Ramp
This is officially closed, but still has a "sanican". It's hard to reach from Gas Works Park, along the sidewalks-optional Northlake Way; I suggest taking 36th St instead. Geese were in possession when I arrived, but took offense at me and left, giving me a chance for another mediocre duck photo:
From there I caught the Burke-Gilman Trail straight to University Village and Safeway. I'd forgotten, at the Wallingford QFC, that I no longer have the handy cutlery my backpack held. Safeway was in a panic because a rally was getting close, and closed early, so I never did get to a toilet that night, but it worked out OK (and I did get a fork to eat the salad).
For the past two weeks I've been aware that it isn't the right time to state my own grievances. And the inspiring sight of thousands of people cooperating in marching down (NE) 45th St does nothing to make my course of action seem nobler. Dear Diary, I had hopes at the start that powerful people might read you, and might do things as a result. Maybe that's still possible, but probably not before I finish writing you.
As my energy allows, here's what I think is left. There are eight parks left in "N" between 80th and 145th Streets. That real estate report alerted me to six parks I hadn't known about in the northern parts of "NE", though four are Natural Areas, unlikely to offer restrooms or water fountains. And since I still haven't found an area with water fountains consistently on, such that I could say the problem is local, I might as well endure the forty-odd parks of "NW" so I can sort of talk about North Seattle as a whole.
But this all assumes we aren't going back to the days of randomly closed park restrooms. And assumes that the rain will occasionally pause for a day or two.
Sorry, dear Diary. I just don't know how much longer until I finish you.
I just had an adventure similar to the one described in the page of yours titled "Two Hours and Two Hours". Except this time both Number One and Number Two were urgent. So finding the men's room, but not the women's, locked at upper Ravenna Park shortly after 8 A.M. was concerning, but it wasn't until I found both rooms locked at lower Ravenna at 8:30 that I really got worried. And it probably wasn't until I'd tried two of the four University Village restrooms I tried today that I first lost a bit of control of Number One.
This is, of course, no big deal. I'm sure nobody on the train tomorrow will mind the reek of nearly-fresh Number One, and I'd already planned to do laundry once I'm south. On a larger scale, probably many homeless people are younger than I, and have more reliable control.
So I appreciate the fitness program, in making me walk 2.5 miles to reach a 1-mile distant destination. But I thought yesterday's page, and the one planned for later today, might have shown that I already hike just fine.
Last Friday I found Burke-Gilman Playground Park's restrooms open. This was, of course, great, except that for the previous three Fridays they hadn't opened by 10 A.M. I haven't found any other predictabilities about park restroom closures, throughout.
I try to keep my end of the bargain, and use park restrooms rather than burden companies. I thought we were almost past the point of pleading for the city to keep its end of the bargain, and open those park restrooms for us to use. Are we really going back to that as a daily concern?
Dear Diary, I thought I was close to finishing you. We'll just have to see.
In the past year or so, I've followed a routine of showering once a week, usually Thursdays, at the University District branch of the Urban Rest Stop. Except every fourth time, about once a month, I'd instead go get clean clothes out of my storage on Capitol Hill, go to the main downtown Urban Rest Stop to shower and put those clean clothes on, and put the dirty ones back into storage to wait for washing.
Recently, the first hotel, where I spent two weeks, had a shower in the room, so I got really clean. The next did not, and I only made my peace with showering there once, on Thursday, April 2.
Then I luxuriated in being able to skip the weekly interruption, and put off showering again until Thursday, April 30. This is where the title of your May 2 page, dear Diary, "Becoming Clean", your most popular page, comes from, though I forgot how I'd intended to work the shower in, and ended up leaving it out.
I meant to do better after that, but didn't. The first week, I just got lazy. Then on Wednesday, May 13, a friend watched my cart while I went to the U-District branch. They were closed for cleaning, the whole day.
On Thursday, May 21, I brought the cart along, but was greeted halfway through getting it up the steps: "You can't bring that in here." "Well, my backpack was just stolen; I'm certainly not leaving my cart in this alley." "Oh, don't worry; we wouldn't have let you bring a backpack in either." I am not making this up. Possibly this branch of the Urban Rest Stop no longer wants a homeless clientele. The next day, downtown, the branch of the Urban Rest Stop there said the cart would be fine, but I'd have to wear a mask, and they were out of free ones. (Our wonderful mayor's dastardly critics should chew on this: she actually did do a good job of getting masks to us when the time came.)
So just to maintain showering every four weeks, I should have gone downtown May 28, but I was too tired from my recent trip to Lake City, Northgate and such. Finally I decided to start with a quick shower at Green Lake Community Center to make myself less offensive on a train or bus south.
Hence my trip, June 5, up Ravenna Boulevard, which turned out to put me at the Community Center's doorstep. I did arrive in time to shower there, thank Heaven. (The hours are 10 A.M. to 8 P.M.) The towel I'd carried with me was in the stolen backpack, so they supplied two "disposable" "towels" - huge, thick paper towels. I'd showered at a community center once before, at Miller Park, where they have individual rooms, as at all branches of the Urban Rest Stop. Green Lake instead has a six-man shower, as in high school gym.
About 2/3 of the men I saw there were black. Isn't this a wonderful city we live in, where people of all races can share a space? Gosh, how progressive we are.
Green Lake Park
The shower also began my visits to about 2/3 of the parks in the Seattle parks department's list of 413 that a) are in North Seattle, and b) have addresses in "N" rather than "NE" or "NW" (as explained in yesterday's page, "Ravenna Boulevard"). I skipped 8 north of 80th St, but visited the 18 south of there. Three of these are major, famous Seattle parks, Green Lake the most so, and I decided there were probably enough photos of those, but there are photos of less famous parks later, and even my first two videos.
Anyway, there's a map of Green Lake which is pretty useful; among other things it shows the restrooms. In the park, you can find it near each pair of restrooms, including the community center's, but most are helpfully covered with "Crowded Parks Lead to Closed Parks" signs right now. There are several photos online, though, such as this one. I later took a picture of a smaller map:
The bulge of land on the maps' east side is where the community center is. I'd planned to go counter-clockwise, taking breaks from Green Lake to visit four nearby parks; the loop path is fortunately currently one way that way.
The Community Center has, of course, restrooms as well as showers. I suspect both closed shortly after 8 P.M.; I definitely found them closed at 9:51 P.M. A water fountain nearby was not running.
Next are restrooms at the park's north end, near the exit to Wallingford Ave. I found these open shortly after 8 P.M. Two water fountains are attached to the restroom building, a double fountain (as in Laurelhurst Playfield) nearby; none was running.
Near the bulge of land into the lake on its northwest is a theatre. The two restrooms near it are supposed to open only in summer; I found them closed at 8:30 P.M. A water fountain near them was not running.
I cover restrooms near the south end below.
The last pair of restrooms is near the 64th St exit from the park, on the southeast. I found it open at 9:42 P.M. Apparently it's already peak season at Green Lake, though not anywhere else. I visited it the next day; neither by day nor by night did I find a water fountain near these rooms.
I saw not only several tents but many people visibly homeless. If the surprisingly late open hours for some of the restrooms are concessions to this crowd, I'm surprised but pleased.
No map of Green Lake Park I've seen acknowledges the Green Lake Golf Course at the park's southeast corner. (EDIT 10/19 - False. See "South of North Once More, Part I".) It is rented by a company other than the one that rents Jackson Park. It has a clubhouse at the course's own southeast corner, open 9 A.M. to 8 P.M. in appropriate weather from February through October. And that clubhouse has one small restroom. I'm told, however, that this is for customers only.
Smaller Parks near Green Lake
Only one of these has restrooms and water fountains.
Crescent Place
This is a traffic circle or some such up (and I do mean up) Orin Court from East Green Lake Drive. The Wallingford Ave exit I took from Green Lake Park may not have been the best choice. I didn't dare approach closely because something like a block party was going on.
Linden Orchard Park
This is at the northwest corner of 67th St and Linden Ave; I reached it by exiting the loop at 68th St. It's the most enjoyable of this bunch, a P-Patch and a grassy area on which, when I visited, five boys with bikes may have been using a hillock to play king of. The park brags (both online and up close) of its tool shed, which the neighbours built as volunteers, and rather deserves the brags. Some photos of it:
Green Lake Small Craft Center
This is where the old Aqua Theater was. It's in Green Lake Park (at the south end of the loop, as postponed above), but has its own web page at the parks department. More importantly, here, and nowhere else in "N" south of 80th St, someone has turned the water fountains on. There's one attached to the restroom building between the rooms (which I found open at 9:17 P.M.), and one attached to the building next door, near the Small Craft Center's office. The Center itself is closed for the pandemic, but it left something wonderful behind. I got my water for June 6 there and found it good.
Keystone Place
A large traffic triangle where 57th St splits on reaching the street named Keystone Place, for finding which see below. I reached it through a maze of twisty little streets. All grass and trees.
Corliss Place
A large traffic triangle where Keystone Place (the street) splits on reaching 50th St. All grass and trees; I found it slightly less gracious than its slightly larger neighbour to the north, but that may just have been because this one hadn't been mown in longer. Anyway, if you want to see Keystone Place (the park) find this one and head north.
Meridian Playground
This is rather a large park to be called just a playground - over seven acres - but I suppose, since it offers essentially nothing to athletes, it's stuck. It has three entrances worth noting: 1) through the Good Shepherd Center, opened as recently as 1907 as a girls' orphanage and "home for wayward girls", now a nonprofit landlord to other nonprofits like the local University Heights; 2) through its archway at 50th St and Meridian Ave, which won't get you anywhere but can be fun; 3) up a ramp where Bagley Ave (one block east of Meridian) ends, between private houses, north of 47th St, which is the practical entrance, especially for wheeled folk like me.
Meridian Playground is deeply peculiar, and announces this in its sign:
Archway? Yes. I first entered Meridian Playground thus at night, and found it really creepy. This two-minute video, made two nights later (June 7), attempts to recapture that feeling:
The line of dialogue at the end refers to something that, near as I can tell, the video didn't capture: huge white diaphanous things seeming to float toward you, if you follow the path in question. These are actually apple trees originally planted and tended by the orphans and, um, prisoners, so there may actually be ghosts involved with them. The diaphanous whiteness is netting currently over them.
If you don't want to be scared, here's a (rather shorter) daytime view:
And if you just don't like videos, here's a still shot:
The playground proper is surrounded by a low wall, with several gates, each of which has a small, uncredited, sculpture atop each post. The most prominent gate has images of the site's past, but the rest come from children's books. The first ones I noticed are of a scraggly crow, and three bats, to my mind continuing the horror theme:
In reality, most of these sculptures are rather cheerier, but you'll have to go there yourself to see them.
I have no idea why an orphanage had a bandstand, but the reason the park advertises it isn't just that it's old, but also that it has a stained glass ceiling:
Unfortunately, one other weird thing about Meridian Playground is that it's in the process of not having a water fountain:
That's a view from underneath. See any pipes? The restrooms, at any rate, are open. They do not, however, stay open late as do Green Lake Park's; on June 7 I found them locked at 9:25 P.M.
Some homeless people, but not a lot, are camping in this park.
Woodland Park
Woodland Park is a park in two parts, which the city accounts for, as real estate, as "Lower Woodland Park" and "Woodland Park Zoo". I think those are blocks: the block bordered by Green Lake Way, 50th St, Aurora Ave, and West Green Lake Way isn't all physically "lower", and the one bordered by Aurora, 50th, Phinney Ave, and 59th St isn't all zoo. Nobody seems to have made a useful map of the whole park, either. See instead:
Woodland Park has more restrooms than any other park I've visited in Seattle: at least five pairs, all open, in the "lower" block, and at least nine in the zoo block. Unfortunately, the latter are not only paywalled in the zoo, but currently closed with the zoo.
The non-zoo parts of the zoo block are in the corners. The southeast and northwest ones matter most. In the southeast is the Woodland Park Rose Garden, bolded because it's a separate park in the parks department's list of 413. Its only entrance seems to be the one I found adjoining a zoo parking lot, which says it's closed, as is the zoo. In the northwest is the park's playground and other basic park features, but no water fountains. (EDIT 10/19 - False. See "South of North Once More, Part II".) There are trails around the rose garden and in the northeast; I don't remember much from the southwest, but the zoo's map says there's a war memorial.
In the athletic fields with which Woodland Park faces east, there's one bona fide baseball field, with restrooms behind it as well as two water fountains broken as the one at Meridian Playground is, apparently by piping thieves:
Somewhat north of there, four sandlot ballfields form a "cloverleaf", at whose centre are restrooms and a water fountain that actually is running, but only in a trickle:
The restrooms and water fountains on the Aurora side of the block need less attention. Two are where the city's maps show them, south and central, and their water fountains aren't running. One is near the lawn bowling greens on the maps. The water fountain near those is inside a fenced green, so although it doesn't look like it's running, I can't be sure. Near where Woodland Park Ave ends at 50th St, there's a water fountain unaffiliated with any restrooms, not running.
Many homeless people are camping in this half of the block, and they've gotten at least one picnic shelter sink turned on; it was being run to overflowing while I was there.
There are three pedestrian overpasses over Aurora Ave between 50th and 59th Streets. The southern one provides access to the southeastern trails in the zoo block, whose sole purpose seems to be to let hikers run up against the rose garden's fence. The middle one bumps straight into the zoo's wall. The northern one might well reach the northeastern trails, which I saw people apparently enjoying, but I'd had enough and didn't try it.
I probably didn't miss, in the hours I spent in Woodland Park, more than five restrooms, or twenty water fountains.
Whew. All for today, dear Diary. Tomorrow the parks of Fremont, and further south in Wallingford.
