Thursday, October 8, 2020

Lake Union's North Shore: Waterways and Street Ends

Dear Diary,

I began today what I intended as a really long hike, but convinced myself I had some free time today to backtrack and visit a bunch of parks not Parks' (that is, not owned or managed by Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation). I didn't have that time, as it turns out; that and other things are forcing me to reconsider the whole idea of this (and perhaps another) long hike, given the weather we can soon expect for months. But meanwhile I do have all these pictures of obscure places, and might as well show them to you.

Cheshiahud Loop

Most of these places were brought to public attention at least partly by the efforts that went into the creation, early in this century, of a trail called "Cheshiahud Lake Union Loop" at the departmental website, but just Cheshiahud Loop on its profuse but relatively inconspicuous signs.

(Cheshiahud was a Duwamish Indian; without serious research I'm unequipped to say more.) At some point I should figure out where this loop actually goes in North Seattle, go there, and tell you, dear Diary, all about it, but today I'm just giving credit where it's due. I don't owe these folks just for the research that brought these sites to light, but also for a map (PDF) that allowed me to plan the hike, and for signs, similar to the above, that physically confirm many of the locations.

Weird Law: Waterways and Street Ends

Most of these sites, and all the photos, exist thanks to two legal quirks.

Back When - this is the older quirk - people who lived around the lake often travelled by boat. Waterways were places to launch or land them. At some point the state took ownership, but then, as the waterways lost importance, forgot about them. Now regulations require that in leasing them out, the state prioritise public access. The nine on the north shore (other shores have fourteen more) vary greatly both in public access and in public amenities. A good introduction, focused on the six in Wallingford, and especially the least accessible, Waterway 20, is a September 2020 article by Mandy Godwin for Crosscut. All 23 are shown on the Cheshiahud Loop map.

The newer quirk is a decision by a Seattle City Council of the good old days when they didn't have tons of crazy ideas. (Accounts I've read disagree about which council, but it was more than fifteen years ago.) This decision was, seems to me, a land grab. The new law declared that the land between the end of a public street and the water would be public land. The city then set to work identifying sites and negotiating with people who were using them. Some of these people agreed to pay fees to go on using these spaces. These fees support a small staff who have slowly added amenities to the rest, and who have produced a kind of hard to use and at least somewhat misleading GIS interactive map of the rest. Eli Sanders of The Stranger wrote half an article in 2015 about them, which I forgot at the time, but re-found when investigating all those places in Ballard called "street end". (If my link for the map doesn't work for you, use his, which takes you to Seattle's Department of Transportation, these street ends' owner and the source for map links.) Only two of these are on Lake Union's north shore. The state is apparently also in the street end game, but I know, so far, much less about that.

None of the street ends in North Seattle is said to have restrooms or water fountains, so I've been meaning to get to them, just not right now. None of the waterways have public-facing plumbing either, but I was figuring this would be my last hike past Lake Union for you, dear Diary, and I should get them done. I took lots of photos because all the descriptions I found were words.

The Parks (etc.)

Waterway 15

At the end of 4th Ave NE.

This is perhaps tied with Waterway 18 for "best north shore waterway park". Credit usually goes to neighbour Ivar's, but a Cheshiahud planners' report (long PDF; see page 89) says the work was done by (or paid for by?) King County Metro. Anyway, whereas 18 is pure park, 15 is gussied up for us city folks; not only does it have picnic tables and what sure looks like a fire circle:

but the rocks separating the circles have historical documents

and photos

baked into them. And of course, like most of these, it has a view:

Latona Avenue NE Street End

This didn't really stick well in my memory, but does provide direct access to the water too:

Waterway 16

At the end of 2nd Ave NE.

I hope that crane, though unoccupied around 3:30 P.M., represents a brighter future for this one.

Don't be misled by these current and former plants; I very much doubt there's some safe sea strand on the other side of the rocks.

Waterway 17

At the end of Eastern Ave N. If you're on the Burke-Gilman Trail, you'll see a stairway continuing Eastern; look across Northlake Way from it. If you're on foot on Northlake, you might see the thin blue sign. But if you're driving on Northlake, turn south into the parking lot of a building whose signage says "Westward", the name of the ground floor restaurant. The waterway can only be reached through the "No Parking" space in that lot.

It's a quite nice micro-park:

with, of course, a view:

Sunnyside Avenue N Boat Ramp

Apparently this is a street end turned into a Real Park. Which means it isn't listed on that interactive GIS thingie. (EDIT 10/19 - Yes, it is listed there.)

Introduced, with a photo, June 9 in "At the Centre of the Universe, Does Gas Work?"

Waterway 18

Mentioned in the abovementioned page but properly introduced, with photos, June 21 in "Past Work and Gas Works".

A park apparently belonging to Gas Works Park Marina

This is a small area with grass, trees and picnic tables, just east of Waterway 19. It's certainly privately owned, but I'm not sure to what extent the public is welcome (as opposed to residents of the marina's houseboats), so I took no photos.

Waterway 19

Just east of Gas Works Park.

Introduced in the same manner as Waterway 18 and in the same pages.

Godwin says this is closed due to toxic waste. Maybe she means closed to boating? It's just as open to hiking as it was in June.

Gas Works Park

Introduced in the same pages as Waterways 18 and 19, with photos in the June 21 page.

Waterway 20

Not just west of Gas Works Park. I'm not sure how big it is, but it has to be between the Seattle Police Harbor Patrol building and the Center for Wooden Boats building. This area, adjacent to the latter, most closely fit the description in Godwin's article:

Anyway, that's south of Gas Works's western tip.

Waterway 21

This has a Cheshiahud Loop-style sign, and is reputed to line up with a street called Carr Place, but the most reliable way to find it in the short term is that it's west of a gray building home to the Northlake Shipyard, and east of a blue and white building home to the Divers' Institute of Technology.

It's a nice one, a deck with two benches to take in the view, greenery on either side:

Waterway 22

This is just east of Stone Way. It's also easy to find because, coming from the east, for some distance, there's good sidewalk, that abruptly ends where this waterway begins.

On the other hand, its view makes it worth seeking out:

Waterway 23

You've actually seen this one before, if you've used the part of the Burke-Gilman Trail that's directly under the Aurora Bridge. It's got a very good view of its own:

which unfortunately isn't what you see from the benches:

on which, however, I found an indifferent cat:

Fremont Bridge Street End

This is the only street end on that GIS thing that has its address in "N" rather than "NE" or "NW". (EDIT 10/19 - That depends. The GIS thing claims Sunnyside Ave is "NE". So its address there isn't "N", but in other contexts, such as reality, it is, which makes two "N" street ends.) I think a "street end" for a bridge is obvious nonsense, and what we're told of it - that, as with Waterway 23, it's incorporated into the Burke-Gilman Trail - is just as implausible. Tell me, is this part of the trail?

Or this?

I'm pretty sure the idea is that people who actually believe in a street end for a bridge and demand to see it should see this:

but I don't buy it.

Sorry to end on such a grumpy note, dear Diary, when there was some fun along the way.

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Christie Park, Expanded, at Sunset

Dear Diary,

As I mentioned two pages ago, I've finally gotten in to Christie Park. This is because, a few days after I speculated that the park's re-opening was delayed until our excellent mayor could preside over a big ceremony, it was re-opened, presumably without any such thing. In other words, no, I didn't pull any strings. Actually, Rachel Schulkin, communications manager for the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, has had me on her e-mail list at least since August, but she didn't send the official announcement, someone else did. So I was as surprised to find it open on October 1, three weeks after that announcement, as you, dear Diary, no doubt were to read about its water fountain yesterday.

ANYWAY, as long as I was there, I figured I should take some pictures. So here they are.

There is a ping-pong table, obviously; the orange thing in the background behind it is a fancy fitness machine.

And yes, that's a fence around the central lawn. Probably to protect recently planted grass.

Most of the planting is, as here, spare, rather than the lush crowding usual in parks' planted areas. Between this and the ping-pong, it's easy to imagine an Oriental connection, and a structure at the entrance thanks the government of Taiwan. However, most of the people who got in the way of my photos were white.

Little did I know, when on my last visit I speculated that the park was still waiting for wooden benches, that in fact all the furniture would be metal.

Between this and the fence, I get the distinct sense that this park is the exact opposite of Ballard Commons, is a park designed to repel homeless people, an impression a 2014 UW Daily article seems to support. We'll see.

The boats, said to be modelled on those used by a Taiwanese native culture, are by Paul Sorey. I thought the lines under them were survivals from the pre-expansion park, but apparently not, so maybe they're by Sorey too. I know nothing about the decorations on the concrete walls, which I think unlikely to be the same artist's work.

Probably the park's biggest attraction for homeless people is something I only noticed because I saw students already using it. It's lit at night by six fixtures such as the one shown above. Each of those fixtures has near its base an outlet, possibly suitable (depending on the shape of your charger's transformer) for cell phone charging. And the use I saw was before the fixture lit, so yes, those outlets have power by day.

The fixtures light up at night one by one, at unpredictable intervals, a bit of art with time.

Trash in Cal Anderson Park

Dear Diary,

You must remember that I wrote in you, about a month ago, an argument that "Cal Anderson Park Is Not a Park". Since then, thousands, nay billions, of people have, um, not read it. Flush from this success, I want in this page to focus on one part of that argument.

We were told, and I repeated, that the closure was for purposes of "cleaning and repair". This turns out to be a summary of rather more complicated wording in the original announcement, but a pretty good summary. Now, "repair" may be difficult to show from photographs (at least without before and after), but vision is the usual way we assess "cleaning". So if, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, prepare for 40,000 words' worth of the titular trash in Cal Anderson Park as of September 30.

These pictures aren't all that appealing, and are pretty repetitive, so I'll say my piece up front. Seems to me two reasonably organised groups have effectively claimed, in recent months, to control Cal Anderson Park. Let's call these "the city" and "the kids". I'm pretty sure both groups' leaders and many of their members would agree that environmental stewardship and public health are Good Things. Neither group is showing this by their actions concerning the trash, and although the city is led by our wonderful mayor, I must admit that the far too little that is being effectively done is all the kids' work.

Addresses in this page are not in "NE" and are not abbreviated by omission of any directional signs.

Titration

I took most of these pictures in late afternoon. Much park trash removal is done in mornings, so eventually I decided to shoot pictures of some nearby trash cans for comparison. First, from a bus shelter on the north side of E Pine St, just steps from the park:

Next, from the ground level of the Sound Transit station on the south side of E Denny Way just east of Broadway:

Although these cans varied in fullness, it wouldn't be completely unreasonable to call them all about half full.

The City's Work

The current closure system is supposed to consist of people who inform visitors of the closure. I wasn't informed myself, so I don't know whether any of the people I saw in the park were such people, but most of those I saw had obvious non-closure-related activities in progress, so probably weren't.

I overheard many conversations in the park, mostly while following the paved path equivalent to E Olive St and its southward continuation, with the common theme of disapproval of the Seattle Police Department, which has carried out at least two closure enforcement efforts.

I looked for the closure signs profusely posted in July, of which only ten remained a month ago. This time I found only one:

The fence mentioned and photographed in the previous page no longer encloses the restrooms, but that doesn't exactly mean they're open:

The Kids' Work

Cal Anderson Park is much longer north-south than east-west, and the main places I saw the kids having a positive effect on the trash were in the middle, along the paved path at the level of E Olive St, and around the gravel path near the western side, north of the paved path and south of the water tower. Examples:

I should probably also count in this category a rack of clothing well south of all this, in the playfield.

The Bad News

I'm grouping these geographically, based on my memory of my route, but I don't remember each individual trash can and may have a photo or two grouped wrongly at the edges of some groups.

North (along E Denny Way)

I only stopped to take one picture in the morning, when, as mentioned in the previous page, I was accompanied.

When I returned alone, not much had changed:

These photos were taken from the park entrance at 11th Ave and E Denny Way. Here's the entrance at Nagle Place and Denny:

From somewhere in between:

East (along 11th Ave)

The entrance at E Howell St. I was trying to catch four trash cans at once, of which I think three are visible, one not overflowing. The bright green satchel in the foreground was, at that time, my own trash transport system, and not the fault of any other park visitor.