Quick!!! Sell your stocks!!! Build a cabin in Kent or what ever boondock the Russian won't bomb!!! The Apocolypse has come!! 'cause Eric said something nice about the Mayor.

You should really thank Paul Schell - you only encourage Nickels' ribbon-cutting/credit grabbing tendencies by giving him credit for something that

a) was a voter approved project

b) he had little or nothing to do with.

...it IS a nice park, though.

Erica,
Why are you congratulating Nickels?
And if you are serious, back it up with factual article on the genesis of the park.

It is amazing. I was there today reading, watching hoola hoopers, and then I got to see a Little League Baseball game.

However, I think we need to figure out how to keep dogs from pissing on the artificial hill that everyone is laying on, the damn thing reeks in places. I mean, yes MOST dog owners pick up their dogs shit...but there is still left behind shit and piss all over where people are laying.

Erica,
It's all right!

We were just kidding you about being too nice to the CMs (nice insider jargon, that). You can go back and be mean to the Executive!

It's okay. You can play with us. Here's your pen and notepad. Dab your eyes.

Give credit where it's due, to Kay Rood and Groundswell Off Broadway. Kay tells the whole story at HistoryLink.org:
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7603

Kay Rood is a rock star. She made that park happen.

Raw Data: I was kidding about Nickels, but sincere about the fact that it is a great park.

I agree it is a great park. I just wonder at the part dept. constantly talking about undersireables if you you do not fit their profile of the perfect user.

I was shocked at the dedication to hear more about how they had rid the neighborhood of "undesirables" and very little about Cal Anderson.

I look pretty scruggy most of the itme and don't go there - asuming I will get rousted as happened to me on Broadway several times. Yes I am well employed, no I don't sell drugs, yes I like to kiss my boyfriend in public, and sometimes I just like to do nothing in a park but gaze, feel glazed, and maybe mediate.

All parks in this era are for dogs to shit. Most dog owners are monied middle class - very vocal and very defensive about why dog shit is OK everywhere. The conlicts are going to continue and get worse.

Some kid is going to fall into the water slide and get horribly torn up by the square blocks with the sharp edges and parents will sue for millions.......pr a dgg hurt

And I think is only a matter of time tha gay men cruising and being romantic will be driven out of the park - the area is less gay friendly than ever. Remember there are children and dogs there and they must be protected from...........you know the drill.

Just read the commentary by Kay Rood - really good information and amazing in one respect. She does not use the word gay or lesbian or queer once - even when describing the very queer liberationist and legislator for whom the park named, Hon. Homo Extrordinare Senator Cal Anderson.

The hated bathrooms she mentions had been chained shut for twenty years to kep gay men from cruising late at night. AND she does not mention that you can't have kid playing wtih no place to pee pee pee.
All people uses decline with no bathrooms open.....wow, how simple.

It takes a real rewrite of history to talk about a ten year plan for the park in the middle of the queer neighborhood and named after the most visibe homo in the Stare of Wshington history - and NEVER say the words,

Oh, Kay. .....it is called revisionism.....and is homophobic to boot.

Bob, she didn't use the words straight or heterosexual, either. Her essay is about the park's rejuvination, not the loss of a popular spot for casual sex or the sexual orientation of the park's namesake.

Oh, gimme a break.

Write an essay and talk about M L K and not mention or use the words black or African.

Assumptively straight about very out people is not cool. Plus there were some real debates on C. Hill back them about being too gay.

The police gave out several citations to men kissing in public. Or just warned them to break it up.

She infers over and over that the whole park was just full of undesisrables. Not true at all. The tennis courts and ball park have always been 100 per cent full of just the most odinary users.....as in any urban park anywhere in America that is free and half decent.

Also she muses about the horrible bathroom building but never tells why it was closed and left closed - which meant that people did not hang out there because nature calls us all. It would take a bold partent to tell their kids to fo pee on the fence, no big deal, like the doggies - this is not Europe......where no one would even notice.

The restrooms were a decent fairly recent brick building. Had they been maintained and kept open - the park would have not lost sll its customer / user base.

I can appreciate her hard work, I think she is a middle class white lady homophobe as well.