Comments on Park ≠ Good

Totally agree. Tashkent Park, at 511 Boylston Avenue East, has been a dealing/using haven for years. I know, bec I have lived across the street for over four years. However, the apartment building next door to me, which The Stranger reported on a few months back, is giving Tashkent a run for its money in the dealing/using arena. Now I see people hanging out in the park yelling up at the top floor southwest corner apartment for drugs.

Well, let's hope it's not the last park ever built in South Park. However, considering they just got a library branch for the first time in 100 years this year (after it was left off the ironically named "Libraries for All" program), that probably won't happen in our lifetimes.

I'm with you: "pocket parks" are great for heavy foot-traffic areas when you just need to get a load off, but in out of the way spaces, they don't seem very useful.

South Park does have a high concentration of little kids (unlike the area around Tashkent Park); let's hope they take it over.

Hm...

If the city is looking to give people a reason to visit a park, they might want to put a skatebowl in one.

Or a boxing ring. I was in South Park to watch kids train in a back yard boxing gym. It was cold and nasty and raining and they were out there anyway. One girl came all the way from Federal Way. The coach is like the Mr. Miyagi of boxing--way more into the Zen than the fighting.

Angela.
A similar point might be made about getting rid of the Viaduct. Many people -- and hey! even some of your colleagues -- have the mistaken notion that more park downtown Seattle is essential to our happiness. Many people such as the Mayor and Allied Arts don't seem to grasp what you seem to -- the compressed scale of interesting urban streets and the absurdity that what Seattle needs downtown is more "open space."

Dan @ 3:
The good folks behind the non-profit River City Skatepark are hard at work raising funds for just such an endeavor in South Park.

While rich, white NIMBY's in North Seattle do everything in their power to squelch skateparks, the kids in the South End, as usual, get squat from the City.

Thinking of cities as bodies, that metasticize, grow, shrink, evolve, etc. that little Cesar Chavez Park might be just the first step in making a Duwamish River corridor that is about more than just cargo and pollution. Yes, it is a postage stamp, and yes, it has poor adjacencies, but it has one amazing one: the river, and beyond that the sound. The good people of South Park are trying to reclaim their relationship to the river that the operations of the city have obscured. Let the park, like the man, be a catalyst for smart, people/nature connections.

Thank you, Angela, for bringing this up. Most parks are crime magnets in which no civilized person ever sets foot. Parks in urban areas need to have excellent visibility in all directions, so people can see out and see in. And they need activity.

I like the skatepark idea a lot: good for the kids, good for the park, good for the neighborhood. And they should subsidize a cart selling hotdogs, tacos, ice cream, coffee and beer.

Hah! Beer in a Seattle park, I don't think so. But it is civilized. Seattle wants to punish the substance, not the behavior, which is backwards. Drunks in the park are breaking the law and should be arrested; ordinary people having a beer in the park should be seen as evidence of civic life.

Man, where was this 'Why parks?' stance years ago when we could have used it?

Another good one is Lake City "Park," a pathetic slab of concrete with concrete benches for homeless to sleep on ERRRRRR drug dealers to make sales ERRRRRR for the community to congregate and recreate.

#1... Lola, good to see nothing changed after that crazy building manager got tossed. HOORAY for RP Management.

BTW, word from colleagues is that RP's other properties are very much the same.

OTOH, if we let public safety fears/perceptions govern our parks policy, they'll never build another new park in Seattle again.

Right on the money. There are many times when I think that the Parks Department would be better off taking the money that they use for many of the pocket parks and burning it. (And don't get me started about pocket parks in general... especially in primarily single-family residential neighborhoods.)

A skate park, however, would be a great idea. The traffic noise coming from 99 would be enough to drown out any noise from the skaters, and they'd make much better neighbors than whoever would otherwise be in the park at 8 pm on a Saturday night.

And to build off what David Sucher says above, *open* space isn't needed downtown just for the sake of open space. However, *green* space is. The urban nature that will exist in the downtown in the near future is space that is becoming heavily defended (like the Olympic Sculpture Park or rooftop gardens), heavily contested (the downtown P-Patch, Denny Park), or both (Regrade Park). In a tightly-packed downtown, this is just undesirable and kinda ugly. It's good that the mayor's office has recognized this, but action to incorporate green into the city structure needs to be done in more innovative and accessible ways, such as something similar to Vine Street, and should go beyond some simplistic goal of just planting trees. That will be the only way that the downtown will be livable in the long term.

Why do you hate parks, Angela?

latino, native, african american, and samoan kids that make up the majority of kids in south park dont do the skateboard thing. You build a skating board park, it would be as empty as Cesar Chavez park.

reclaim the river? what the hell? the river is far from the park and the closest thing to a gathering place is the dump around the corner. Nobody walks there at night, there is nothing to go to and nobody is going to have barbecues in a dumpy park.

It was a good idea that had support from the Latino community, but the land the city donated for the project is just a dumpy patch that the city wanted to get rid of. The park should have been built in the parking lot behind Muy Macho on Cloverdale, with new businessess and a main street and a place where people gather, shop and hang out. You also have plenty of taco trucks that could park there instead of next to Juan Colorado. Nobody is going to buy hot dogs.

they need BIG parks, not pocket parks. Big, expansive lawns and basketball courts and skate ramps etc etc. Then they can't help but have people in them, which discourages the dealers and bums (or at least makes them more discrete).

Agreed. If we eliminate, privatize, or militarize our remaining public spaces, and amp up the war on drugs, then Seattle will become the bourgeois utopia it's always aspired to be. Can't wait.

Hey, SeMe did you know that the movement to create the River City Skatepark was initiated by (among others) actual teens of various races who live here? So much for racial stereotypes.

Angela...Why haven't I seen you at any of the NEIGHBORHOOD meetings?? Perhaps because you don't live here in SP or perhaps you just don't care. As someone who has spent countless hours cleaning brush and hauling mulch at Cesear Chavez Park I have to say I find your attitude disturbing. Any time a group of people come together to create order out chaos or neglect only good can come of it. I have seen people using the park or playing the stone musical instuments in the park. Did you you even know there were stone musical instruments there? And you are so wrong about the Latino, Samoan and African American kids down here. They ride skates, bikes, play ball, chase each other just like kids in every other area. Your comments are limiting. I suppose you didn't make it to the Library Opening which had over 1000 people, mostly kids. Hope you aren't suprised to find out that Latino, Samoan and African American kids read books. Get involved in a real and sincere way not in a pot shot fashion. Words without true knowledge is gossip and hurtful.

We welcome your interest, criticism or support in Cesar Chavez Park and South Park. Let’s engage and make the neighborhood places grow. That is a great idea about building a skate park in addition to Cesar Chavez Park. Just to the east of the - admittedly small - Cesar Chavez Park will be the River City Skate Park. Some of the same neighbors and organizations that have been raising funds for the not-yet-completed Cesar Chavez Park are also working to make the RSCP happen. Just this week, Grindline broke ground on the skate park. Work will continue throughout the winter and spring. We are raising the funds to build the skate park ourselves. We have a couple of events coming up, including lunch and a presentation with the great Warren Miller.

Cesar Chavez Park is small, but Parks are expensive to build and we are raising the money to do it in the neighborhood. The City and County should have done more to honor a great man. But they did not and we as a community are making it happen. It is tough to build neighborhood parks. We have a pretty good neighborhood coalition, but when we raised $400,000 to build the park, the city took over $125,000 for their fees.

Cesar Chavez Park and River City Skate Park are both unfinished, we actually need to raise more money to get them fully completed, but construction will start this spring. To see what CCP will look like, see the design by Mark Johnson, an architect, neighbor and friend: http://www.jonesandjones.com/cc/chavez-proposal.pdf

In a temporary setting, we already have three “singing stone” sculptures at CCP. They were made by Jesus Moroles, a world renowned sculptor http://www.moroles.com/ . Jesus normally works in granite, but these pieces are Columbia River basalt. They were carved here with much help from South Park businesses including Merlino Construction and Seattle Solstice stone sculptors. Come and play the stones yourself – they are a stone xylophone – before they go in storage as the rest of the park over the next several months.

Have any of you tried to build your own neighborhood park? If you would like to try it out, come to South Park and give us a hand.

Seriously, if you want to help out, just let us know and we will post contact information. We are also building a couple more pocket parks and have many art, park and environmental projects we would like to accomplish. We welcome all supporters and critics alike.

Neighborhood meetings are token civic lip-service functions that have little to no impact on what actually happens next, so grating on Angela for not going to those pointless meetings is rather silly.

To Gomez, Se me, et.al.,
Oh how little you seem to know about South Park. Re: the skate boarding youth: on my street alone there are, count em: 15-20 skateboarding kids (including a posse of beautiful longhaired bettys) skate boarding in the streets. In good weather they can be seen jumping traffic circles, setting up ramps, and generally blocking my way home :) - I genuinely hope one day my daughter will carry on the tradition - in the SKATE PARK!

In terms of community meetings doing nothing, again how wrong. I guess we didn't get the new library or testify passionately before the Port Comission to prevent the EPA from leaving a toxic waste along the river. I guess the neightborhood didn't rally together to oversee the EPA clean up or have it turned into a salmon habitat. The comissioners reported that they had NEVER seen anything like it from another community. We basically rock.

South Park is the best neighborhood I have ever been a part of (and at this point I could afford to live else where). I have just returned from the library and now must mudanely clean my beautiful 100 year old Victorian farm house. Poor me in South Park. MORE PARKS!!! I'll take em any size.

It is sad to see the posting by Gomez....look what happens when people are apathetic...leaders like George Bush are elected. I am a proud South Parker. We here in South Park care about the neighborhood we are creating. I've lived all over Seattle and have never lived in a "real" neighborhood like South Park.

Angela - you really emphasize the old saying "no good deed goes unpunished."

Thanks for the feedback, although I think you need to reasearch some background information (or a practical understanding of the Death and Life of Great American Cities rather than just the hilights):

A group of committed folks have worked for the past five years to develop a 'civic center' for South Park. With community interaction, folks have spent huge efforts and raised nearly $500,000 to create a public gathering place for one of the most culturally diverse and underserved neighborhoods in Seattle. This includes the new library, a newly goundbroken 10,000 square foot skatepark, and Cesar Chavez park - a public open space with an amphitheater, musical sculpture, and stage - at the geographic center of the neighborhood. All of these are located on all the buslines and within a five minute walk of the perimeter of the neighborhood. Hey, Jane Jacobs might approve, Cesar Chavez Park is a gateway on foot, by car, or by bike, into South park, so ANYONE walking on the sidewalk through South Park passes by Cesar Chavez Park.

Before it was dedicated as such, Cesar Chavez park was a leftover King County parcel that was a great overgrown, trash dumping place to nod off or hide out with a prostitute. Sea Mar Community Health Centers adopted the park as their own, held a public forum for designers, and secured grants to create a place to honor Cesar Chavez - a Latino hero as well as a regular human who made change with community and ACTION. Sea Mar and the neighborhod association held multiple design forums with 100+ people (Latino gringo, asian, pacific islander) to determine that good design does not just belong to the priveledged, but will invite interaction, stewardship, and pride in the neighborhood. Although more expensive than a basic "mow and blow" park, a dedicated group committed themselves to years of fundraising to build an award worthy park that people care to keep on using. We have had local youth and gangbanger kids hanging with local artists, businessowners, designers, ecologists, and neighbors to learn about the interactive stone carving at the park. The city is paying for just a fraction of the park. The remainder comes from neighborhod businesses, private, and state funds - which comes only from a massive volunteer fundraising effort. With an army of dedicated neighbors, a little bit of money, and a huge in-kind donation from neighborhood contractors and craftsfolks, we built a 'placeholder' park - one that is interactive with musical sculpture and native plants- and no prostitutes on the site to show the community that something REAL was happening. Did you get out of your car for your assessment? Agreed this is a tiny patch of land - but it is one that has hosted community parades, the release of the US Postal Service Cesar Chavez stamp, multiple native plantings, and a neighborhood ownership of change that cannot be created from an armchair or felt from a community meeting. This is real change and active participation. The park is not built yet. What you currently see is a grassroots effort at change as funds were raised. Construction should start on the park by the end of the year. If you have any questions, please contact Seattle Parks or come to a South Park neighborhod meeting - 2nd Tuesday of the month. Better yet, stop by next sumer to reassess you position.

The adjacent site is owned by Sea Mar, and as part of their public health program has partnered with the Environmental Coalition of South Seattle, the SODO Rotary Club, and Grindline Skateparks to create a new skatepark for the city that is perpetually stalled in making skateparks. Read the Stranger online about RCSP: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=31909
Search the Stranger home page for other articles about Grindline and the SPAC for info on Seattle skapteparks.
(Dan, I am surprised that you forgot about these articles!!!! - read your paper! We need you as an advocate!!!) The first phase of River City will be the first park dedicated to street skating - the most popular, accessible, and under served part of skateboarding. We are hosting a fundraiser with extreme sports rockstar Warren Miller in December to raise funds for phase 2 bowls. Check out rivercityskatepark.com for details.

Both of these projects have huge support of the neighborhood association, local businesses, donors, Seattle City Council, the Mayor's office, and the city's Skatepark Advisory Committee - who is paving the way with the city to get skateparks built in every neighborhood.

For the folks who think that Latino and Asian kids don't skate, and that community meetings are bunk, there is no hope for you. Please move to the Eastside and don't vote next week.

THANKS!

Love the filibustering, guys. Way to get to the point.

Ahem... how many of those things you guys "did" were things that certain people in positions of authority planned on doing anyway? It may be much, much more than you've convinced yourselves to think.

Nothing gets done unless they want it to get done.

Wow, Gomez, you are something. There was no one planning on these Parks in South Park. But maybe we are just being taken advantage of for their agenda. Probably, yeah, that's it.

hi Gomez - So what improvements have you made happen in your neighborhood - with no effort? And who is this 'they' you refer to? We need their help! Why don't you share some of your insight into our imagined efforts - without generalizations? We surely are missing something and you are just the voice to tell us. Thanks!

For those who do not have the benefits that Gomez does: Call the police if you have a drug / prostitution problem near your house or in your neighborhood / park / etc. CALL THEM ALOT - whenever you see the crime. Don't be a spectator. If you don't like it, make change. Go to your neighborhood meetings to meet your neighbors and strategize how to get drugs and bad activities out of your neighborhood. If you don't know about meetings, ask around. Contact the department of Neighborhoods. Start a meeting/potluck/get together.

Anyone out there think a piece of land that was overgrown with blackberries, abandoned cars, prostitute & drug dealer "caves" and knee-high garbage IS BETTER THAN a unique park with musical stones dedicated to a Latino hero?