Comments on What She Said...

Remember, Dan, that Wallingford starts with "Waaaa!"

scallywags? is that you, mr. burns?

2nd & pike needs redevelopment. NOW. that corner is
1. an empty lot
2. a crappy greasy spoon next to a clothing store for pimps.
3. the creepiest quick mart in the city - it reeks of jo jos & fortified wine.
4. a comfort shoe store.

i realize its the last slice of seattle's gritty downtown charm & all, but could we at least get a building on the empty lot?

I don't really care if people rent out parks as long as there is a published rate schedule, and that the rental prices are steep. If you wanna play, you gotta pay - no sweetheart deals for friends of the mayor, or any nonsense like that.

Dan and Kerri - I don't think fireworks is the ONLY requirement. What if they got to use the part for free because the mayor was their friend?

I agree with Catalina - it is fine to rent a portion of the park for free, as long as they pay us (the city) what it is worth. It's easy to imagine a lot of good old boy stuff going on, and that is not ok, even with fireworks.

As long as they send the 3rd & Pine folks down to Lower Wallingford. Those of us up by 45th Street and I-5 already have a whole crew of alcoholic/ junkie panhandlers and crack dealers to live with, plus a hooker or two.

Mostly I think the neighborhood people are full of shit, but I would like to know more about one specific part of their complaint: the ecological aspect.

Gasworks is not an ordinary park; it's an extremely hazardous toxic waste dump with a cap on top. Supposedly they pierced the cap with their tent stakes, which could both open the cap and release toxic material, and could have long-term costly implications if it leads to further damage. Also, there are questions about the weight of the large trucks carrying all the show gear -- this was a large-scale theater production. Weight limits on the cap were an issue with the concerts.

Rumor has it they paid $3,000 for a week. Is that a standard rate? Green Lake Park along the west side is turned over to the crew races, with dozens of tents, several times a year; do they pay?

fnarf, paper this morning said the permits were almost 6K.

that's pretty much nothing.

@6: we have way bigger issues at hand if a mere tent stake can pierce the cap that supposedly keeps the gasworks toxins from turning everyone into mutants.

i mean, i know they are not coleman-variety backyard tent stakes but, still. and, large trucks? seriously? i'd like to see some comparative stats from the annual 4th of july frenzy and its ecological impact.

This still rubs me the wrong way (I mean, two police boats were guarding the private party from invading pirates), fireworks or no.

However, having said that, those fireworks did provide the perfect accompaniment for (the excellent local psych/droners) Dull Knife - everyone thought that the percussive booms were part of the set. Any disappointment that it wasn't was compensated by the coincidence of it all - whether you thought it was purty (like me) or, in the words of another observer, if you thought it turned Lake Union into Baghdad. Worked both ways.

@6: It'd be nice to know more, but I'd be pretty surprised if the cap were so thin that you could pierce it with a tent stake. Normally these "caps" are layers of impervious clay measured in feet, not inches.

RED HERRING. Ad hominem. Nice try.

Sounds like they are just a bit jealous in Wallingford. Well why not, with this “in your face” but “it’s private” gratuitous and pompous party? At least the fucker lost half his wealth overnight to some gold digger.

Trying out some random insults, Gomez? To whom are they directed?

Re: caps and stakes: I'd like to hear it from a city scientist, thanks.

I went there.

I saw the ten police officers leading the motorcade of black stretch humvees, the kite fliers, the jugglers, the roped off section of parking for the "VIPs", the security guards around the fenced off section.

I heard the fireworks.

The question is - who owns the parks? The citizens? Or the corporations and their elites?

According to this:
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/0509053.pdf
various parts of the park have a soil cap 12 to 15 inches deep to keep the public from coming into contact with contaminated soil. It doesn't sound like it's meant to be an impervious barrier -- in fact, they mention an irrigation system as one of the features. While I wouldn't recommend digging a deep hole and playing in it, it seems unlikely that a tent peg is going to cause problems.

You can draw your own conclusions. I think this is something the complainants threw in because they thought it would sound good, knowing they wouldn't have to defend it.

Max @2:

That route has been tried once before in the not-so-distant past, with very little improvement to show for it.

When The Newmark Building went up on the SW corner of 2nd & Pike, it was touted in part as a gentrification of the area that would pull in middle-class residents, who would presumably displace the undesireable elements who have marked that as their turf for the past 30 some-odd years, while the accompanying retail anchors (a multiplex cinema and a Payless drugstore) would be an additional draw for downtown residents, office workers and tourists.

Both of the two major retailers pulled out after about six or seven years, IIRC, and the area never did "upscale" to the extent either the City or the building developers had anticipated; in fact, I'd say it stayed pretty much just the way it always had been, and people avoided it like the proverbial plague, just as they always had, which was probably a major reason why the businesses pulled out.

So, while some additional development might be beneficial in terms of improving the area, it's not the be-all and end-all solution.

gasworks is the only park where i have seen "dont eat the dirt" signs. Totally awesome.

Geez, the Newmark Building. How many people lost their shirts on that fiasco? Are the lawsuits all settled yet? I doubt it. It's definitely a leading candidate for "worst building in Seattle history", esthetically as well as from urban-living and construction-quality standpoints.

Orv, you're probably right. I just know that anytime I read anything official about Gas Works Park, it makes me want to never go there. Phrases like "tar distillery" and "manufactured heating gas from coal coking" and "one-half teaspoon of soil contained more carcinogenic benzene compounds than five packs of cigarettes" and "underground equipment continues to produce toxic gases, which are captured and burnt" will do that to a fellow.

Ironically from the perspective of the neighborhood, replacing an unregulated gas plant -- or brownfield site -- with a popular park has done more for property values in the area than any other factor.

I remember climbing up into the now-fenced-off gas plant on acid in the 70s. Parents should probably be made aware that exposure to the park could result in outbreaks of Fnarf amongst older children and young adults.

More fun stuff: there is still a naphthalene plume on the west side of the park near the police boats. It's being mitigated by a method called "Monitored Natural Attenuation". Uh-huh.

Overall it seems as if the ground protection is pretty good, but that water is among the most toxic in the state, and it's getting worse. Megabucks to follow. What are the neighbors going to say about the dredging project? (I'm just giving them ideas, now).

@19: They'll probably fight it. Neighbors often fight things like EPA Superfund cleanups, because they'd rather not see attention drawn to problems that might hurt their property values.

I remember as a kid when we were allowed to climb all over the machinery like a jungle gym, which is now either fenced off or removed and replicated. I wonder if that was because of injuries, or toxicity?

As far as toxic waterfronts go, formerly quaint, suburban - currently one giant "U Village" yuppie hell - city if Kirkland waterfront, is (probably unbeknownst to it's million dollar condo owning residents) probably even more toxic that gasworks. Not sure how I got on this tangent, just reminded me the much of the East Side waterfront used to be a refinery during WW2, and very little effort went into improving it since, I think people just forgot.

Yes, they did forget.

13. Kerri's attack on anyone who doesn't agree with Sloan's tactics isn't relevant to whether or not Sloan was right to comandeer most of Gasworks for an entire week to prepare for a mostly-closed doors party.

What Sloan did actually sets a terrible precedent. Basically, the rich have the right to take parks away from the people for extended periods for their own personal interests.

And Dan Savage is totally cool with it. That's disheartening and a total contradiction to his pro-citizen philosophy.

I know about the shipbuilding yard in Kirkland (which built a number of warships during WWII) but not a refinery. Are you sure? Where was it? What was the name of the company? There are no Superfund sites in Kirkland, or anywhere on the Eastside (except for a gasoline truck rollover in Bellevue). Downtown Kirkland is centered on the location of the former ferry landing. There was no refinery there. No refinery appears in photographs of the area.

@23 and, well ... just about all of you.

Get a grip.

Seriously.

The park was ***NOT CLOSED***. The park was in no way, shape or form, "taken away" from the general public. I haven't had a single goddamned problem eating lunch in the park every afternoon like I have been doing for years. The areas that were rented out were obviously subject to restricted entry, but that's a no-brainer (or isn't it ...).

Use of the restricted areas was acquired through the same channels that yourselves would be required to take to if you were rent out the BBQ pit for child's birthday party.

Do you live in Wallingford? Did the event affect any aspect of your life these past couple of days (other than providing the opportunity to bitch about something that has no impact on your life)? No? Didn't think as much. Are your rights/sensibilities/morals/etc. raped and left for the worse because someone could actually afford to rent a space that size for a week and a half? No? I thought that might also be the case.

So, seems to me that this is the dumbest community argument to date on this blog ... but then Seattle never ceases to amaze me with it's petty sense of self-righteousness.

The only refinery I can find that was ever anywhere on the eastside is Port Quendall in Renton, the site of Brown's wood treatment plant from 1916 to 1969 (which I can remember the smell of). They were a tar and creosote refinery, not oil. I don't think there was ever an oil refinery on the Eastside, before during or after WWII. Port Quendall is I think owned by Vulcan (Paul Allen) which is trying to clean up the land for a mega condo development on one part of it.

Hmmm...six grand for permits. If they paid for set up and cleaning, that's probably one-quarter to one-fifth of some parks job's starting salary, plus we got free fireworks and most of the park remained open to the public. Seems like a good deal to me.

Twelve or so years ago, when I was working at the Four Seasons Olympic, The rental for the Spanish Ballroom was $30,000 per evening. Gasworks is a lot larger than the Spanish Ballroom, and surely more iconic, so the rent should be at least that much.

If we are going to make the parks available for private events, we should make sure we gouge at least as much as Four Seasons did ;-)

@28 - exactly. or have the rate reflect a number of factors.

Such as: Open or Closed (ten times more for closed). Noisy fireworks (which set off fire alarms) - cough up some more money for all the police calls and irritation with the dogs barking all night.

*sigh*

You people really don't fucking get it.