Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Beesley, Andrew (2020) Reconciling Conflict over Urban Public Space: Perceptions of Park Space in Seattle (c. 1960 to present). Master of Philosophy (MPhil) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/81475/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html Reconciling Conflict over Urban Public Space: Perceptions of Park Space in Seattle (c. 1960 to present) Thesis submitted for the degree of MPhil in American Studies Andrew Beesley University of Kent: Centre for American Studies Supervisor: Dr John Wills 2020 1 Abstract During the second half of the twentieth century, Seattle’s urban form altered, much like many other major US cities. A variety of different land uses competed in the urban realm for space – commercial, transportation, leisure and recreational, to name a few. As the post-industrial city developed in Seattle, a re-examination of park spaces also occurred which often pitted competing visions of space against each other in the pursuit of establishing a place in which people could use, free from the confines of modern life. While often experimental in their form, these spaces continued a long tradition of park creation in the city of Seattle, that first took root in the early plans of the Olmsted Brothers at the start of the twentieth century. This thesis explores the new form that this ‘park’s culture’ took between 1960 and the early part of the twenty first century and attempts to place the ‘people’ back into the conversation of park developments. Often, the perceptions of urban residents held considerable power and influence over the trajectory such spaces took on their journey from conception to fruition. By looking at three Seattle parks in particular, this thesis will contend that these particular parks represented a novel form of place-making in park spaces, and that the backdrop of a receptive public towards parks in Seattle allowed these places to become integral parts of the public realm in the city. 2 Contents: List of illustrations p.4 Acknowledgements p.5 Introduction: p.7 Tracing a ‘park culture’ in Seattle Chapter I: p.26 Place-making the Post-Industrial: Seattle’s Gas Works Park and the Transformation of an Industrial Landscape. Chapter II: p.77 Reconciling the Freeway: Seattle’s Freeway Park and I-5 Colonnade Bike Park. Chapter III: p.140 Discovery Park as an Urban Wilderness or Historic-Cultural Preservation Space Conclusion: p.195 The place of the ‘park’ in Seattle Bibliography p.199 3 List of Illustrations: 1. Aerial photograph of the Gas Works site. April 1966. p.47 2. Remains of track trestles. April 2016. p.48 3. View from Kite Hill, Gas Works Park, overlooking Lake Union and p.49 Downtown Seattle in the background, April 2016. 4. Cooling towers retained at Gas Works Park, 1976. p.55 5. 2015 Fourth of July at Gas Works Park [People picnicking and lounging.] p.76 6. Empire Expressway Bridge Design. Copy of Drawing. Arboretum p.86 Interchange. Jan 8, 1960. 7. Model of Freeway Park showing the reflecting pools to the east of the p.103 park. 1970. 8. Enjoying the fountains in Freeway Park. 1970. p.106 9. Lunchtime concert taking place in Freeway Park. 14 September 1979. p.106 10. Discovery Park Opening Day Dedication by Senator Jackson, Mayor p.141 Brahman, and Mayor Uhlman. [Senator Henry Jackson Speaking]. 11. Magnolia Bluff overlooking the Puget Sound. 2 May 1903. p.144 12. Bicycle path near Fort Lawton that later became Magnolia Boulevard. p.146 1900. 13. Historic photo of Fort Lawton Grounds - Sixth Engineers Band. C. 1929. p.148 14. Aerial view of Fort Lawton site. 1970. p.158 15. Long Range Plan for Discovery Park published in 1974. p.170 16. Fort Lawton barracks buildings that remained after the transfer to Seattle p.171 Department of Parks & Recreation. 1 January 1972. 17. Discovery Park: Officer and NCO quarters - Officers’ quarters. 1981. p.181 18. Building demolition at Discovery Park. 1980. p.181 4 Acknowledgements: A number of people have helped make this project come to fruition. I would like to extend my thanks to my supervisors, Dr John Wills and Prof. David Stirrup for their oversight of the thesis from its initial conception. Together, they have provided invaluable advice throughout the thesis. The staff at the Centre for American Studies at the University of Kent have also given me support, so special thanks go to Claire Tutt, Jenny Humphrey, and Jacqueline Basquil, as well as Rianne Dubois, and Becky Beach. I am also grateful at having been awarded the Bolt Scholarship, established in memory of Christine Bolt and her late husband Ian, whose scholarship assisted me in visiting Washington state in 2017. The research that went into this thesis led me to a variety of archival and library institutions who were kind enough to let me access their collections and materials. I would like to thank the Seattle Municipal Archives in Seattle, Washington for allowing me to use their facilities as well as access their extensive archive on Seattle’s urban history. I would also like to thank the staff in the research collections at Seattle Public Library and the Hugh and Jane Ferguson Seattle Room. The University of Washington Libraries research collections allowed me to access their archival record and I give thanks to the staff who assisted me at their Seattle campus. Also in Seattle, I would like to thank several individuals who gave up their time to speak with me about the thesis and offer their insights into both Seattle’s urban and environmental past. Thanks to Knute Berger whose knowledge of Seattle’s history and social fabric knows no bounds! I am grateful to the late Richard Haag for his first-hand insights into Gas Works Park which he designed half a century ago. The Freeway Park Association were also kind enough to give me a guided tour of Freeway Park, and for this I am thankful. Special thanks also go to many learned individuals whose work with the case study parks mentioned here, and city organisations such as Seattle Parks and Recreation, Historic Preservation and Historic Seattle, provided me with a rich conversation of 5 perspectives on Seattle’s park history. They include Susan Boyle, David Streatfield, Iain Robertson, Donald M. Harris, Emily Griffith, Maya Leites, Riisa Conklin and former Mayor of Seattle Wes Uhlman. Thanks also go to Jennifer Ott, assistant director of HistoryLink, for the perspectives she provided me with and for putting me in contact with David B. Williams, a prolific writer of Seattle’s natural history. Finally, I would like to give special thanks to the family and friends who have always given to me the encouragement and backing I’ve needed to see this project through its various stages. Within that, I am forever indebted for the unwavering support that my partner Cam has provided me with. 6 Introduction: Tracing a ‘park culture’ in Seattle From the Industrial to the Post-Industrial City In the second half of the twentieth century, Seattle, a city famous for its futuristic urbanism and environmental credentials, entered a period of urban change which redefined traditional meanings of public space. From the 1940s onwards, provoked by the domestic reorganisation of the American nation owing first to the demands of a global war, and then to an accelerated process of urbanisation, cities such as Seattle entered a ‘distinct era’ of urban growth to become ‘national and even international pacesetters.’1 What occurred in Seattle was mirrored in other cities across the United States. Subsequent to the end of the Second World War, American cities decentralised and suburbanised. Economic and social activity moved away from the metropolitan core to the periphery, along with cohorts of urban residents, typically affluent and middle-class families who sought suburban living, in an era which has since been labelled as ‘deindustrialisation’.2 As a result, public space design and function evolved too, as American cities transitioned towards a post-industrial age no longer characterised by traditional heavy industry and manufacturing. Operating against the backdrop of this broader change in urban trend and function, our understanding of public space shifted too, with a conceptual conflict arising between accepted and new experimental models of social space. In suburban communities, new social spaces were created which blurred the divide between public and private, often by embodying the uptake of plazas, park-themed landscaping, and collaborative 1 Carl Abbott, The Metropolitan Frontier: Cities in the Modern American West, (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), p.xii. 2 Two works on the topic of suburbanisation in the United States encompasses two centuries of the process. The latter sections of both Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); and Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000, (New York: Vintage Books, 2005), deal with post-Second World War suburbanisation in relation to the American middle class, though moves to ‘the suburbs’ is by no means limited to this particular social group.