SEATTLE PARKS FOUNDATION Connections FALL 2015 Occidental Park: A Place for All On a sunny weekday in August, strains of classical piano music drift across Occidental Park in Pioneer Square. A group of elderly women sip coffee at bright blue tables while a man practices tai chi under the shade of maple trees. Tourists snap photos in front of the neighborhood’s trademark ivy-covered brick buildings, and two chess players study their moves while laborers sit and chat during their lunch break. Smokers on the periphery of the park watch a ping- pong game, and local professionals pass through on their way to nearby food trucks. Artists sit sketching and carving, while children build towers of oversize foam blocks and play foosball. There is scarcely an empty seat in the park. Not long ago, visitors would have come upon an entirely different scene. When Al Taliaferro arrived at the park after losing his housing two years ago, he was taken aback. “I came here because in the ’80s I saw this park in National Geographic magazine, and it said that this park had art, and it had benches. But when I got here, the whole place was changed. Addicts, alcoholics, people on the run, all of that was right here.” Drug dealing and crime kept many Seattleites from using the park; meanwhile, residents with housing troubles and mental illness had few other places to go. Jeff Lilley, president of Union Gospel Mission, notes that the Pioneer Square neighborhood hosts a concentration of vulnerable citizens because of its prox- imity to Harborview Medical Center, King County Jail, bus and train stations, social service providers, and Housing First units. Leslie Smith of the Alliance for Pioneer Square points out that the problems in the park weren’t actually caused by the street A summer afternoon in a population or the people living in the missions. “This is their park and their public space too,” transformed Occidental Park. she says. “This was really about a criminal element that had taken over this park.” Photo courtesy of Downtown Seattle Association Today, that element has been displaced. The park activation plan unfolding here, mirrored at Westlake Park to the north, is the product of a public-private collaboration involving the Downtown Seattle Association, Metropolitan Improvement District, Seattle Parks and Recre- ation, Alliance for Pioneer Square, Friends of Waterfront Seattle, and Seattle Parks Foundation. continued next page Occidental Park: A Place for All (from front page) By making the park more functional for a diverse population of park patrons, the partnership is creating a vital and welcoming space. By all accounts, it’s been a huge success. Smith says the activation plan—including “I want this to be seating, games, and activities—has “exceeded expectations” this summer, and she’s already thinking about ways to keep the park welcoming and well used during the a cultural zone. I winter months. invite everyone else to bring their talent, Members of Seattle’s homeless, formerly homeless, and transient communities are out of their homes, active in the new creative and conversational culture at Occidental Park. Inspired by park regulars like Al Taliaferro, other Seattleites who are struggling to get by are those people who’ve using the park to create art, play music, rest peacefully, and connect with others. got nowhere else to go, sit round in “I want this to be a cultural zone,” says Taliaferro, gesturing across the park. “I in- this park, find your vite everyone else to bring their talent, out of their homes, those people who’ve got talents, and raise nowhere else to go, sit round in this park, find your talents, and raise yourself up.” He and other regulars act as informal stewards, discouraging potential troublemak- yourself up.” ers and maintaining the vibrant atmosphere of the park. —AL TALIAFERRO Jeff Lilley agrees that long-term park users are crucial to maintaining this shift at Occidental Park, a responsibility that other Seattle residents share. He gestures to the pianist who has been playing all morning. “You think about what Don does to this park. He becomes a patron. If you come to the park tomorrow and see Don playing, you can greet him by name, join him, offer him a cup of coffee.” In the long run, these moments of personal connection will be just as significant as the new tables and chairs in maintaining Occidental Park as a place for all. From Scary Trail to Happy Trail The 8th Avenue trail is a vital link for pedestrians and Carmen Martinez cyclists traveling between the two sides of the South Park and Duwamish Valley neighborhood, which is bisected by the 99/509 highway. Youth Corps, along It is especially important for families on the less populated with scores of other west side to get to the neighborhood’s only elementary community members, school and to the local branch library, community center, decided to take action Neighborhood kids line up for a bike and neighborhood center, 14th Avenue business district, food and transform what pedestrian parade to celebrate the bank, and Sea Mar Community Health Center. had become known as transformed 8th Avenue trail. the Scary Trail into the Photo: Tom Reese But after years of neglect, the trail was overrun with weeds, Happy Trail. trash, and graffiti. It attracted homeless campers and drug- related activity. Crime along the trail led many neighbors The stalwart volunteers removed five dump truck loads of to avoid it altogether. Some opted to brave the dangerous debris from the site, cleared invasive plants, replaced topsoil, arterial crossings instead—sometimes with tragic results, added mulch and native plants, and adorned the fence such as when a local student was killed in a hit-and-run along the trail with beautiful yarn flowers. In August, the accident in 2013. community celebrated with a parade, featuring decorated bikes and mariachi music. Community-Led Planning for a New Amphitheater at Volunteer Park The Volunteer Park Trust has worked with hundreds of community members over the past three years to restore the beloved Olmsted-designed Volunteer Park to its former glory. Above: Visitors gather in front The effort has expanded to include replacing the dilapidated performance stage. of the old amphitheater at Volunteer Park Trust’s Summer Picnic. The stage is used for dozens of performances, festivals, and community celebrations throughout the year. The current brick shell, built in 1971, is in poor condition and suffers from bad Right: A family enjoying the entertainment at the Summer acoustics, inadequate backstage space, and lack Picnic of weather protection. Photos: Renata Steiner (www.nataworry.com) The Trust has contracted with Owen Richards Architects and the Walker Macy landscape architecture firm to generate a community vision for a new stage and amphitheater. The design phase of the project is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2016. The Power of Partnership A partnership between Seattle Parks and Recreation, The Trust for Public Land, MOMentum, and Seattle Parks Foundation is installing four Fitness Zones around the city—and offering 19,000 people a place to exercise within a 10-minute walk from home. The Fitness Zones will be located in Powell Barnett Park in the Central District, Delridge Community Center in West Seattle, Van Asselt Community Center in Beacon Hill, and Hiawatha Community Center in West Seattle. Each zone will be equipped with top-quality exercise equipment that is appropriate for teens and adults of all fitness levels. The zones are weather- and vandal-resistant and offer a fun and social environment for physical activity. Working out in a new The first two Fitness Zones, at Powell Barnett Park in the Central District and the Fitness Zone. Photo: Trust for Public Land. Delridge Community Center in West Seattle, will open in early 2016. A Symbol of Friendship in Seward Park For 50 years, a 26-foot-tall Japanese gate greeted visitors to Seward Park. Built in 1934 by Seattle’s Japanese American community for the International Potlatch celebration, the torii stood in Seward Park until the mid-1980s, when age and decay necessitated its removal. At a cherry tree–planting ceremony for the park’s centennial celebration in 2011, the Friends of Seward Park began discussing the idea of building a new torii. Those of Japanese descent recalled the old torii from visits with grandparents to “Sewado Paku” after World War II; others remembered the torii as their destination on Bicycle Sundays or as the backdrop of the Rainier District Pow-Wow for 50 years. In Japan, torii mark the entrance to Shinto shrines, serving as a portal into a sacred space. The columns support two crosspieces above a pathway. In the United States, torii are usually built as symbols of friendship and cultural exchange between Japan and America, and are found in gardens and parks rather than shrines. The torii’s symbolism of intercultural friendship is even more Above: Outside the original appropriate today, when the community around the park is among the most ethnically Torii Gate in 1953. diverse in the nation. Joey Manson, director of the Seward Park Audubon Center, Photo: Donald S. Taniguichi notes that a torii “is literally a ‘bird perch,’ a place that invites us to look around and take notice, and a place for our aspirations to take flight.” Working with the landscape architects Murase Associates and the design/build firm Takumi Company, the Friends solicited public input for a new torii design. Rather than favoring a replica of the original torii, the community opted for a design that synthesizes traditional torii elements and natural materials to complement the beauty of the park’s old growth forest.