Birth Week 1976 Local Landmark # 12: Freeway Park, Seattle, WA
Opened: July 4, 1976.
World's first park built on a lid over an active interstate,
built to mitigate the impact of Interstate 5 on downtown Seattle (this stretch of freeway opened to traffic in 1967).
Expansion westward to First Hill with stairways and wheelchair ramps opened
1984.
Landscape renovation
2010.
Connects to Seattle Convention Center to the north; Union Square to the west; First Hill to the east.
This was one of the first landmarks I found when researching 1976 landmarks for this year's Birth Week, and I was delighted to learn that Freeway Park—one of Seattle's hidden gems, a precedent-setting achievement that I would argue is underrated these days—opened in 1976. On July 4, in fact, as part of countless nationwide bicentennial celebrations.
I have been familiar with this park pretty much since I moved to Seattle in 1998, but have become progressively more familiar with it over time, as my typical daily movement circled closer to it: my condo on Capitol Hill is one mile from this park, and ever since PCC's central office moved downtown last September, I work four blocks from this park. (Whenever I have a doctor appointment at Virginia Mason Medical Center on First Hill, I cut through this park when walking there from work.) There was apparently a smattering of crime incidents in the park in the early 2000s that led to certain new improvements, a key example of which is public programming in the park—the very fun, annual "
Twinkle Twinkle Freeway Park" holiday season event I discovered just last year being merely one of many.
Freeway Park consists of
5.2 acres, much of it with water features designed in the brutalist style by landscape architect
Angela Danadjieva (who also designed
Ira Keller Fountain in Portland, in 1970). This is easily the most distinctive element of Freeway Park, with a maze of stairways and pathways weaving through it, and a better experience when the water is actually turned on during the warmer months—I was relieved to see the waterfalls running on Friday. There are plenty of
green spaces in the park too, though, along with a
central common area with tables provided for picnics over at the main entrance to the park by 6th Ave & Seneca St.
Laney and Barbara and I hung out at Freeway Park, where we brought a picnic lunch, for about two and a half hours—after which we went over to Olympia Coffee in the lobby of the US Bank Center, and we all hung out for about another hour there. That's where I got this delightful photo of the three of us, using the latest model AirPods as a remote for the camera. It's one of my favorite things about AirPods, as I no longer have to set the timer and then rush over to my desired spot in the frame!
And now, a brief update on the Saga of Shobhit's Flat Tire: He had an appointment at Costco at something like 6:15 this evening, just in case they'd have the new tire he already paid for in stock. He smartly wanted to have the appointment on the books so that they would not have the tire arrive but then say they had no openings. Well, shortly after Barbara and I walked home from Freeway Park (Laney took the bus), Shobhit tried to call the Costco Tire Center to see if they got the new tire in today as he hoped, but per usual, the Costco Tire Center was so busy that no one was answering the phone, even after several calls.
So, Shobhit decided he'd better drive down there to ask in person. He asked me to come along, which I really didn't want to do, but I decided it best to go with rather than insist on staying home. I asked if Barbara wanted to come along and she went ahead and came too.
Laney had made a good point during lunch that it would be less expensive just to buy a new tire from someone else besides Costco, then it would be to rent a car because Costco didn't get the new tire in soon enough. When I mentioned this to Shobhit, that was when I learned he had already paid for the tire at Costco. Nevertheless, while we were in the car on the way to Costco, we looked up nearby tire shops to see what was open and what options there were. We called a couple of places, and one of them was University Used Tires, which we were kind of shocked to learn are actually open 24 hours a day!
Shobhit didn't know what the exact size of the tire he needed was, though. He told University Used Tires that he might call them back. In the meantime, we got to Costco, and of course, learned that they did not have his tire in. Barbara was the one who reminded him to find out what the size of the tire was, which Shobhit was appreciative of; both he and I would have forgotten otherwise.
So, we called University Used Tires back, and asked if they had this size tire in stock. For a split second it sounded like the guy was going to say they didn't have it—and then, suddenly, he said they had just one! Well, that was all we needed. So we drove from the Costco on 4th Avenue South up to the U District.
I had smartly brought my laptop and external hard drive with me, packed in my backpack, so I could use my phone as a wifi hotspot and do the requisite editing and uploading of the day's photos while we were driving around town in the car. I had
all the day's photos, aside from the three I took at University Used Tires, uploaded before we even got back home.
Shobhit should be able to get a refund on the tire he pre-ordered from Costco, and in the end was pretty happy with getting a good-quality used tire for half the price. We were all pretty impressed with University Used Tires, which even had a sign posted that said they are "carbon negative." It makes sense, since they reuse tires rather than filling up landfill with them.
Shobhit had briefly talked about just driving all the way to Olympia and back with the small, spare tire, if we were unable to find a replacement before leaving tomorrow—something both Barbara and I felt was a terrible idea, a completely unnecessary and rather large risk. I'm so, so glad University Used Tires had the one specific tire Shobhit needed in stock. We just waited a short while for the tire to get installed by them, and we were finally driving home with all four tires as regular-sized tires again. We can head to Olympia this morning rested and assured now.
[posted 6:44am]
