The Beauty of Neglect
Seattle's Secret Garden
By Wadical Weft, Baloney.Com
Pictures of the park on our first visit (1999)
Pictures from a recent visit
Before
you visit the park, read here
I read an article in The Stranger about Boeing's desire to extend the Boeing Field runway by 800 feet and the effect it would have on the Georgetown community. In the section of the article called "I almost stepped on a goose", Wm. Steven Humphrey writes of a neglected, rundown park on city property in the midst of the Boeing facilities by the Duwamish River. The claim is that Boeing got land from the city in exchange for being required to maintain this park. He described the entrance to the park as something that "closely resembles the entrance to a maximum-security prison". He writes that the center of the park is "pretty f**king pathetic". He even mentioned that a goose had made a nest in the stairs to the top of a small hill in the center. Intrigued, I called my friends Walter and Virgil and asked them to accompany me on a mission to find this park, expecting the worst. What we did find was amazingly beautiful, full of blooming flowers, lush green trees, with wonderful benches overgrown with flowering plants that Walter described as straight out of Martha Stewart. All this in the middle of rusting metal, dangerous looking 55 gallon drums, and barges of supplies headed for Alaska.
After
Virgil and I picked up Walter when he got off work, we headed towards
Boeing Field and eventually onto East Marginal Way. Following the
highly inadequate (on purpose?) directions to the park, we ended up
driving up and down East Marginal Way several times before we stumbled
onto the entrance. To save you some time, here
is a map. If you have a GPS unit, the coordinates are N 47.53392, W122.32063.
When we hit the correct driveway, we immediately saw
a sign stating this was private Boeing property, but right next to that
was a sign that said "Public Shore". We continued
driving and came up to a small set of parking spaces (8 not 2 as
mentioned in the article) that were clearly marked for public parking
and not for Boeing employees. We pulled into the rightmost of the
empty spaces and parked. Late on Saturday afternoon, these spaces
were surrounded by many empty parking places for the Lazy B. We
followed the next public shore sign into a hallway like path between two
chainlink fences. Through the left fences we could see the highly
manicured Boeing parking lots, but on the fight it seemed that various
beautiful daisies and ???? had been planted at the bottom of the
fence. We walked along the "hallway", noticing the
rusting hulks and 55 gallon drums beyond on the right. As we
walked farther, the flowers got thicker and more beautiful. We saw
a couple of broken plants and wondered if these were the ones that Mr.
Humphrey complained of hitting him in the face. While the plants
were thick, they weren't anything like an overgrown trail in the
woods, and we wondered when the last time he had been out of the
city. We came up to very nice looking bench, looking new, freshly
painted, and clearly overgrown with flowers. Walking some more,
the park widened out and we came to a small hill with some stairs to the
top. Walking up gingerly, looking for the goose nest, we found it,
empty, along with some broken egg shells. We continued to the top
and found a nice semi-circular bench there. Virgil headed down to
look at the plants below, while Walter and I took in the token
view.
Wafting all around us was the smell of chemicals and industry, along
with the view of some barges loaded with cargo marked for Alaska.
Later, when we returned to the car, and I pulled out a whiteboard pen
(the only one I had) to write down some notes. The stench of the
pen was much more intense than the industrial aromas, causing Virgil to
step away. I commented that the software business was full of
these pens and wondered if there was a correlation between the pen
stench and software bugs.
Hold On a Minute!
Etiquette
for visiting the park.
1. Take time to visit. This little garden may be returned to the sterile state of the Boeing parking lots because of the attention that may come from the Stranger article. Certainly the amazing amount of beautiful flowers won't last either.
2. Don't park in the Boeing Parking spaces. The park is very small and the limited parking should be used to limit access. Here is a simple rule for visiting the park. If the parking spaces are full, return home.
3. Walk very carefully along the paths. Don't step on the plants. Avoid wearing hiking boots if you can. If you climb to the top of the small hill, take the stairs back down, even though there appears to be a small trail. Let it overgrow with flowers.
4. Don't pick the flowers. Leave them there for other folks to enjoy.
5. Leave the people in the white house at 1206 S. Austin alone. Apparently they chose to never sell their property to Boeing. They must be bothered enough already.
6. Take care of bodily functions before going to the park. While there may be piles of porta-potties all around, there aren't any inside the park boundaries.
View
From E. Marginal Way
Front
Entrance To The Public Shore
"Martha Stewart
Bench"
Why You Should Tred
Lightly
6'4" Flanagan
Among The Fire Flowers
Evidence Of
Beaver
Overgrown Stairs To
Top Of Hill
GooseNest On The
Stairs
Boeing Property
Next to "Hill"
Hilltop View
Hilltop Flowers
Virgil On Hilltop Taking
Pictures
Tugs Across the
Duwamish
Barges Loaded With
Supplies For Alaska
ChangingLINKS.com