Site Report #3
"University Playground (first fenced playground)"
Taken 1913. Seattle Municipal Archives.
The Seattle Times reporting on park closures. 05/07/1991.
A recording of this script read aloud. Recording by author.
Looking from the corner of the block on 9th Avenue and 50th Street, across University Playground are steps leading down to the residential half of the block behind 48th Street. Aside from that, the block is largely flat from corner to corner. Photographs of this same playground show the block and surrounding land about this flat a century ago.
A while has passed since sunset, and the play structures in the far corner are unlit. You catch the most light from passing cars by walking by along the fence by 50th Street. The playground has been fenced off since 1913. According to the Seattle Municipal Archives' title for the photograph, it was the first fenced playground in the neighborhood ("University Playground (first fenced playground)".
When you reach the bathrooms, you notice that they're the only real source of illumination in the park. The darkness is more uninviting than a park feels like it should be.
A 1991 Seattle Times article reported on this park and fifteen others in the city being closed after dark to ward off "partying youths" and "criminal activity" ("Closure of Parks"). A 1993 article reports no intent by the city to reopen any parks at night. The decision to keep the University Playground closed at dark persists today, more recently enforced to push out poeple suffering from homelessness ("4 More Seattle Parks May Be Closed At Night").
Just past the bathrooms, a play structure resembling the frame of a small house sits before the swings. A thickly built primate-looking figure leans against it, appearing to cause the skew in the house's frame. The sculpture, especially spooky-looking at this hour, was commissioned by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation in 1982 ("Sasquatch Pushing Over a House, (sculpture)").
As you walk along, you hear a noise in the bushes nearby. It could be a squirrel, or it could be a partying criminal youth. Either way, it's too dangerous to stick around. You leave the park for another day.