Workers take a break from fiber installation at a new apartment building built next to the park (Images: CHS)
Part of some of the most densely packed blocks in the Pacific Northwest, Capitol Hill’s pockets of public open space play many roles and give us all a little breathing room when we need it.
Tashkent Park on Boylston between Republican and Mercer just a few blocks below Broadway is more tightly packed than most. Built in the late 1980s and named in tribute to Seattle’s Uzbekistani sister city, the park sits near thousands of neighbors and is ready for a major refresh.
Thursday night, you’re invited to be part of the planning for a new project hoped to begin construction this August:
Tashkent Park Improvements
Seattle Parks and Recreation invites the community to a public meeting for the Tashkent Park improvements. This is an opportunity to learn about the proposed new landscaping and small plaza. The Sr. Landscape Architect from Seattle Parks will present the proposed plan, answer questions and gather community feedback.Seattle Parks is applying for funding through the Community Development Block Grant and anticipates construction to begin in August 2015.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
6:30 – 7:45 p.m.
Capitol Hill Branch
425 Harvard Ave. E
“Our main goal for this project is to improve the landscaping with more shade tolerant plants and make the park plaza ADA accessible,” a Seattle Parks rep tells CHS.
The Community Development Block Grant is a federal program designed to provide “resources to address a wide range of unique community development needs.”
The Tashkent work is part of a flurry of activity for new and updated parks around Capitol Hill and the Central District. Broadway Hill Park is part of a trip of new projects moving forward and should begin construction this summer. In the Central District, Jimi Hendrix Park’s first phase of construction is underway. On First Hill, a new program to create temporary open space projects is growing and Yesler Terrace’s 10th Ave Hill Climb (here’s a sketch) is expected to be completed.
At Tashkent, the parks department representative tells CHS the park’s “grass has had trouble growing” — for more than 20 years, apparently — and the city plans “to make it more inviting.” The early vision includes enhancing the Life, Love, Time and Game sculpture with “a small hard surface plaza around the statue with the addition of some seating” and adding a planting area for the park’s annual tulip planting event with representatives from Seattle’s sister city.
Parks senior landscape architect Shwu-jen Hwang will lead the project.
“This meeting is an opportunity for the community to learn about and provide input on the proposed new landscaping and small plaza for Tashkent Park,” an announcement of Thursday’s meeting reads.
It also puts a muzzle on one idea that has been floating around the Friends of Tashkent Park Facebook page. “The scope of the work does not include a dogs off-leash area,” the parks department announcement notes. Apparently, city code forbids off-leash areas “directly abutting residences.”
They couldn’t do anything to this park that wouldn’t be a huge improvement.
Densely packed? I rarely see anyone using that park. Maybe at night?
I’m surprised that an off-leash dog area is off the agenda, since that’s already the predominant use of the park (besides injection drug use).
A dog run is already carved out of the grass where owners play catch with off-leash dogs by bouncing balls against the wall of abutting apartment building. It’s pretty stupid the city can’t put a low fence around it.
Fitness stations! Besides the waterfront, these are no place and it’s a cheap and easy way to encourage use..1-2 Pull up bars, parallel dip bars and if you want to go crazy, add something else.
They should add fitness stations to every park in Capitol Hill. At least Cal Anderson — DEFINITELY needs pull up bar, dip station and calisthenics area.
Glad to see that I am not the only one..I run down along the water now and then and people are always using the stations there.
A skate dot would be a great addition!
And an injection station/needle exchange….
Renaming the park after a city in a country that doesn’t execute gays would be a good start.
I saw one of the most brilliant pieces of theater by the Ilkholm Theatre of Tashkent when they performed White White Black Stork at ACT Theatre. The show dealt with a 16 year old boy who had feelings for a fellow male classmate.
When the performers told us of what they suffered through to be able to perform theatre there in general, let alone a play as daring as this one, it made me appreciate theatre so much more.
It’s easy to dismiss an entire country because of its laws but let’s not forget that there are people who live in those countries who are risking their lives to bring about change. In fact, there are people in this country who are still doing that.
You can read about the fascinating history of the Seattle-Tashkent sister city relationship here:
http://seattle-tashkent.org/history-2/
I love the sculpture in that park, but have long felt that it was kind of wasted in that location, because the park gets very little legitimate use and is kind of out-of-the-way as far as much foot traffic. But I seem to remember that it was given by the city of Tashkent, so it probably can’t be moved elsewhere.
Hopefully, the improvements will result in more use of the park.