Capitol Hill Garage Sale Day 2023
As a coalition calls on city officials to do more to address safety and drug crimes around the core of Broadway, Pike/Pine, and Cal Anderson, the nonprofit formed to help maintain and improve the beloved but challenged city park is looking for someone to fill a new role to keep the public space active and fun for every type of visitor.
The Cal Anderson Park Alliance has announced it is hiring a manager for a pilot activation program that it hopes will bring events and activities to the Cal Anderson Shelterhouse and the nearby Cathy Hillenbrand Community Room located in the Station House affordable housing building above Capitol Hill Station just north of the park. The program will also help keep the AIDS Memorial Plaza above the station busy with activities beyond its role hosting the weekly farmers markets.
CAPA says the Activation Manager will “coordinate community use and programming of these spaces, as well as Cal Anderson Park and the Capitol Hill Station Plaza” working with community members, the CAPA Board, Seattle Parks and Recreation, Seattle Parks Foundation, and nearby property management to coordinate activities and the use of the park and community spaces.”
This role will also “help the City and partner organizations ensure that both public and privately owned amenities in and around Cal Anderson Park are clean, organized and in excellent working order,” the organization says.
Funded by the Seattle Parks Foundation, the program and role are currently planned to run from June 2024 through January 2025. The job pays $40 to $50 per hour and should keep the manager busy 20 to 40 hours per week, CAPA says.
The opportunity is immense. The Shelterhouse has mostly been used for community meetings over the years but has been challenged by closures during recent years as encampments formed and were cleared in its area of the park just off 11th Ave. The Cathy Hillenbrand Community Room is also capable of hosting meetings, classes, and presentations.
The AIDS Memorial Plaza space has been programmed by Seattle’s LGBTQ Center but has not kept a busy schedule beyond the farmers market.
The plaza above Capitol Hill Station could also be busier under the program
Cal Anderson’s open spaces, meanwhile, have been used for screening movies, hosting community garage sales, and more in addition to being a frequent gathering space for demonstrations, marches, and rallies.
The park is being prepared for a busy summer. The eastern edge of the park is now lined by a smooth new sidewalk and new solutions to help save the space’s Red Sunset Maples. Work parties will clean up areas around the park as part of the upcoming May 19th Day of Service in Seattle.
In December, the city cleared the Black Lives Memorial Garden installed by protesters during the 2020 demonstrations. Seattle Parks said the garden needed to be removed for a planned “turf restoration” project in Cal Anderson’s southern grass bowl area that officials said is needed “to host gatherings and large events” as part of its “intentional design as a natural amphitheater and proximity to electrical and water hook-ups.”
Whether the parks department made the right decision to remove the garden is still being debated but the new activation manager can at least make sure the area gets put back to use.
One opportunity is already on the calendar. CAPA says the annual Capitol Hill Garage Sale is scheduled for Cal Anderson for Sunday, August 11th.
You can learn more about the activation manager job at calandersonpark.org.
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“Whether the parks department made the right decision to remove the garden is still being debated…”
No it’s not. 99% of the community is relieved it’s gone along with its toxic “stewards”. Why would a space be given to group who posted on their Instagram page celebrating the massacre in Israel on October 7th? There is nothing to debate about that. And anyone who thinks that’s debatable is as psychopathic and racist as the far right.
I actually 95% agree with you. It was an eyesore. It restricted the intentional use as well. The “stewards” are toxic in part. They all think they can simply plant a flag. Labeled a good cause. And take over public property and expect it to stay under ANY circumstances.
We try to accommodate everyone around here. The people here understand the issues. That’s why they stay here to live. Like me. For me, Capitol Hill is about as perfect as you’ll get in the current day. For me. Lots of people here feel the same way.
Fact is this. Moving the BLMG to a better spot is what’s best for everyone involved. It’s not like they are simply bulldozing the garden. They are working to help find a spot as well. I am not sure what more anyone can ask.
99.99% of us saw it as an eyesore. The argument is what? A mass hallucinations Poor taste in memorials from art critics? It’s not even the percentage of people who support George Floyd. A vast majority of us are all in on the police brutality/prejudices thing. We are all hot on that. Yet? 99.99% of us say the BLM garden doesn’t cut the mustard. Why? Because it turned into a mess. If it was some beautiful garden etc.? They’d have had a real chance of keeping it there. At least in part. But yeah. A memorial none the less.
The public/neighborhood is taking the park back. It’s “Cal Anderson” park. Not a complete free for all so people can leave stuff forever in it w/o ANY thought to work with anyone. “Our way or the highway” only works if you are completely bananas. BLMG case in point. Confederate memorials and symbols and the ilk. You can have your freedoms on private property. Work with the public for stuff in public. Like BLMG. It was a takeover. Not a legit project.
And yeah, I know 1st hand who the “leaders” are. Your description is close.
Great to see Cal Anderson looking to provide more fun, but (awkward pause…) we haven’t exactly provided housing for these formerly-encamped folks yet—so which park will they live in next?
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
We got an astronomically ginormous problem with scant resources to match the scale of the problem.
There’s Community Roots Housing and Bellwether housing. They are the 2 main players in the affordable housing orbit. Google em’ and check out the mission statement, “our approach” “Upcoming projects” and so forth.
There is no debate that the “garden” needed to go. You can’t privatize a public park and you certainly cannot invite in some our most vulnerable citizens to camp and live in human misery there. There were overdoses almost daily, including a death, before the encampment was cleared. Not to mention stabbings, shootings and other violence.
Is there any opportunities for the neighborhood to show up and help?
Who’s debating that removing the “garden” wasn’t the right thing to do… the three or so people that mucked around in it occasionally?… desperately cleaned it up a little occasionally, whenever talk turned towards returning the site to its previous form? the rest of us are relived to see the mess cleaned up.
No, you don’t get to unilaterally declare you are building a memorial garden in a public space that already has active usage. The community spent years to plan and build it into the memorial that it already is, and did it all legally. No one has the right to simply lay claim to any part of it.