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Sunday, January 28, 2007

I've still got it

This gorgeous clear Sunday afternoon found me in Volunteer Park, my nearby Olmsted park known for its grand vistas, cultural attractions and notorious marketplace of anonymous gay sex. Or so they say. Perhaps that secluded back loop drive is just a really nice place for men to sit in their cars alone, taking in a little sun. Or in their semi cabs from Utah, resting.

I was meeting friends to take their engagement photos, and arrived a bit early to scout a few likely shooting locations.

The park teemed with visitors as I strolled down the main drive toward the Conservatory. Cutting toward the Conservatory, I paid little attention to a man sitting on a bench near some angle-parked vehicles. As I neared an empty Tahoe Z71 about 20 feet from the guy, I heard it unlock itself. After I passed without breaking stride, it relocked and gave that little beep. Not really my scene.

But how romantic!

Attempting to document what I just said about activities in the park, I ran across this gem of a passage from a 2005 draft Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation "Vegetation Management Plan":
A significant darker side of landscape usage - not originally imagined - also exists in Volunteer Park. Widespread illicit activity includes illegal drug use, consensual gay sex and sporadic transient encampment. While most prevalent after hours and in park peripheries, these behaviors occur throughout the park during all times of day. Most illegal activity consists of victimless crime; general users face little direct personal danger.

Overgrown landscape areas have created what a park gardener in the 1980’s described as “perfect habitat for illicit activity.” Those frequenting the park’s dense shrubberies and secluded glades denude understory vegetation, compacting, soiling, and eroding the bare earth, and leaving behind biohazard litter and debris. Such activities compound the decline of park vegetation, and put at significant risk exploring children, pets and grounds maintenance staff. This usage has aroused heated exchange and engendered lingering animosity among constituencies in the community, and has yet to find resolution. Acknowledging the full spectrum of Volunteer Park’s use-related issues, vegetation management may help point toward synergistic solutions.
I thought "aroused heated exchange" was the usage.

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posted at 9:27 PM

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I remember spending time at VP when living just blocks away and then as a UW student/career woman in the period from 1957 to 1962. Obviously all trees and bushes were smaller, so the area felt brighter and more open, but I also admit total ignorance of even the possibility of unsavory behavior taking place. The times--or was it just me?--were much more innocent.

February 11, 2007 12:25 AM  

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