Volunteer Park
Day: Friday
Time: 10:15 AM
Weather: Cloudy, mid-50s
Locations: Volunteer Park, amphitheater; Volunteer Park, conservatory; Near Interlaken Park
We were not using the Seattle public bathroom map for this observation.
Location: Volunteer Park, amphitheater
Sarah:
We walked along Broadway from Cal Anderson to Volunteer park at around 10:15 or so. If I remember correctly we turned right on Harrison and then walked up 11th to hit the lower west side of the park. Inside of the park, we travel along the west side of the reservoir until we encountered a set of bathrooms. We saw what appeared to be a freestanding brick building with a large white painted sign on the side reading ‘WOMEN’. As we walked closer it became clear that there were a set of bars across the door to the restrooms and piece of paper declaring that they were only open during special events.
We continued walking around the left side of the building where we found the men’s restroom with the same sign. Still curving around we realized that the restrooms were on the backside of the amphitheater, which was surprising to us because we’d both been to this part of the park before (Kiley for an event that made use of the stage). We took a few photos and I suggested we continue on to the Conservatory where I thought there might be more restrooms.
Kiley:
Sarah and I walked from Cal Anderson park to Volunteer Park. (OC: It must have taken around 20 minutes? I’m not sure now.) We got to the restroom area on the lower part of the park, and the building had WOMEN engraved on the side of the brick building. We tried to go inside the restroom, but it said it was closed and is only open during public events.
We walked around to the front and we noticed that the restroom is attached to the stage at Volunteer Park. I had been there before, but I never realized that there were restrooms attached.
Location: Volunteer Park, Conservatory
Sarah:
Coming closer to the Conservatory we were audibly groaning when we saw the restrooms were under construction, with temporary fencing protecting them from the public. Beside the fence were two portable toilets (Honey Holes, to be precise). We walked to the front of the building to take a view photos. There were two men, presumably construction workers, sitting inside of the fenced in area on top of a picnic table. As we stood there, they moved inside one of the restrooms. Walking back to the side of the building, I looked inside the restroom where they were standing. From the looks of it, it seemed like there was substantial work being down — it appeared to be gutted with nothing on the walls.
We then walked out of the park toward a bus stop that Kiley said would get us to campus. She said it would be there soon, but that we if we walked quickly we could make it. After a couple of minutes, we got to talking about what we’d seen and I suppose got a bit distracted from the task of quick walking. We soon decided that we wouldn’t make the bus so we opted to call a car sharing service. At this point we encountered Interlaken Park, rather unexpectedly (we knew what it was because of a standard City park sign). There was an extremely steep incline with a highly wooded path leading into the park. We looked down and around and didn’t see a restroom (or any built thing)*.
We continued walking and into a surrounding neighborhood with low car traffic and no other pedestrians. The houses in this neighborhood were some of the biggest and most expensive looking I’ve seen in the city. It seemed to be a world of difference from the area around Cal Anderson where we’d started that day. As we were waiting there for the car, only a few cars drove by, but one in particular stood out to me. It was a black town car (Lincoln). I couldn’t see inside because the windows were tinted, but it was driving slower than the other cars that had driven by. It felt a bit odd to be, but I figured the driver was just waiting for someone in one of the nearby houses to come down (though honestly I think most people would just park in front and turn off the car to keep from wasting energy). He circled a roundabout and very slowly passed by us, briefly parked about two houses down, turned around in a street opposite the house, pulled up right next to us and paused for about a minute. Kiley was sitting on the ground and stood up at this point. We whispered to each other about how it felt strange that this car was creeping around us. After about a minute or two, it turned onto the street directly to our right and parked directly to our right. After about 6 or 7 minutes, the car share car arrived and I felt very relieved to be leaving. I’m sure this would have been much creepier if we didn’t have a way out. Though we were vulnerable on the street and open to being preyed upon, we knew that we had a relatively easy way out of a potentially bad situation because we had access to cell phones and enough disposable income to afford a car service. The experience became an opportunity to reflect on the multilayered privilege we possess.
*After looking at the Park website it seems there are no restrooms at all
Kiley:
Sarah mentioned that she knew that there would be restrooms closer to the VP Conservatory, so we walked toward that area. As we approached, I noticed that there was construction going on and there were fences around the bathrooms. There were two men working in between the men and women restrooms and there were at least 1 or 2 Honey Bucket stalls outside. We didn’t open these up.
We had to catch a bus to campus, and I said that we should try to catch the 43 instead of going back to broadway. We walked quickly, but I was concerned that we wouldn’t make it. We were going downhill, and we saw a sign for Interlaken Park. It was extremely beautiful and reminded me of Ravenna because how it went down into a ravine. At this point, we realized that we wouldn’t be able to catch the bus, so we parked ourselves on a corner and I called for an Uber to come get us.
I didn’t notice too much that people were staring at us as they passed, but Sarah brought it up— especially the black Lincoln that parked right next to us and then was right behind us. I guess that I was a little more oblivious because I thought we probably looked out of place and was more focused on getting to the meeting on time, but Sarah was pretty disturbed by the fact that he seemed to be waiting right there when we were around. (OC: Looking back later and at it now, it was weird and uncomfortable. We were basically in the middle of no where and there was a man in a car with dark windows and we basically had no chance to get anywhere. Luckily it was in the middle of the day.)
