Genesee Park and Playfield

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HOURS

4 a.m. - 11:30 p.m.

ABOUT THE PARK

Genesee Park and Playfield is a broad, rough meadow that stretches for about 5 blocks north from Genesee Street to Stan Sayres Memorial Park on Lake Washington Boulevard.

Set in a quiet neighborhood, the atmosphere is quite soothing. It contains a huge and open grassy area for a playfield.

Genesee also has a fully fenced 2 1/2 acres off-leash area with double gates, a doggie drinking fountain and a kiosk for community notices.

HISTORY

Before Lake Washington was lowered nine feet in 1917, Genesee Park was known as Wetmore Slough and extended on to Rainier Avenue and the little town of Columbia City. Residents of Columbia City once hoped to make their town into an important seaport by dredging the slough to allow the passage of ships. The departing waters left only marshlands and little islands, with hardly enough water to sail a toy boat.

The far end of the slough was completely filled in about 1920. In 1947, when the city purchased the property, the city began a "sanitary fill" between Genesee and Lake Washington Blvd. This fill was composed mostly of garbage and was anything but sanitary. It attracted flocks of seagulls and hordes of rats for almost two decades. After 1957, it also attracted hordes of hydroplane fans, who parked their cars there and went off to watch the annual Gold Cup races from the new Stan Sayres hydro pits.

Seattle voters approved the area as a park in 1960, but development did not begin until after 1968, when the park became a Forward Thrust project. Today, after more than a hundred years of gradual metamorphosis, Genesee takes its place as one of the growing number of parks which rest on foundations of recycled garbage.

DIRECTIONS

BY BUS

> Plan a trip to Genesee Park

BY CAR

I-5 North/South Bound:

• Take the Columbia Way S exit.
• Remain or move into the right lane.
• Follow Columbia Way S.
• The road will veer off to the right becoming S. Alaska St.
• Turn left on Rainier Avenue S.
• turn right on S. Genesee St.
• The Parking lot is on the left-hand side of the street.

Large gravel parking lot to the south of Shelter #1. There is also on street parking available.