Alice Ball Park

About

Alice Ball Park

Alice Ball Park opened in June 2019. The neighborhood park provides wonderful open space and community connections in the Greenwood neighborhood. The park features a multi-use space that includes natural play elements, an open lawn, a gathering/plaza space with seating, a loop path, and planted areas. The project also includes low-impact design strategies featuring amended soils, porous concrete, and increased infiltration created by the new open space. The park is named after Alice Ball, an African American chemist who developed an injectable oil extract that was the most effective treatment for leprosy in the early 1900s. Born in Seattle in 1892, Ball graduated from the University of Washington first in 1912 with a degree in pharmaceutical chemistry, then a degree in pharmacy in 1914. She also became the first woman, and African American, to graduate with a master's degree from the University of Hawaii.