Urban Landscape, Native Landscape: Lake Union Park

Friday, January 18, 2013

Lake Union Park

Lake Union Park, Museum of History & Industry January 2013

Lake Union January 2013

Lake Union Park, Center for Wooden Boats (Boat Shop) January 2013

Lake Union Park, The Center for Wooden Boats January 2013

Lake Union Park is a unique urban gem, close to the center of downtown Seattle. The park provides access to green space & the lake. It celebrates the cultural, maritime & industrial heritage of the city. The site’s role as a park became possible on July 1, 2000, when the US Navy conveyed the deed to its five acres of land to Seattle Parks & Recreation. The transfer consolidated the South Lake Union site into a 12-acre park. The new park opened on September 25, 2010.

The Museum of History and Industry is dedicated to preserving, sharing & teaching the diverse history of Seattle & the Puget Sound region. The MOHAI, as it is commonly known in Seattle, has collected & made public important artifacts, documents & photographs from the Puget Sound region since 1911. The museum moved to the old Naval Reserve Building at Lake Union Park in 2012 & opened in December. It is free on the 1st Thursday of every month.

At The Center for Wooden Boats you can explore boats on & off the water. Admission is free & free public boat rides are offered on Sundays. This is a living museum. The exhibits are historic wooden boats you can take rowing or sailing. The collection varies throughout the year as boats are restored in the boat shop & new vessels are added. Row boats are available for rental with no prior experience. Sail boats require a check out process to assure safety.

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About This Blog

This blog began in 2008 as Metropolitan Gardens to provide information on gardening in Seattle & places like it. Click on Gardening in Cascadia. The blog expanded to include Parks P-Patches Public Gardens in the US, Canada & Europe. Then Nature was added. (The difference between nature & gardens is intent. Nature happens. Gardens are planned.) Many recent posts are not about Seattle, or even Cascadia. They are Urban Landscape: streetscape & architecture. Cascadia is the region including the Cascade Mountains of Washington & Oregon. If you want to contact the blogger, leave a message in comments. Comments are moderated & private messages will not be posted.

Our Land & Climate

The city of Seattle rests between 2 bodies of water: Puget Sound & Lake Washington. Puget Sound is a substantial part of the Salish Sea & a very small part of the Pacific Ocean. The Salish Sea is set apart from the Pacific by the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington & Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. The dense, wet clouds of the Pacific Ocean travel as far as the Cascade Mountains, near the Salish Sea & not very far from the ocean. East of the Cascades lies the desert of the Columbia Basin. The moist, temperate climate of Seattle extends south to northern California & north to southeastern Alaska. The Pacific Northwest Coast from San Francisco Bay to Cook Inlet shares a flora dominated by evergreen coniferous forest. The central portion, west of the Cascade Mountains, is called Cascadia. The climate is cool & wet from fall to spring, warm & dry in summer. The Olympic Mountains block Seattle from much of the Pacific rainfall. Seattle is drier than the Atlantic coast of North America & northern Europe, cooler in summer & warmer in winter. It lies near the latitude of Paris & Quebec City.