Freeway Park, officially known as Jim Ellis Freeway Park, is an

urban park An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to r ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, United States, connecting the city's downtown to the

Washington State Convention Center The Seattle Convention Center (SCC), formerly the Washington State Convention Center (WSCC), is a convention center in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. It consists of several exhibition halls and meeting rooms in building ...

and

First Hill First Hill is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is named for the hill on which it is located, which in turn is so named for being the first hill encountered while traveling east from downtown Seattle toward Lake Washing ...

. The park sits atop a section of

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Californi ...

and a large city-owned parking lot; 8th Avenue also bridges over the park. An unusual mixture of

brutalist architecture Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the ba ...

and greenery, the park, designed by

Lawrence Halprin Lawrence Halprin (July 1, 1916 – October 25, 2009) was an American landscape architect, designer and teacher. Beginning his career in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, in 1949, Halprin often collaborated with a local circle of modernist a ...

's office under the supervision of Angela Danadjieva, opened to the public on July 4, 1976, at a cost of $23.5 million. A later addition to the park opened in 1982 winds several blocks up First Hill, with a staircase and wheelchair ramp. The park is also a cultural landscape and a precedent setting park that, according to The Cultural Landscape Foundation, helped define a new land-use typology for American cities. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

on December 19, 2019, having been listed on the

Washington Heritage Register The Washington Heritage Register is an official list of sites and properties found throughout Washington state, United States. The Washington Heritage Register is administered by the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preserva ...

in a unanimous vote on October 25. In May 2022 it also gained official landmark status from the City of Seattle. The park's unique architecture has made it famous among parkour enthusiasts. The World Freerunning and Parkour Federation listed Freeway Park second on its list of the seven best parkour locations in the world.

History

A series of crimes, notably a January 18, 2002 murder, briefly gave the park a reputation as a haven for crime and led to calls for a radical redesign. Many at first attributed the dangers to the design of the park. A neighborhood group formed under the name Freeway Park Neighborhood Association (FPNA) collaborated with the city's parks and recreation department to produce an "activation plan" for the park, published in 2005 as "A New Vision for Freeway Park". The report concluded that the park's problems could be remedied by numerous small changes: increased security patrols, better lighting, pruning back of certain plants, and above all increased use, both in terms of organized events and simply encouraging more convention center visitors to use the park. The strategy, only partly implemented , seems to be succeeding: according to David Brewster of the FPNA, crime in the park is down 90% compared to that of 2002. The park was renovated in 2008 and renamed to honor civic leader Jim Ellis.

Gallery

Image:Seattle - Freeway Park c. 1970s.jpg, Brutalist fountain, Freeway Park, circa 1970s. Image:Seattle Freeway Park 10.jpg, The park winds its way down

, offering both a staircase and wheelchair-accessible ramps. Image:Seattle Freeway Park 24.jpg, Brutalist fountain, Freeway Park. Image:Freeway Park canyon.jpg Image:Freeway Park miles of squares.jpg Image:Freeway Park waterfall.jpg Image:Freeway Park geometry.jpg Image:Freeway Park warning sign.jpg

References

External links

Official website
(

Seattle Parks and Recreation Seattle Parks and Recreation (officially the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR)) is the government department responsible for maintaining the parks, open spaces, and community centers of the city of Seattle, Washington. The department mainta ...

)
Freeway Park Association website

Virtual Reality Tour of Freeway Park
requires QuickTime. {{Authority control Brutalist architecture in Washington (state) Parks in Seattle Downtown Seattle 1976 establishments in Washington (state) National Register of Historic Places in Seattle Landmarks in Seattle Parks on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington (state)

History

Gallery

References

Further reading

External links