♪♪
[VALERIE SEGREST] We are trying to have a
living memorial, essentially, through the stories of plants.
The selection really centers around
what my ancestors would have utilized
as a traditional technology,
and that looks like what plants were fashioned
into cordage, into rope, into spears, into hooks,
and things that we would have utilized
to maintain our our way of life.
They'll be plants like ocean spray, also known as ironwood here.
Various cherry trees will be planted here.
Those plants are going to help tell a story.
And so when we get to know our place, where we are
in this world, we have a better sense of
connection to the land and a better respect for it.
♪♪
[BARBARA LEE] As you move to the central zone of Waterfront
Park, the planting selection starts to change.
You'll start seeing plants and species
that were brought in from trade.
So you'll see species
from the Pacific Rim and also from the Eastern U.S.
And then as you move further along to the northern areas,
you'll see gardens that are, influenced by our topography.
So kind of like the bluff to shore.
So you'll see things that are very familiar
in more of the mountainous alpine areas,
down into the meadows, into the shorelines.
We also put in, wet planters
and those collect the runoff from the promenade.
We built 1.2 miles of protected bike lane
starting from the south end, we connect
to the Portside Trail. On the north end,
we go as far to about Lenora Street.
The City of Seattle
Safety Project had a parallel project
where they made the final connection from Myrtle Edwards Park
to where we are.
-Two, three!
(applause)
[ADIAM EMERY] So excited to see this important piece
of puzzle in place that allows people
to move comfortably around Elliott Bay.
You can now ride a bike
without leaving a bike lane or shared path.
-Now, bicyclists can travel or commute
all the way from basically Ballard, Magnolia,
on a bike path all the way to West Seattle.
♪♪
-Throughout the waterfront program,
we've used three types of wood.
We've selected to use large timbers that have been salvaged
and reclaimed from the old growth forest floors
and lakes, and those are Western Red Cedar,
which is significant culturally for the tribes.
So you'll see those large timbers used for benches
along the promenade when you take a stop to take a break.
The other wood we've used was reclaimed
from the sea walls. We salvaged and stored Ekki wood.
So the wood was on the seawall.
It's one of the densest woods that we have.
We used them on the pedestrian railing along the waterfront.
And what's really special about the wood is
you will see little holes in deformities in the wood as you walk along.
And those are actually from the Gribbles.
These are like marine organisms that bore into the wood,
and feed on the wood.
So that's been reclaimed and reused
and you'll see that.
(giggling)
The other wood type that we used is Machiche,
and we've used that along the boardwalk
as well as on the swings.
And that wood is significant to Seattle’s marine history,
and it's a type of wood that's very dense and traditionally used in shipbuilding.
(loud boat horn)
All these wood elements,
really help soften the waterfront park.
Obviously, we have a lot of pavement and concrete.
So these elements are natural
and just really humanize the space.
We want to be sustainable,
and we also want to be respectful to our resources.
So whenever we could reclaim and reuse, we did.
So that was the first side of the seawall project when they were building that back
in 2013 to 2017,
they had the foresight, “Hey, this is very dense wood.”
“We can reuse it again.”
So they spent the time to salvage it and and store it.
♪♪
Obviously as people visit Waterfront Park,
what people maybe aren’t as familiar with
is all the projects that we did to
reconnect the waterfront into the Central Business District
and into the adjacent neighborhoods of Belltown,
Pioneer Square, and all the way up to Capitol Hill.
So we built three new pedestrian bridges.
We have the Marion Street Bridge
that connects into the new Coleman Dock Ferry Terminal.
We also have a new pedestrian bridge and elevator
at Union Street.
They help people navigate, you know,
that 40-foot vertical distance to Western Avenue.
And then kind of the crown jewel is the Overlook Walk,
and that connects a 100-foot verticality
that was never really quite well done
or intuitive.
♪♪
A lot of people miss it.
It's a ground plane, intentionally
that's what it was meant to do...
like for people to miss it.
The design behind it though,
we have a small exposed aggregate paving,
and as you move to
where the sun is, it changes to large exposed aggregate.
And there's a reason behind that.
Where you have the large exposed aggregate
is reflective of where the shoreline once was.
If you look at this from 10,000-feet from above, it's
inspired by the weaving patterns of the basket weave.
♪♪
The other thing, to weave that palette together,
you have the glacial erratics.
So those are the big boulders.
They're erratic
because they don't really have any defined shape.
But the colors in those boulders, brownish, orange
and the grays and the blacks, kind of pulls together
this palette as well.
These are things we don't notice.
And because we don't notice,
to me it's successful.
♪♪
-Watch CityStream, Tuesday nights at 7
on the Seattle Channel,
or find us anytime online at SeattleChannel.org.
♪♪