Say what you want about the Fun Forest — call it seedy, call it run-down, call it a “tired” relic as former Mayor Greg Nickels once derided it — but there’s no disputing that this five acre amusement park at the foot of the Space Needle was a nearly unique urban amenity, and one of downtown Seattle’s rare, family-friendly attractions for almost half a century. And that is why I insist that any plan to replace the Fun Forest must both honor that tradition, and recognize the very real loss its closure represents to the young families who have frequented it for generations.
Backers of a paid-admission Chihuly “museum” conveniently present empty asphalt as the status quo, but the public land they seek to enclose — nearly two-fifths of the Fun Forest site — has been dedicated to amusing children since 1962, and thus their proposal represents a dramatic shift in land use that would upset the balance of the attractions at the Seattle Center, while forever changing its perceived character. I mean, honestly, can one get any more antithetical to an amusement park than a museum of glass, or as my daughter and I have taken to calling it, the “Look, Don’t Touch Museum.”
Chihuly backers argue that there are plenty of other family-friendly attractions at the Center — the Children’s Museum, the Children’s Theater, the Science Center and the various events and festivals that take place there throughout the year — but this myopic accounting fails to see the fun forest for the trees. My daughter and I and our friends didn’t frequent the Center for any one attraction, but for the entire ecosystem of available activities, flitting from one to another as befitted the season and the attention span of our children at whatever particular age.
No, we never went to the Seattle Center for the Fun Forest, but we almost never left without blowing a few bucks on a ride or three. Likewise, we never went just to splash in the International Fountain, or just to run through the same tired, old exhibits at the Children’s Museum, or just to wade through the crowds at the Bite of Seattle. We went for the entire experience, of which the Fun Forest was almost always an important part. And I can assure you that without the Fun Forest, or some comparable, fun, family-friendly attraction, we would have visited the Seattle Center (and spent our money there) less often.
And that’s a bit of math the Chihuly backers ignore when they tally up the revenue their gallery/cafe/gift shop would supposedly generate for the Center and the city. The Fun Forest was an attraction that could be visited again and again and again, while the typical Seattle family might pay the hefty admission fees to drag their kids through a glass museum maybe once if that. Afterwards it becomes just another building to walk by on the way to something more interesting and fun… as useful to the typical Center visitor as the empty asphalt the “museum’s” boosters insist is the only alternative.
What almost nobody in this debate is willing to acknowledge is that we are losing something in the closing of the Fun Forest, and while I’m not so quixotic as to fight for retaining the site as is, I’ll fight until the end to save the spirit of what the Fun Forest represents, and to convince the powers that be that we need more public space dedicated toward amusing children, not less. From a child’s perspective, the closure of the Fun Forest, as seedy, run-down, tired and déclassé as it might be, leaves a huge gaping hole in our urban landscape… a void that the proposed glass “museum” simply cannot fill.
So when I tout my proposal for a Really Kick-Ass Playground and the targeted Really Kick-Ass Playground Levy to fund it, this is the spirit in which it is offered. Not a spirit that rejects cultural and art — for as many of the examples I have cited prove, a playground can be just as much a showcase for art as any museum — but a spirit that embraces the notion of play.
We have an opportunity to remake the Fun Forest into the most unique, innovative and fun urban “playground” in the nation… a vision that should not be limited to the usual images evoked by the word I loosely place in quotes. Or, we could decide we want a Seattle Center that’s notably less fun and less family friendly than it has been since its inception, and just get out of the Wright family’s way.
Put to the ballot, even at the cost of a eight or nine bucks a year, I’m pretty damn sure I know which way Seattle would vote.
Hey, I have an idea! Why doesn’t the city buy some inexpensive second-hand amusement rides, install them on the site, hire a few college students to collect the ride admissions, and call it something real catchy like “The Fun Forest”? This business model already has a proven track record, and if the city owns it, it doesn’t have to make a profit competitive with alternative uses of capital, such as Australian hedge fund investments in U.S. utilities whose rates are determined by Mark Sidran.
In case you didn’t notice, to the Australian hedge funds and Mark Sidrans of the world, a 50% drop in natural gas prices means the customers get only an 11% rate decrease while Puget Sound Energy’s ex-CEO gets a $7 million bonus (or was it $20 million?) for selling the shareholders’ company to foreign financial guys who specialize in “extracting value” from “undervalued public utilities” by getting regulators to approve higher customer charges.
Sidran has gotten away with calling himself a “Democrat” for years, and even bamboozled Gov. Gregoire into appointing him chair of the state utilities commission. We Democrats, as a group, need to stop falling for this smooth-hissing snake.
How about landscaping it and using it for special events, a farmer’s market/craft’s fair on the weekends, a core cadre of aging hippie buskers, pickup basketball.
Chihully could rent a booth.
My bottom line on this is VERB simple.
If the Wrights want to endow a Chihuly Museum, then I would be all for it.
This is NOT a Chihuly Museum,. This is an investment by their company of 16 million dollars at little or no risk.
NOTHING from the Chihuly exhibition would belong to the City. I am not even sure “we” would own the building .. as if the Center needed another not very useful building.
If Dale and his fans want to convince SJ of this, then:
1. DONATE a major collection of Chihuly glass to the center.
For those who do not understand how Dale Chihuly works, he runs a sort of factory that turns out pieces he authorizes or designs. There is real cost in the factory, so a donation would mean something.
OTOH, having a 5 year exhibition costs hin nothing. The costs fo creating and placing the work at the Center are deductible and after the exhibition he owns and can sell the work.
2. Work with the Center to locate the best places for the donated work. Why not put one in the food circus? How about under the arches>
Maybe a fountain?
3. The Wrights should chip in some more impressive funds that have a permanent impact on the Center. If they want a meeting hall/catering place ..as Goldy suggests, that is fine by me BUT who the eff will own the place is another matter. Why should the Space Needle be the exclusive purveyor of food there if all the Wrights are donating is 16 million dollars?
Alternatives:
1. Create a branch of the UW Burke at the center. The Burke has huge collections of very kid/tourist/ SJ friendly “stiff” .. from art to dinosaurs. The campus is not a good place to exhibit much of this.
Why couldn’t the Wrights invest in a Burke branch and cater there?
2. Move the statue! I am pissed everytime I see the statue of Chief Seattle functioning as a traffic divider and pigeon roost. I would move the statue to the Center and have a contest for a landscape artist (Mia Lynn) to create a hill for the statue to sit on.
Seattle’s Hill could fit in Goldy’s kid centric theme easily. For example, the hill cold have a spiral trail/ramp/ Kids love to climb such trails and the photos of kids atop the hill under the satue would be priceless!
3. Kids’ Sculpture Garden. Kids LOVE public sculptures … at least they love the Troll, waiting for the interurban, the peace statue (with the origami), the SAAM camels, whales you can ride on, etc.
Why not create a place for these? One could begin by adding replicas of the camels and of Bill Holm,s whales (outside the Burke). Chihuly could contribute a glass piece that was suspended hing enough not to be broken or perhaps incorporated into a fountain, some totem poles would go well too. Hell, we could even add in a couple of Hydroplanes!
Hi Goldy.
Sorry, but I’m not nostalgic for the Fun Forest. My son and I spent A LOT of quality time at the Seattle Center and very little of it was cotton candy and rides.
I remember Flight To Mars, both the old one and the current goofy looking metal one.
Not that I’m against silly rides and cotton candy. Not like I’m against the publicly subsidized privately owned Most Awesomeness House of Glass.
This isn’t my fight, so I didn’t check:
What were some of the other proposals for that acreage?
I’m sure there’s no shortage of great ideas. IN ADDITION TO your new Fun Forest, of course.
Some sort of design competition would be cool.
I’d be totally okay with a simple park and some retail space for an indoor/outdoor food court. I would definitely spend my lunch money at the Center a few times a year.
The Harbor Steps is one of the sites for those very cool summertime outdoor concerts. Do those concerts happen at the Seattle Center too?
Mini golf is cool too.
Thinking… thinking… thinking…
What else would draw people? Some pretty flowers? A P-Patch?
The butterfly house is incredible. Maybe we could make a humming bird habitat. Put out feeders, some trellis, benches…
Some grand parents like to take their kiddies to a pond to catch (and release) fishies.
Add a climbing wall and some bouldering.
(There’s already a skate park nearby. It’s pretty cool.)
A free wall for graffiti.
Just throwing out ideas here…
Seattleites make great use of their current public spaces. Volunteer Park, Discovery Park, Alki, Golden Gardens, Cal Anderson, Greenlake, Arboretum, etc.
Improve Seattle Center’s parking and public transit options and I think plenty of people would choose the Seattle Center.
I mostly endorse SJ’s ideas, but I do need to point out his completely incorrect spelling of the name of the wondrous Maya Lin, creator of the most pitch-perfect and emotive war memorial in the world (and much else).
sj @ 5
Excellent ideas.
> Kids’ Sculpture Garden. Kids LOVE public sculptures…
True.
The whale sculpture gets A LOT of use.
The mole hill at Woodlawn Park Zoo is huge popular. (Extracting your kids sucks though. Parents need to work in teams, one to flush, others to catch on exit.)
The stream at Golden Gardens gets a lot of use from future hydro engineers, making dams, reservoirs, waterways, etc. I mention it because…
One of the master use plans for the Center featured swales. Running water would be AWESOME. Put in some watermills, a bed of sand, etc. Never ending entertainment.
N @ 7
> wondrous Maya Lin, creator of the most
> pitch-perfect and emotive war memorial
> in the world
Agreed.
Her exhibit at the Henry Art Gallery a few years back was pretty darned good.
Follow up…
I heard back from John Merner (Direct of Seattle Center Productions) about programming the International Fountain. He said that pleasure is contractually reserved for Wet Designs, the people who made the fountain.
I haven’t pestered Wet Design yet, to get them to share the fun.
Jason, when I use the word “playground” I use it in a very vague and nonspecific sense. It might include some traditional playground equipment, it might not. It might be one, integrated, multi-acre design, or the space might be divided into multiple, distinct features. And it certainly should include some sort of indoor-outdoor cafe so that us parents can relax and enjoy a pint of beer or a glass of wine or a mug of coffee as our kids run off and do what kids do.
The problem is, they’re creating a sham process in which there won’t be the time to put together a reasonably detailed and complete proposal comparable to the Chihuly gallery.
Hi Goldy.
“The Fun Forest was an attraction that could be visited again and again and again, while the typical Seattle family might pay the hefty admission fees to drag their kids through a glass museum maybe once if that.”
Good point.
Goldy @ 11
Enjoying a beer or coffee while the kids splash around would be HEAVEN.
Add public wifi and I wouldn’t ever want to leave.
At it’s heart, that’s a VERY good point. TO ALL of your who BACK this glass museum…how MANY times do you really expect to pay to go in and see wavy glass sculptures? Likely never, maybe once.
Just make a COOL open/free playground for kids. We could use it. There’s already enough adult functions there (Seattle Opera, Seattle Rep, NW Ballet, SIFF Cinema, etc).
Goldy @ 11
> The problem is, they’re creating a
> sham process…
A sham process. Now there’s a shocker.
What little I’ve learned: Make enough noise to make the decision makers nervous. Make the cost of voting yes more than voting no.
While the Most Awesomeness House of Glass glided under the radar, towards being a done deal, voting yes was a freebie slam dunk.
So change that.
Rally the troops.
And just because I like you so much, and think we’ve already gifted enough of our public trust to corporations, you tell me where to be and I’ll be there. A loud, warm body waving a sign.
This will come as a shock, but many amusement rides are not perminent fixtures on a given site, it’s true.
How about in the summer months when people want to actually be on a ride as an amusement (as opposed to a wintertime childhood punishment) that the green space has amusement rides.
There, I said it.
In the winter we have some kind of wintertime amusement, or nothing, like the master plan says.
I do think a kick-ass playground would be great, but the perminent fixtures in the wintertime are just a different kind of fun forest.
good point, mr. baker.
My bad …
Yes, her name is Maya Lin and yes the ‘Nam memorial is one of the world’s great works of art.
Returning to the meme of the Chief Seattle statue as a Center piece (sorry) …
Imagine a hill, terraced with a spiral path. Along the hill could be many things that would be fun to touch or even ride on … whales, eagles, logs (to walk on top of), .. maybe the hill could have a stream to ford …..
By the way number 1, Seattle already has at least one example of an architectural hill … Shit Hill (local joke) at Gas Works park is a very popular playground. (I will toast anyone at DL who remembers why it is called “Shit Hill.)
By the way Seattle is not without its own artistic greates whose works should be clebrated in the long house … Toby, Graves, KIen Callahan, Paul Horiuchi, George Tsutekawa, Jacob Lawrence, Marvin Oliver …..
I don’t like the idea of an ‘Ode to Chihuly Museum’ just because a one-eyed bandit requires OUR public property to rev up his profits (mass produced by his minion workers).
One question I’ve never seen asked: What happens during an earthquake? Lots of glass to be flying around. Won’t catch me hauling any of the visiting relatives with their kids there. Expensive & not much fun for the kiddies.
Give us some Fun Forest type adventures. Where the old folks can rest/watch while the kids work off their energy & excitement (plus all the money in our pocketbooks).