Park-name nominations honor people, community

By Stuart Eskenazi
Seattle Times staff reporter

	GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES, 1996 Northwest artist C. Paul Horiuchi in front of the mural he created for Seattle's World's Fair in 1962. The renowned artist's name is one of several that have been suggested as possible names for new Seattle parks.
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They are why we know of Myrtle Edwards — even though most of us never knew her.

Park names can create a legacy all their own. They not only can honor the dead but also help identify a neighborhood and define a city's personality.

In Seattle, nominations from the public are in for naming new small parks in Mount Baker, Southwest Capitol Hill, Green Lake and Whittier Heights/Greenwood. A three-member committee will consider the suggestions at a meeting tomorrow and forward recommendations to Parks Superintendent Ken Bounds, who has final say.

The city solicited nominations in December and January and received nearly two dozen letters of support for naming either the Mount Baker or Southwest Capitol Hill park for artist C. Paul Horiuchi, who died in 1999.

An e-mail campaign, spurred by Horiuchi's son, includes endorsements from City Council member Peter Steinbrueck, for whose father, Victor, a Pike Place Market park is named, and Metropolitan King County Council member Bob Ferguson.

Nominees Some names that have been suggested for four new Seattle parks: Paul Horiuchi George Tsutakawa Mount Baker Ridge Viewpoint The Rev. Samuel McKinney Linden Orchard Twin Teepees Lookout Hazel Wolf Sandland Corner

Gov. Gary Locke also weighed in: "His paintings and collages are imbued with a magnificent harmony and grace. They draw upon his love of nature, his appreciation for light and his deep interest in Zen philosophy."

Horiuchi, who created some of his 3,000 artworks in a home within view of the new Mount Baker park, is perhaps best-known for his 70-foot-long mural at the Seattle Center amphitheater, which he created with Venetian glass in time for the 1962 World's Fair.

"My feeling is I need to do whatever it takes to keep his name out there," said Paul M. Horiuchi, the artist's son. "There are those now who remember him and his art, but there will be future generations that might not."

Other nominees for the Mount Baker park, above the Interstate 90 tunnel, include painter and sculptor George Tsutakawa, a Horiuchi contemporary who died in 1997. The neighborhood group that helped secure the park suggested a prosaic name: Mount Baker Ridge Viewpoint.

"We feel this name best expresses its identity," wrote Michael Rosen, a park steering-committee member.

One person suggested the park be named for the Rev. Samuel McKinney, but that won't happen because under city policy revised last year, parks can only be named for people who have been dead at least three years and McKinney is alive.

The inspiration for a park name also must have made a significant contribution to parks, recreation or culture in the community where the park is, according to the policy. The committee also gives considerable weight to names that reflect location and considers the desires of neighborhood activists who helped establish a park.

Supporters of the park on the western edge of Green Lake have made it clear they don't want the name changed from what they have informally called it for years: Linden Orchard, after a grove that once occupied the property. "If the city has nothing better to do and insists on a change, you have my permission to rename it the MaryAnn Davis Orchard," quipped MaryAnn Davis, in one of many e-mail messages to the city.

No other name received more than one nomination, including "Twin Teepees Lookout Park," in memory of the kitschy restaurant demolished in 2001.

The southwest Capitol Hill park, on Boren Avenue between Spruce and Fir streets, received a nomination on behalf of Hazel Wolf, a longtime neighborhood resident and environmental activist who died in 2000 at 101.

King County renamed Saddle Swamp on the Eastside to commemorate Wolf's 100th birthday, but Capitol Hill resident Irene Svete wrote that Wolf also deserved city recognition for helping "preserve many of the natural beauties of the region ... and nurturing a robust diverse community."

Backers of the new park in northwest Seattle, at the vortex of Phinney Ridge, Greenwood and Ballard, settled on the name Sandland Corner, after a previous owner of the property no one seems to know much about. The name fits, neighbors think, because the park will have a sandbox.

Paula Hoff, a member of the parks-naming committee, said the panel may do more research before deciding upon a name.

She also said the naming policy allows for flexibility. When a Capitol Hill park was renamed last year for Cal Anderson, a former legislator, the committee told supporters of the name change to link Anderson to park advocacy, in keeping with the policy. It was a bit of a stretch, but they found a connection.

That wasn't a problem for Myrtle Edwards, for whom the fingerling park along Elliott Bay is named; it's where crowds gather to watch Independence Day fireworks.

Edwards, a former City Council president who died in 1969, led several efforts to "preserve Seattle's natural beauty and to enhance it with new parks, planting and sculpture," according to a Parks Department history. She also led the push for the city to acquire the gas-plant site on the north shore of Lake Union, now Gas Works Park.

So now you know.

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com

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