Green Lake (Seattle) - Green Lake Park

Green Lake Park

After 1903 the area became part of Seattle's grand Olmsted Plan to create a series of interconnected greenspaces around the entire city. The park design still reflects the Olmsted vision.

Green Lake is surrounded by a 2.8 mi (4.5 km) path. The path is divided an inner unpaved trail, and an outer asphalt path with two lanes, one for pedestrians and one for bicycles, roller skates, and other wheeled unmotorized vehicles. The inner pedestrian lane is bidirectional, while the outer wheeled path is unidirectional, counterclockwise. The rules for these lanes are optional guidelines, enforced only by "peer pressure", according to the Parks and Recreation Department. The path attracts people seeking exercise and relaxation, and can be crowded. There is also an outer non-paved 3.2 mi (5.1 km) path along the edge of the park. The park is a popular spot for qigong classes, roller hockey, soccer, baseball, golf, the Derek Baker Memorial Boccie Ball Club, and lawn bowls, part of the Woodland Park Lawn Bowling Club, and a monthly midnight bicycle race.

The bathhouse was built in 1927 next to an outdoor swimming area with concrete steps leading into the water. A lifeguard station with a boat was built next to this area in 1930 after several drownings in 1929. The bathhouse is now home to the Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, a small venue for plays.

Across the lake from the bathhouse, in the northeast part of the park, Greenlake's first community center was built in 1929 at a cost of $95,598. As it was built on the fill land from the 1911 draining, the community center was built on pilings. It contains two conference rooms, a gym with showers and bathrooms, and a stage. Toward the lake, another stepped swimming area was built. The tennis courts were added in 1945. In 1955 a 150,000 gallon swimming pool was added. It was named the Evans Pool in honor of two brothers, Ben and Lou Evans, for their long service to athletics at Seattle parks.

The children's wading pool was a Works Progress Administration project, as was the drainage ditch and the arched stone bridge providing a path over the ditch. The wading pool is staffed in the summer by the Seattle Parks department, and operated daily from June 23-September 3, from 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

South of the bathhouse is a lawn and fishing pier. Since 1984 this part of the lake has hosted a floating lantern memorial to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Prospect Point, a spit of land that points toward Duck Island, protects a small area of water from high winds. This once was a popular spot for model boats, though model boating is no longer allowed on the lake.

The Green Lake Aqua Theater was built in 1950 for the first Seafair in order to house an attraction called the Aqua Follies and their "swimusicals," a combination of aqua ballet, stage dancing, and comedy. The theater included a round stage and floating (though still recessed below the stage) orchestra pit, encircling a section of the lake with high diving platforms on each side. The grandstand capacity was more than 5,000 seats. The Aqua Follies continued to run during Seafair until 1965. Outside of the Seafair schedule the theater was the stage for plays and musicals whose directors always took advantage of the unique setting. In the summer of 1962, coinciding with the Century 21 Exposition, the Aqua Theater stage was host to a jazz festival, popular performers such as Bob Hope, two plays, and a special presentation of the Aqua Follies with 100 performers. After the World's Fair, summer productions languished, which is usually blamed on Seattle's unpredictable weather, until the Aqua Theater was mostly abandoned. A 1969 concert by the Grateful Dead revealed that the grandstand was crumbling and dangerous. Beginning in 1970 the theater was dismantled, stage right now serving as a pedestrian pier and stage left providing dock and storage for crew shells. Some sections of the grandstand were left in place.

The southwest portion of the park connects with adjoining Woodland Park on land that is also mostly fill, much of which came from the excavation of a route for Aurora Avenue. The southwest portion of the lake once extended to what is now N. 54th Street.

In the summer, Green Lake is also popular for swimming and boating. Although public use of motorized boats has been banned since at least 1968, the lake was the site of hydroplane races from 1929 to 1984. Today many forms of motor-less boats, including sailboarding, pedal boats, rowboats, skiffs, and canoes, are commonly seen on the lake. The Milk Carton Derby is held annually on the lake as one of the opening events of Seafair. While remnants of boat launches still exist, all launches have been removed from the lake; all boats must be hand carried to the water.

The Green Lake Small Craft Center, a Seattle Parks facility, is located on the south end of the lake. It houses both Green Lake Crew and the Seattle Canoe and Kayak Club. From August 10–13, 2006, Green Lake hosted the USRowing Masters National Championship Regatta, which included an estimated 2,000 competitors ranging in age from 23 to 86 years of age.

To the east of the lake across from the park, sits the Green Lake Library, built in 1910 with funds from Andrew Carnegie.

Within the lake is an artificial island that is commonly called Duck Island but was originally named Swan Island. It was built by the Works Progress Administration in 1936. The island was built (with dumped gravel) as a wildlife sanctuary and later housed some swan gifted to the city by Vancouver, British Columbia. The park board named the island Waldo's Wildlife Sanctuary, after Waldo J Dahl, who took care of the swan. The swans, which were intended to start a small flock, did not have proper breeding habitat around the island. Future attempts to breed swans on the island (at least until the 1970s) were also failures. The state game commission officially made the island a reserve, off limits to people, in 1956. That designated ended in 1983. Though not noted as supporting any unique wildlife, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife notes the island is part of a bald eagle management buffer encompassing the south end of the lake. The parks department still considers the island off-limits to people, for safety reasons, but the occasional presence of rope swings and empty alcohol containers indicates this trespassing misdemeanor is ignored.