Volunteer Park

this place creeped the hell out of me as a teenager. People running around in the middle of the night. there was many a lurid story about what really went on in the bushes here when i was 16.

While I wouldn’t say that it’s really much more entertaining than most parks, Volunteer Park is nice. Everyone seems to like the sculpture of the giant O, and there’s a tower you can walk up to the top of to see the city (and read about the history of Seattle parks if you’re into that kind of thing). The Asian Art Museum is here as well, but I didn’t get a chance to visit.

My friend Neil was telling me about the Isamu Noguchi sculpture here, The Black Sun. Apparently I missed it on my previous visits to Volunteer Park, but it sounds fabulous by his account, and I’m always a sucker for sculpture.

Volunteer Park is located on the North end of Capital Hill. The park was designed by the Olmstead brothers and is lovely to walk around in. The entrance on 14th Ave travels past some lovely mansions. The park contains a water tower giving excellent views of the city and a description of the Olmstead brothers’ park plan for Seattle.

You can exit the tower and pass the Seattle Asian Art Museum and a large field where people always seem to be playing frisbee to get to the conservatory.

Exiting out of the park onto 15th Ave and traveling north allows you to connect to Interlaken Park and the Arboretum. You’ll also pass the Lake View Cemetary where Seattle’s early pioneer families are buried, and also Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee.

http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/parks/parkspaces/Volpark.htm