Suddenly a couple of council members aren't so sure it would be a good idea to have Summer Nights concerts in Gas Works park after all. Maybe it's better to have them at South Lake Union where the views suck, but at least there's no entrenched ninja NIMBYs chucking lawsuits like chinese stars. Licata and McIver are asking the parks department to take another look at South Lake Union, and although events the size of Summer Nights weren't originally in the plan for the park there we're gonna go ahead and say that Vulcan probably owes the city council a few and things can be arranged.
And thus a tiny band of hapless, Old Seattle, "Don't Tread On Me" nuts has most likely driven a fun, if somewhat safe, non-profit summer institution into the waiting arms of another New Seattle corporation. We can't wait to see what "Vulcan Presents: Summer Nights In South Lake Union Square" looks like. Well done, guys. In their enclave on the web the Friends of Gas Works Park seem genuinely bewildered. "We did the right thing against huge odds. Now we have to bear the label of spoilers or worse from people brainwashed by these sanctimonious profiteers." They actually think they're still hippies fighting the man... We haven't seen a delusion that profound since the American Idol tryouts a few weeks ago. It's not about parking and traffic in what they've safely maintained for years as drive-over country with a view, of course! It's about a nonprofit arts organization and the Parks Department and the mayor trampling all over the flower beds of the citizenry in the name of profit! We hear you Wallingford! Don't tread on us, either!
The city council has more important things to think about then Summer nights. If this is really going to affect Bumbershoot than One Reel has bigger problems too. Wallingford neighborhood groups should maybe think about trying to bring a concert series into the neighborhood rather than forcing one out, but we doubt they'll be quite so rabid about actually creating something.
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Alternate headline: Seattlest Refuses To Let It Die
And, with that, "chucking lawsuits like chinese stars" becomes my favorite simile (metaphor?) in history.
And one other thing--my father grew up in Wallingford, and when he was 15, they put a FREEWAY through the neighborhood. Now we can't even get a Melissa Etheridge concert?
I'm not advocating a return of totalitarian urban planning, but surely the concept of "listening to local community input" has gone a little far.
I am advocating taking the "Friends of Gasworks Park" down to Wildrose to explain why their need for on-street parking means Anne's ex won't make it to Seattle this year.
Okay, that's an ignorant take.
Look at the Wallingford neighborhood. The streets are narrow and you cannot drive to Gasworks without driving through cramped residential neighborhoods. There's practically no parking. Holding the series there would have created a traffic nightmare for the residents around the park every night there was a concert.
It's not NIMBYism as much as it's people not wanting to endure a nightmare every weekend. You clearly have no sense of perspective whatever, as does every person crying NIMBYism over this move. Moving the concert series to Gasworks was just a dumb, thoughtless idea in the first place.
And inconsiderate. Can't forget that. It's completely inconsiderate of you and everyone pissed about this to ignore the POV of the neighborhood.
gomez, I live off of Pacific -a seven minute walk from gas works so I'm not ignoring the POV of the neighborhood. I am the neighborhood. I wanted to walk down to summer nights concerts and, yeah, I'm pissed that I won't be able to. There were proposals to deal with the traffic. Fremont offered to park people and shuttle them over but these groups were so set on their no no no no that they weren't interested in solutions to the potential problems. If it happened for a year and it sucked even though everyone worked together to solve issues then I could have understood their outrage, but this was totally pre-emptive.
And gas works as it's currently configured is such a waste! It's so beautiful and so under-utilized and a lot of that has to do with the poor access, but I think it also has something to do with the sense of posession FoGWP has re the park. Go there this weekend and you'll see a couple people on the hill and a wasteland otherwise. Why isn't there a skate park there? Why isn't there a permanent band shelter there? Why isn't there a kayak rental stand there? Why does no one who doesn't live a short walk away go there? Because they're not wanted by the 'friends'.
Dan is right -- the only time anyone I know makes it over to Gas Works is to show an out-of-towner the view... and then move on.
It's laughable to think anyone with a car is actually going to go park in Fremont and take a shuttle. If you believe that, you must be a bus rider.
Well, Dan, that makes one of you.
I can't imagine that many of your fellow Wallingfordians feel the same way about Summer Nights as you do, or that the however many hundreds of concertgoers are ready to eschew their cars and take the bus instead.
And I agree with Scott: no one is going to buy into the shuttle plan. Given a choice between parking a mile away and waiting for a bus or van... and driving right into the neighborhood and taking their chances, nearly all concertgoers will choose to park right in Wallingford. It's a pie in the sky idea for a plan that's a logistical stretch.
Look, for all that Gasworks has, it's location is as fundamental a flaw as intellectual difficulties are to the mentally disabled. It's centered around an abandoned factory, for crying out loud. There's really not much you can do with the area, given it's enclosed in a tightly packed residential neighborhood. You can't just punish the neighborhood because you want to hold an event there, neighborhood be damned.
They should have just kept this event in SLU. Or pirated University Village and bumped the Summer concert event they were holding. There are several places one could probably think of in Seattle that would have made much, much better locales for Summer Nights than Gasworks.
I am a bus rider.
I'm not convinced that some kind of shuttling plan couldn't have worked. Also, I'm not convinced I'm the only person in wallingford who wanted this concert series here, or even that I'm a minority in that. I should have said something earlier, though. That's my personal lesson here. I mean, I said something. Repeatedly. Ad infinitum even. But I should have said something directly to the FoGWP instead of just bitching about it on a website. Should have gone to the their meetings, participated in their web groups and made it clear that I live in Wallingford and am not being represented here.
I was watching them, though, and while there are legitimate reasons not to have concerts at gas works park (parking among them) I don't believe that the FoGWP et all were motivated by those legitimate reasons.
Yep, bus rider, thought so. You bus riders just don't know how the other 95% of Seattleites think. They'll drive in circles for 45 minutes to save walking a block or two. For the record, I think the real losers in Wallingford are the restaurant owners who lost out on some good business - as these car drivers would have made one stop at the top of the hill for food before getting back in the car and driving down the hill 5 blocks to park again for the concert.
With any luck Gasworks'll get a nice huge parking garage that'll block the view of some of the lakeside dwellers. That should make everyone happy.
the one thing that is clear is that Dan is an asshole...
"And one other thing--my father grew up in Wallingford, and when he was 15, they put a FREEWAY through the neighborhood"
No kidding. So why is this being blamed on "Old Seattle nuts" ? They're not the NIMBYs...
As an old Seattle person (my great-grandfather came here in 1889), I don't blame it on old Seattle nuts. Any true old Seattle nut has already left for Kirkland. Anyone who wants to see the city grow has stayed here. NIMBYs would be NIMBYs no matter where they lived. They are selfish, blinded, self-absorbed misanthropes who think the worst thing in life it not to find parking.
Incidentally, I agree with Scott--95% of people will chance it and try to find parking in the neighborhood. And guess what! IT WILL BE DIFFICULT IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE FOR LOCAL RESIDENTS TO FIND PARKING THAT NIGHT!
Can you imagine such an indignity? Not being able to find parking for 7 or 8 nights in a 365-night year? By GOD that's the stuff revolutions are made of!