Looking for the new park

The sun comes out in the afternoon, and it's time to walk down to the corner of Broad Street, admiring the job they did last fall on recontouring all that land. It's still behind a locked fence, but it's very high on the other side of Elliott Avenue and even higher than that on some of the land on this side of Elliott. There's supposed to be two pedestrian walkways in the works, one that goes to 2 Broad Street. I guess that means that it begins about where I was standing on my way down the hill?

From Western, you can't even see the traffic on Elliott, the ground's been lifted above car height on both sides. There's still a pedestrian traffic light at Bay and Elliott, where I used to be able to come down the stairs from Western, walk thru the garden there, and cross the traintrack. Been several years since the RR allowed anyone to just cross the tracks there. There's another spot a block further north where a caboose had been parked long since, blocking what had obviously been another good crossing to the park.

Even in the short time I was at Bay and Elliott, there were two sets of visitors admiring the statues and gardens that have been there. Imagine how many people will enjoy the whole thing when it's all statues and gardens. Those lawns have remained healthy and untrodden -- visitors have been just fine about using the wide pavements.

There was a train on the tracks beyond Elliott most of the time; I think the other pedestrian overpass goes over the traintrack as well as Elliott, maybe as an extension of Bay, but I doubt that. Probably over south a bit.

I wonder, next year when this opens as a Statuary Park, will there be an admittance gate only, or will the park be free and lovely from all sides?

It's amazing that the beautiful view you get when you walk down Bay Street doesn't become the main scenic view of the whole project. There's snow on mountains across the Sound, but I'm told there's far less than other years.