Seattle has long history of hocky 28 Olmsted’s vision for Seattle Parks 30 -31

Climate Pledge Arena

While the verdict is still out as to whether Seattle will get a professional basketball team, 2020 netted the city’s first NHL team, the Seattle Kraken, with the team first taking the ice in 2021.

Seattle has had a long history with hockey, however, according to HistoryLink. The website stated, the Seattle Metropolitans took the ice for the first time to “standingroom-only” crowds in 1915.

“The following season, coach Pete Muldoon took the team all the way to the finals, where it won the Stanley cup — the first U.S. team to do so,” according to HistoryLink.

The Metropolitans competed for the Stanley Cup in 1917, but the championship match was canceled after five games because of the Spanish Flu pandemic, according to the website. The team was disbanded in 1924 when the Seattle Ice Arena was turned into a parking garage for a newly built hotel.

Hockey returned to Seattle in 1928 when the Civic Ice Arena opened at what is now the Seattle Center, according to HistoryLink. A team called the “Eskimos” played there for three years until they were replaced by the “Sea Hawks,” who played there for eight, according to HistoryLink.

“Beginning in the 1940s, local hockey fans enjoyed games by amateur teams like Isaacson Iron Works, the Boeing Bombers, and the Wonder Bakers,” according to HistoryLink.

The Seattle Totems came on the scene in 1958, and they won the 1959 Western Hockey League championship, their first of three titles.

“The 1960s were the heydays for the Totems, and hopes were high in 1974 when Seattle was awarded it’s first NHL franchise,” according to HistoryLink, adding the deal fell through, and the Totems went out of business in 1975.

In 1977, a Western Hockey League junior team, the Seattle Breakers, who became the Thunderbirds, took the ice at the Seattle Center Coliseum, according to HistoryLink. In 2008, they moved to Kent’s Showare Center.

Following the NHL and Oak View Group’s announcement in 2018, the Seattle Kraken were coming to the city, a practice facilty was built at the Northgate Mall, and they took the ice to compete on the brand new hockey rink at the Climate Pledge Arena, which was formerly Key Arena and Seattle Center Coliseum.

The Climate Pledge Arena is the first of its kind in that it is the first net-zero arena for greenhouse gas emissions. The facility, which cost $1.15 billion to renovate, broke ground in December 2018 and broke ground in the fall of 2021.

In addition to the Kraken, the 800,000-square-foot arena is the home of the Seattle Storm WNBA team and Seattle University teams. It has a 17,100-person capacity for hockey and a 18,100 capacity for basketball fans. When not used for athletics, the arena is used for concerts.

Go to climatepledgearena. com to learn more or to see event or game listings.

Olmsted’s vision for Seattle parks: Bringing the legacy into the future

By Erica B. Grivas

When Seattle was still young, the Olmsted Brothers’ landscape design firm bestowed Seattle a park system surpassing many large cities — by 1937, it had designed and built 37 parks.

Seattle leaders hired the Massachusetts firm led by Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmsted in 1902. They were a bit worried about being assigned the younger John Charles Olmsted instead.

John Charles — who happened to be both Frederick’s nephew and stepson — had already designed the Chicago World’s Fair grounds, however, and was shouldering much of the senior Olmsted’s work by this time.

Bellevue Garden

Ultimately, Olmsted left an indelible stamp on the city. In 2021, the Trust for Public Lands ranked Seattle ninth in the top 10 cities for parks in the country. Olmsted’s designs embraced existing natural beauty while adding treelined boulevards to city streets and encouraging community and play outside through playgrounds and ball fields accessible to all income levels.

Seattle was 14th in 2020’s rankings, but with the addition of a measure of “equity,” defined as park space within a 10-minute walk, it jumped to ninth.

In 1903, the Seattle City Council approved the firm’s plan, “A Comprehensive System of Parks and Parkways.” Olmsted wrote that the “primary aim should be to secure and preserve for the use of the people as much as possible of these advantages of water and mountain views and of woodlands, well distributed and conveniently located.”

Olmsted’s vision was for a connected system of parks that bring the benefits of nature and play to all areas of Seattle — an idea still unfulfilled, but which is occasionally put forward in planning committees.

Over time, due to lack of budget allocation and funds, parks became overgrown — often with invasive plant species, slopes eroded and hardscape fell into disrepair.

Andy Mitton, a landscape architect with Seattle’s Berger Partnership, was on the committee assessing 80 sites in 2018 to see “which elements of original intent were in disrepair or in danger of being lost forever.”

Mitton said, that unlike Bellevue, which set aside funds for parks maintenance over the years, Seattle hadn’t. With the formation of the Parks District in 2014, the city began to identify funds to restore the parks and looked first at the formative Olmsted designs.

City departments, park board members and residents were realizing “we are losing our legacy by not maintaining the parks,” he said.

“We looked at how to figure out how to move forward in history while honoring the legacy of what was started in 1903,” Mitton said.

The final Olmsted Planning Study selected 10 sites in greatest need of repair, and over 1,300 people contributed to a 2019 survey prioritizing the projects. The first three are detailed below. Bergman Partnership was the design firm for these.

In West Seattle’s Schmitz Park Boulevard, to combat erosion from human-made “goat paths” on a hill facing Southwest Stevens Street, designers planned a stairway near the park entrance by Alki Community Center and some habitat restored with native plants. The stairs and sidewalk connection creates a safer route to Alki Elementary school, Seattle Parks and Recreation’s Michelle Whitfield said.

At Colman Park — which, along with Frink Park, is considered Olmsted’s finest work in Seattle — the area of the upper bridge is in crisis. Poor drainage and failed infrastructure are causing hill erosion, flooding and damage to the stairway. Restoration would work to improve drainage and the surrounding landscape. Construction was set for winter 2021.

Magnolia Boulevard’s stands of madrone trees — the ones that gave the neighborhood its name after being mistaken for magnolias — greatly impressed Olmsted, and he foresaw creating a parkway-like drive/ bicycle path there. Over the years, a trees-vs.-water debate has been contentiously fought by neighbors depending on their view preference. The restoration plans to balance open views with restored stands of madrones and create stable plantings for the hillside. SPR is growing madrones from salvaged seed from this area for replanting.

Scoping and early design work commenced for Lake Washington Boulevard at Mount Baker and Lower Woodland Park improvements. Though the 2019 study called for wider and more expansive scopes, Whitfield said the most pressing needs will be addressed and prioritized so to make improvements within the framework of the existing, more limited budget.

The project dovetails with the 200th anniversary in 2022 of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted. To follow the latest on these Olmsted restorations, see the Seattle Parks and Recreation web page, http://www.seattle. gov/parks/about-us/projects/ olmsted-parks-and-boulevardsrestoration-project.