Seattle’s Neighborhood Parks, Playgrounds and Ducks

When my son Mike was little, he always called it the 1-2-3-4-5 slides park. As you might guess, the park had five slides in a big, expensive play structure that was one of the best of its kind in Seattle. We went there every time we were in the Wallingford neighborhood (it’s actually called the Wallingford Playground, at 4219 Wallingford Ave. N., and is still one of the best playgrounds in the city). Mike wound up going to high school two blocks away, and we still always made plans to meet each other at the 1-2-3-4-5 slides park.

You and your kids might very well start making up your own names for Seattle parks and playgrounds, too, because there are tons of them. In nearly any neighborhood that you visit during your explorations of the city, you can find a pocket park that is a great place for younger kids to swing, slide, run around on grassy fields and do those goofy things that little kids want to do that adults don’t quite understand. (I mean, whirling around in circles with arms outstretched, chanting things about Pokemon?  Come on, man.) However, these parks can work in adults’ favor, too.

• Olympic Sculpture Park
• Glenn Fleishman

Kerry Park

For example, you want to go to Kerry Park on W. Highland Drive in the Queen Anne neighborhood to get the best photo op in the city of Mt. Rainier towering above the Seattle skyline. But your kids want to slide and chase each other. The solution? Bayview-Kinnear Park, on 3^rd Ave. W. & W. Prospect St. It is directly below Kerry Park, is in the midst of a major repair and restoration project (including two new play structures), and has witnessed many episodes of Mike and I kicking soccer balls at each other. You get your view, they get to play: Everybody’s happy.

Olympic Sculpture Park

Another example of parent/child bliss: Visit the cool new Olympic Sculpture Park at the Seattle Art Museum opened in January 2007 on Western Avenue at Broad Street. Your kids will want to throw rocks in the water, and threaten to sulk and whine until they’re allowed to do so. You make a deal and walk together through the sculpture park, with its wonderful, oversized pieces of steel and concrete and wood, and wind up at Myrtle Edwards Park on the Seattle waterfront, with its paved path for strolling and jogging, exquisite views of Puget Sound and, yes, lots of places to throw rocks into the water.

• A view of the space needle through a sculpture at the Olympic Sculpture Park.
• takomabibelot

Discovery Park

The opportunities are endless. Seattle is a city of great parks and facilities. Head to the west side of Discovery Park in the Magnolia neighborhood for broad, grassy fields that are great for playing and tossing balls around, with trails that lead down to the Sound. The east side of this huge park has forests of pine trees with trails, as well as another great play structure of swings and slides done in natural wood finishes.