Freeway Park

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Freeway Park Landmark Nomination (PDF) Freeway Park is a five-acre urban park threading its way between Seattle’s commercial core and the First Hill neighborhood. In its original configuration, the park was 1300 feet long and of varying width, with some areas of the park less than 60 feet wide. Its primary massing sits atop two bridge spans, each covering over 400 feet of Interstate 5 (I-5), which runs in an excavated canyon through downtown Seattle (Marshall 399). This bridge contains “the 23 largest precast-concrete girders ever transported on [Washington’s] highways” up to the time of construction.

the texture of the cityscape of Seattle is dominated by concrete, and the freeway itself appears like a dry concrete riverbed that flows through the city Angela Danadjieva, designer of Freeway Park

Freeway Park (Wikipedia) Freeway Park, officially known as Jim Ellis Freeway Park, is an urban park in Seattle, Washington, United States, connecting the city’s downtown to the Washington State Convention Center and First Hill. The park sits atop a section of Interstate 5 and a large city-owned parking lot; 8th Avenue also bridges over the park. An unusual mixture of brutalist architecture and greenery, the 5.2-acre (21,000 m2) park, designed by Lawrence Halprin’s office under the supervision of Angela Danadjieva, opened to the public on July 4, 1976, at a cost of $23.5 million. A later addition to the park opened in 1982 winds several blocks up First Hill, with a staircase and wheelchair ramp.