Top 3 Parks to Visit: Jack Block

**This is part 3 and the finale in a series regarding Seattle-area parks by David Quicksall.

While we enjoy so much natural beauty in and around Seattle, the city is also home to one of the most polluted waterways in the country—the last five miles of the lower Duwamish River from roughly Boeing Field to Elliott Bay. The waterway is so poisonous that it was designated as a Superfund Site by the EPA in 2001. The clean-up and restoration of the river and the surrounding land is an on-going effort. One need look no further than the lower Duwamish to understand the impact of over two hundred years of industrial mayhem: what used to be a thriving and fertile estuary that stretched from present-day West Seattle to the I-5 corridor is now a choked waterway used by dozens of different factories. Instead of its shores being lined with the longhouses of the Coast Salish Peoples, the river is now cluttered with cargo containers, rotting piers, and smokestacks.

A little further west of where the Duwamish flows into Elliott Bay is the heavily industrialized Harbor Island. Completed in 1909, this human-made island held the distinction of being the largest artificial island in the world before being surpassed by San Francisco's Treasure Island in 1938. This may come as no surprise, but after nearly ninety years of heavy use, Harbor Island and the nearby Terminal 5 were also designated as EPA Superfund Sites…and this brings us to our next intriguing park.

Jack Block Park is a 15-acre plot located in West Seattle tucked between Terminal 5 and Harbor Avenue SW. The main industrial facilities that operated on this spot from 1909 to 1994 were ship builders, sawmills, and wood treatment plants. The Port of Seattle assumed stewardship of the land in 1994 when the EPA determined that it was heavily polluted with creosote—a highly toxic substance used as a chemical preservative for wood (pier pilings, railroad ties, and telephone poles are treated with it).

After a massive cleanup, the land was reclaimed, restored, and in 1998, it was opened to the public as Terminal 5 Park. In 2001 it was dedicated and renamed after former Port Commissioner Jack Block. The park's beach opened to the public in 2011 after an environmental cleanup effort that included the removal of contaminated mud and wood pilings and the capping of 58 acres of sediment.

View from Jack Block Park / The Evergreen Echo

You can enter the park from Harbor Avenue SW and follow the access road as it snakes by the various businesses still operating out of Terminal 5. Upon arrival, you’re greeted by a beautifully designed play area for kids and a picnic ground for the whole family. 

The park itself consists of a series of paved walkways that meander among the trees and foliage, offering lovely views of the shoreline and Elliott Bay. The paths have gentle slopes that are accessible by both stairs and ramps. The aforementioned beach offers a nice place for picnics and relaxing. At the end of the walkway is your big reward, an observation tower that gives you an unobstructed view of Elliott Bay, the Seattle skyline, and the Port of Seattle. This vista point is very popular whenever there are fireworks at the Space Needle. 

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BONUS LOCATION: Also worth visiting is the one longhouse still standing along the Duwamish River! Located on Marginal Way in West Seattle, the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center is a great place to learn more about the history and resilience of the Coast Salish People. It also happens to have the quite pretty (and restored) həʔapus Village Park across the street replete with nice views of the Duwamish River and its surrounding habitats. 

Gas Works, Freeway, and Jack Block parks are far from your standard fare when it comes to enjoying an urban greenspace; all three are unique and singular in the delights that they offer. They are also living monuments to the civic-minded people who were inspired to do good and follow through with action. The reclamation of these areas is a testament to how environmental degradation can be turned around to create spaces for all to enjoy—a truly democratic ideal.