Re: “A ‘both/and’ solution for safety at Gas Works Park” (Nov. 24, Opinion) and “Seattle must act now to prevent more tragedies at Gas Works Park” (Nov. 10, Opinion):
Make the ruins of the coal-gas structures at Gas Works Park safer? Are you kidding? This dilapidated, rusting, graffiti-tagged industrial junk is ugly. We’ve had 50 years to appreciate its historical presence. All the while, it’s continued to deteriorate further, becoming so hazardous it had to be fenced off, and the fence is evidently an ineffective barrier.
Enough is enough. Landscape architects the Olmsted brothers were right: This promontory of land should have been a park in the first place, not a grimy factory. Nucor Steel, a barge trip away, can melt down its considerable tonnage of steel into rebar.
Now would be the time to demolish these sad remains before the city launches into restoring the park’s badly polluted shoreline in 2027.
Sean Coney, Normandy Park
