Denny Blaine is saved.
Seattle has nixed its plan to build a mostly privately-funded children’s play area at the historically queer nude beach on Lake Washington.
The city’s Department of Parks and Recreation announced the decision in a statement Friday morning after it held a packed community meeting Wednesday. Hundreds of LGBTQ advocates (and a few nudists and naturists) spoke out against the project. Losing Denny Blaine would mean losing one of the few public places in Seattle they felt safe and free, they said.
At the meeting, Parks told the crowd they’d reach a decision about Denny Blaine in two weeks, but it only took two days.
“While this area of our city still lacks accessible play equipment for kids and families, we understand the feedback that this particular park is not the best location, and we will evaluate other location alternatives,” wrote Parks spokesperson Christina Hirsch on the department’s blog.
Sophie Amity Debs, an organizer with Save Denny Blaine, the grass-roots group that led the charge to do just that, said she can finally exhale for the first time in weeks.
“We’re ecstatic—we’re so, so stoked,” she said. “Given the turnout, it felt like it would have been absurd for Parks to bulldoze ahead with the project with such overwhelming opposition.”
That opposition came swiftly. Two weeks ago, park visitor Jesse Miranda tipped off Capitol Hill Seattle Blog to the proposal, which Parks said would address a neighborhood shortage of walkable playgrounds.
But the location—a go-to summer spot for Seattle’s queer community for decades—and the revelation that an anonymous donor would pay for most of the $550,000 project, seemed suspect to many beachgoers. They quickly organized to preserve Denny Blaine as a clothing-optional queer space, starting Save Denny Blaine and a petition that more than 9,000 people have since signed.
Activists said putting a playground at Denny Blaine would dissolve a community hub by playing off the harmful “groomer” lie the far-right has peddled to push anti-LGBTQ laws across the country. They suggested other nearby parks, like Lakeview Park, as alternatives.
Parks said the donor wished to remain anonymous. The Stranger has filed requests for their identity and more information about the project.
As The Stranger reported yesterday, almost 50 people gave passionate public comments at Wednesday’s meeting. Not one said they supported the city’s plan.
The next day, The Seattle Parks Foundation said in a statement that it stood with them. The Parks department had approached the nonprofit in August to act as a fiscal agent and project manager for the construction of the play area. In the subsequent months, it realized the potential impact did not align with its core value of equity in public spaces.
“Seattle Parks Foundation has declined to participate in this project and is actively building relationships with Denny Blaine visitors and advocates to help protect the park and ensure their voices are heard,” it wrote on Instagram.
Amity Debs with Save Denny Blaine said organizers are in talks with both the Parks Department and the Parks Foundation about forming a Friends of Denny Blaine group. She hoped the beach could be officially designated as the clothing-optional and a queer historic space it has been for so long.
“We think those kinds of designations would help to prevent anything like this from even getting to this stage of planning in the future,” she said. “And not let the city waste any money.”
For those that believe there is a right-wing conspiracy to force the LGBTQ+ community out of Denny Blaine Park: why didn’t the conspirators astroturf the public hearing with persons purportedly in favor of the playground? Seems weird that they would just give up on their plot.
I’m a straight white male and even I could see through this: this was an attempt by one of the homeowners in the neighborhood to keep their beloved property values high. Just down the street from where some rich asshole bought Kurt Cobain’s suicide house either because they have no intelligence or no soul. It used to be that you could tell the “socially liberal, fiscal conservative” morons in Seattle by their Recall Sawant yard signs.
For the guy above, congrats I guess? I mean it’s not like conservatives got their geriatric army so angry about giving anyone under 65 even the slightest right to healthcare that we continue to pay the most for one of the worst healthcare systems in the Northern Hemisphere. But hey, Providence sponsored the Sounders so pay no attention to their greedy administration making millions off of a system that was a charity 100 years ago
Does Howard Schultz still have a house near there? It would be amazing if he was the private donor, seeing as he’s already one of the most hated people in Seattle.
@3 – Why is Schultz one of the most hated people in Seattle?
Anyway, I’m glad that this park was saved. Now let’s reclaim the space in Cal Anderson being overran by drug addicts
won’t someone think of the children?
@5 pretty much nailed it. Also his narcissism led him to believe he should run for president. And I think he paved over part of a city park to widen his driveway. He’s terrible.
@3 yes, Howard Schultz lives nearby. He’s certainly a strong possibility, but guessing whoever it is likely hid their name behind some business entity to conceal their identity, so we may never know. Many of the neighboring houses are worth $10M+, so really could be any of the very rich people that live nearby.
Good lord. All you need to do is go to the King County Parcel Viewer to find out who the neighbors are. Schultz isn’t one of them.
Apparently Howie moved to Madison Park, so he’s a mile away. But, still, he’s a vindictive fuck so I wouldn’t put it past him.
Honestly, I don’t see Schultz having any interest to have a playground there to fuck with people. I can see someone affiliated with a Mars-Hill-like church with ties to Moms for liberty trying to do something like this.
But as I also said, can we now reclaim the park space at Cal Anderson that’s been overrun by drug addicts and Sawant-ass-kissing activists?
Also, apres_moi dear, there is no love loss between the Schultz family and the Seattle Parks Department, or any of the residents of that neighborhood.
@11: “…can we now reclaim the park space at Cal Anderson that’s been overrun by drug addicts and Sawant-ass-kissing activists?”
Nope. It’s now the Final Redoubt for both the CHOP, and for True Believers in Dear Departing Saint Sawant. The Stranger reveres both as holy, and will not permit desecration of such a sacred site.
(Yeah, addicts with their tents, filth, garbage, and crime all existed there for years before the CHOP, but the Stranger’s belief system makes every bit as much sense as any other religion.)
I’m surprised the city hasn’t been more strict about Cal Anderson, given that it sits atop a giant reservoir. Granted, the public can’t access it, but I’m sure there are SPU workers who have to go there frequently.
Long live Dyke-kiki!
@1 I think there’s a good chance they tried to find people willing to do just that. But astroturfing is harder to pull off at the hyper-local level, where so many people know each other, than it is at (say) the state legislature. A total stranger who showed up claiming to be a “longtime neighborhood resident” would raise a considerable number of eyebrows — and likely would face a considerable number of pointed questions afterward.
P.S. I don’t think it was Schultz. He may be an asshole but he’s not an anti-LGBTQ asshole.