Within the past hour, the ribbon was cut, speeches were made, and the $480,000 Morgan Junction Park is now a full-fledged member of the Seattle Parks system. It’s also the site today of some of the events in the Morgan Junction Community Festival – but be sure to make your way behind Beveridge Place Pub, Feedback Lounge and Zeeks Pizza to see the community group and business booths, including ours. Now back to the park dedication: Morgan Community Association president Deb Barker made note of this park’s origins as a site for the Seattle monorail-that-wasn’t:

In addition to the plaza-like park itself, there’s also a sidewalk art project fronting California SW alongside the park – it went in along with new sidewalks funded by SDOT – and two of its creators, from SuttonBeresCuller, accepted thank-you art from Steve Sindiong of MoCA:

Others who received similar honors from Sindiong and Deb Barker on MoCA’s behalf included Parks project manager Virginia Hassinger, who led many a public meeting on the park design (in addition to the considerable behind-the-scenes work):

And Gary Sink, owner of the nearby Beveridge Place Pub, which helped make the park happen as part of a purchase of the entire monorail-property site, where he moved his popular pub to the former Video Vault building that’s just south of the park (it used to be where the Feedback Lounge is now):

Q13 FOX sent a photojournalist, so you might see a bit of the dedication on their 9 and 10 pm newscasts. Now, for the rest of the day, it’s the festival in and around the park, and we’ll be reporting as it happens (the occasional Twitter update at @westseattleblog as well – where you’ll find links to photos we “tweeted” before the event, including City Council President Richard Conlin in his “I Love West Seattle T-shirt” – he and Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher were the two top dignitaries on hand for the event). [added 8:55 pm – video of Gallagher discussing the park’s relationship to BPP]

The park is on the west side of California SW, a block north of Fauntleroy (map).