Morgan Junction park officially named “Morgan Junction Park”

We broke the news a week and a half ago that the city Parks Department had recommended naming the new Morgan Junction park “Morgan Junction Park,” pending Superintendent Tim Gallagher‘s approval, and today the department announced that’s been finalized as its official name. The park, which opened last month after construction concluded, is to be dedicated June 13 during the Morgan Community Festival. The official announcement explains, “The Parks Naming Committee considered some 17 nominations, and after applying the criteria in the Park Naming Policy, unanimously recommended the name Morgan Junction Park because it acknowledges the history and location of the park.” (Among the other nominations was, of course, Tim St. Clair Park, in honor of the longtime West Seattle journalist who died last year; department naming policy says it can’t be done till someone’s been gone three years.) The park is on California SW, just north of the newly revitalized business block with Zeeks Pizza (opened May 1st), Feedback Lounge (opened April 25th) and Beveridge Place Pub (moved a year ago), near the Morgan/Fauntleroy/California “junction” intersection, and was the former site of an auto-repair shop, once purchased with the intent of development as a future monorail station before that transit project was killed. West Seattle still has three more new parks in the works — Junction Plaza Park, the newly covered Myrtle Reservoir site, and new parkland where West Seattle Reservoir in Westcrest Park is being covered. P.S. Got ideas for where money from last year’s Parks Levy should be spent? Wednesday night is your chance to offer comments at a meeting at West Seattle Golf Course, 7 pm.

ADDED 5:22 PM: Couldn’t resist asking Dewey Potter at Parks what the other name suggestions were. The reply:

Morgan Park
Deputy Steve Cox Park
Eddie Alvarez Park
Charlie Chong Park
Beveridge Place Park
Bicycle Park
The Whistle Stop Plaza
Walter R. Hundley Park
Quincy Jones Park

or after:
Ken Griffey Jr.
Tina Turner
Dorothy Dandridge
Lena Horne
Jesse Owens

chas redmond May 5, 2009 (3:15 pm)

We could always do something like Prince did and rename it anyway – we could call it “the park which was almost named Tim St. Clair Park” or the “park which was almost formerly called Tim St. Clair Park.” And I’m still very fond of Monorail Memorial Park.

KM May 5, 2009 (4:31 pm)

Boooo! What a boring name.

Pete May 5, 2009 (4:41 pm)

instead of Monorail Memorial Park we could just call it Monorail, Let’s Vote Again Park!

Meghan May 5, 2009 (6:39 pm)

It’s a good, sensible name for the park. Naming it after someone of no real note (and 99% of West Seattleites have never heard of) just because he recently died would have been a mistake and would have lead to more ane more requests for exceptions to the rule in the future. The Parks Dept did the right thing.