RANT: painted alligator tree in Emma Schmitz park

[a parent]

My family found that one of our favorite fallen trees in Emma Schmitz had been destroyed by a vandal a few weeks ago-someone trying to be cool(?!!) painted the obvious alligator tree as an alligator with bright red, green and white paint. Did this paint come off or is the tree destroyed forever? It really depressed me. Anyone else upset by this?

Share This

[flowerpetal]

Perhaps you should ask the Parks Department. The department has a 24 hr. maintenance reporting line at 684-7250. Or you could report it as grafitti at 684-7587 or online at http://www2.seattle.gov/util/forms/graffiti/graffitiForm.asp

Share This

[DP]

I thought the alligator was a nice bit of whimsy, actually. I wouldn’t want this to become a fad, because then the park would lose its wild character. But what’s wrong with someone “repurposing” one downed log in a park filled with hundreds of such logs? In a few years’ time, the paint will be worn off by the elements. Then everything will be back to the way it was before.

Wanna be concerned about someone doing harm to Schmitz Preserve? How about all the folks who are treating this place as Seattle’s newest off-leash park? They couldn’t pick up their dogs’ poop even if they wanted to, ‘cuz the dogs are running into the thickets where the owners can’t follow.

But then, maybe that’s the whole idea . . .

Share This

[anonyme]

DP, I usually agree with you – but not this time. Schmitz Park is a rare oasis of old-growth trees and native plants. Can’t we have ONE little spot that is completely natural and pristine – at least as pristine as the 21st century allows? There are innumerable locations that carry the unmistakable imprint of human intervention (too kind a word, I believe). The fact that there are “hundreds” of such logs simply highlights the sickening reality that there were millions of them not so long ago.

There are plenty of public parks and recreational areas where such a repurposing might be appreciated and appropriate – Schmitz is not one of them. While I agree with you completely about the dog poop, it’s really another issue.

Share This

[Tony S]

I noticed the paint on this downed tree, and a number of other trees back in (I think) July. It appeared all at once on a number of trees up the trail that heads east out of the back of the park. A few weeks later I saw that someone had converted the paint on the downed tree to the alligator. Not an ideal re-purposing, certainly, but my impression was they were making whimsy of a bad situation. (That’s what I hoped, anyway).

The other trees still had the paint on them. How do you get it off a live tree? I can’t imagine sanding the bark on a tree is a good answer…

Share This

[Author]

Posts