Seven Oars park to be removed

Park will move to make room for bridge work

MICHAEL BURNHAM, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published 20011231

Originally published December 8, 2001

OLYMPIA -- Work crews will begin removing the Park of the Seven Oars on Monday to make room for construction of the Fourth Avenue bridge.

The park, built in 1993 at the northwest corner of Olympic Way and West Bay Drive, will be replaced with one of two new roundabouts at the bridge's western end.

A newly designed park along the bluff between West Bay Drive and Budd Inlet will be reopened by winter 2004, bridge project manager Tom Frare said.

The new park will be roughly twice the size of the existing site.

"It will be very accessible to the public," Olympia Arts Program's Linda Oestreich said. "It will have the best views in town, with the Capitol, the lake and the mountains."

Similar to the existing park, the new site will include a brick plaza and seven steel oars. The park is modeled after an early 20th-century photo of seven women holding oars along the shore of Priest Point Park.

"The seven oars will be in a position where they won't be so lost in the trees," Oestreich said.

An interpretive plaque will discuss how the oars relate metaphorically to the history of Budd Inlet, from the American Indian canoes that once traveled there to the steel ships that can now be seen.

Light posts from the 81-year-old Fourth Avenue bridge, which was damaged in the Feb. 28 earthquake, will flank the park's entryway. From the brick plaza, a path will wind downhill to a second viewing area.

The semicircular observation nook will include a railing made of the old bridge's balusters, as well as plaques portraying the history of the Fourth Avenue bridge.

"When you stand there, you'll see the new bridge, but you'll also get an idea of the history of the old bridge," said Tom Anderson, one of four Olympia artists who designed the pedestrian-friendly park. "I think it will provide some quietude there."

Michael Burnham covers Olympia for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-704-6869.

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