A Stairway in Boston

As we revisit Seattle stairways on our walks, memories start to build. There are the different views and textures we encounter at various times of year; who was walking with us; the story of a memorial along the way; what was going on in the larger world at the time. Slowly, our stairway explorations take on a personal stamp - which brings us to a story we saw recently in the New York Times.

Elena Barbara has built her own relationship with a particular stairway. The Bunker Hill stairs in Boston climb 294 steps above Breed's Hill in the Charlestown neighborhood. Stone steps inside a large obelisk, a National Monument honoring the Battle of Bunker Hill, rise 221 feet to yield 360-degree views. (Our Water Tower stairway in Volunteer Park features 106 steel steps that climb 75 feet, also providing wonderful all-around views of the city.)

Elena has climbed the Bunker Hill stairs each day to raise funds for the 14 amputee victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. She hopes to raise one dollar for each of the 8,820 steps she'll climb over a 30-day period. She doesn't know any of the victims, but nonetheless she enlisted the help of a fundraising website called "GoFundMe" to do something for them.

The Times story is linked here, and in turn, it has a link to Elena's GoFundMe page. The Bunker Hill Stairs will surely have special meaning for the people Elena is able to help!

Adventures Around the "Block" - Jack Block Park

During that string of sunny days last week we did a leisurely half-day, 7.6 mile loop in West Seattle, starting from our front door. We had just caught an episode of "Bird Note" on NPR about the annual return of the many Swallow species, and we wanted to head out in search of the largest of these, the Purple Martin. This bird is impressive to us partly because of the epic migration it makes, all the way up from the Amazon River Basin. Jack Block Park has a row of roomy artificial "gourds" hung high off a pier above Elliott Bay, to give these birds a place to start families after their long journey, so we decided to make the park our ultimate destination.   

Jack Block Park is a little obscure, and therefore uncrowded, which adds to the attraction. You can climb stairs and walkways to a viewing platform with 360-degree views - of ships loading at Terminal 5, the downtown skyline, and the Olympics across the Sound.

We didn't see any Purple Martins, but as always on a stairway walk, lots of cool things caught our eye.