Landscape Information
Composed of an expansive glacial lake and its shoreline, this 324-acre site was part of John Charles Olmsted’s plan of 1903 to create a twenty-mile-long system of parks and boulevards connecting the southern end of the city to its northern and western sectors. Located northeast of the Woodland Park neighborhood, this park is framed by curvilinear drives laid out by the firm.
Following Olmsted’s specific plan for the park (1908), the lake’s water level was lowered to create additional shoreline, and, to the northeast, an athletic field was established. The park opened in 1911 and six years later, Olmsted Brothers’ partner James Frederick Dawson proposed a continuous path around the lake. The following decade witnessed the construction of a bathhouse (1928) on the lake’s western edge and, north of the athletic field, an Art Moderne fieldhouse (1929, now Green Lake Community Center), designed by engineer Eugene Hoffman. Further improvements resulting from dredging were initiated by the Works Progress Administration (WPA): the creation of an island (now Waldo J. Dahl Game Reserve on Duck Island)--as once proposed by Olmsted--and construction of a curvilinear wading pool. At the southwest corner, in 1950, the city constructed the 5,200-seat Aqua Theater, constituting a concrete bandstand and floating stage. It was partially dismantled in 1979.
Today the shoreline is traced by a meandering path, edged by gently graded lawns interspersed with a wide variety of irregularly planted deciduous canopy trees, including bigleaf maple, giant redwood, dogwood, and ornamental cherry, as well as coniferous trees. The path, heading northeast, links park amenities, including a bathing beach, ball fields, a playground, pickleball courts, and the community center. The latter is approached from East Green Lake Drive by a linear path framed by a maple allée.
The park is a contributing feature of Seattle Parks and Boulevard System, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.
