Madison Park Improvements – Seattle WA

Description

Madison Park, located at the eastern end of Madison Streeet, next to Lake Washington, was the site of several small Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects. The first of these projects involved the replacement of the park’s clay tennis courts near the intersection of East Blaine Street and 42nd Avenue East. Installed in 1936, the new tennis courts were built with reinforced concrete, which the Park Department preferred due to lower maintenance costs and their potential use for other recreational activities, such as roller skating.

Then, in the spring of 1937, WPA workers began remodeling the park’s bathhouse, a wood-frame structure originally built in 1919. This project was completed in 1938 and, according to Park Department reports, transformed the old “unsanitary and inadequate bathhouse” into a “roomy, well-lighted unit, adding locker and bag storage space necessary to take care of the large crowds” using the adjacent beach. In addition to remodeling the bathhouse, WPA workers also constructed new concrete sidewalks around the bathhouse and leading to 43rd Avenue East. The sidewalk installation project was completed in 1937.