
A few weeks back I posted a bunch of photos of the progress on
Canal Park, all taken by
shoving my camera lens up against the cyclone fences and doing the best I could. The park's poobahs have since taken pity on me, and on Monday gave me my first chance to
get inside the construction site. Alas, almost as soon as I got there, the sunny day turned into a cloudy day, and so the photos don't exactly pop off the screen. But, as I've said before, sometimes you have to take photos with the weather you have, not with the weather you wish you'd have.
The
entire gallery is here, and also includes some shots from up above the park site, from when the sun was still out. (Yes, I'm bitter. If you want to see exactly what sort of impact sun vs. no-sun has on photos, I point you to my newly updated
gallery of before-and-afters from L Street on the east side of the park. Bleccch.)
Some items of note I learned during this walkaround:
* (Left) The block of L Street SE within the park's footprint will be permanently reopening to traffic before too long. But at about the same time, K Street will close within the park so that it can receive the same
traffic-calming streetscape seen on L. I asked about pedestrian space along L during K's closure, and they will be looking at it.
* (Middle) The interior build-out has begun of the Park Tavern restaurant inside the main pavilion. It's expected to open when the park does, which still seems to be on-schedule for November.
* (Right) The black refrigeration tubing for the
hockey ice rink is being installed, so that when it's unseasonably warm in January, people can still skate and not swim. And if you look at the
enlarged photo and wonder why the staircase seems to have two different sized steps, it's because the ones on the right will have wooden slats added to them for a "bleachers" feel for sitting and watching the skating/fountain-frolicking.