New Park Map
New on this website is the park map, here. If you’re familiar with Google maps, you’ll have little trouble zooming, panning, and clicking to pick up everything the map has to offer. If, on the other hand, this densely marked-up map drives you crazy, here’s a short intro.
What you see at first is a forest of overlapping markers. To begin to make sense of it, find the full-screen icon in the upper right corner of the map and click that. Now zoom in a bit, and the markers begin to separate from one another. You’ll see a lot of green markers. Most of them have the sideways profile of a bench. Others have the profile of a picnic table. Click on one of the picnic table markers. (On some computers it takes two clicks.) Up pops a brief description of what this picnic area has to offer, along with a small photo. Trying to find a picnic area that suits your party? The map is your convenient guide.
Browse around to the different markers and click on them. Some of the bench markers just say “Bench.” Others, particularly along the west side, are memorial benches and when you click, up pops the name of the party memorialized.
The map contains nearly 200 markers. Overwhelmed? Note the white Filter Box in the upper left corner. (You can drag the box to where you want it by clicking on the grid pattern in its bottom border.) Suppose you only care about picnic areas. Click on Picnic Areas, and all the markers go away except for the picnic area markers. Do you want to know which picnic areas are near water fountains? Click both Picnic Areas and Water Fountains. Which ones are near porta-potties? Click. (Very few!)
Interested in the Public Art installations in the park? In the Filter Box, click on Public Art. Then click on one of the Public Art markers. Up pops a photo with a “Learn More” message. Click on Learn More, and you get to a page that gives more photos and background information about that item (at least, three out of four). Similarly with Geographic Features: the marker takes you to an information page. Several other kinds of markers have information pages linked to them.
(You can also get to the information pages under Features on the Main Menu.)
The markers have the useful purpose of helping the park visitor decide where in the park to go. The markers also give an idea of the complexity of the park, and of the maintenance challenges involved. There are 59 bench markers and 37 trash barrel markers, and that’s not a complete count.
The map is a work in progress. If you see something wrong, or have something to add, please contact me through the contact form in the About page of this website. Thank you.
P.S. If you’re very familiar with the park, you’ll notice that the Google map here, while the legend says it’s from 2018, actually dates from early 2016. The best information I’ve been able to gather about this issue is that Google serves older maps to third-party applications like WordPress and its plug-ins than it serves to browsers like Chrome and Firefox. This blog runs on the WordPress platform. I’ve complained to Google about this issue, but so far have had no reply.
