A bike ride through Bryant Park on Nov. 20 was the first time I had seen this addition to the park.
Someone built a sturdy wooden structure in Albany’s Bryant Park, and I wondered about it when I first saw it on a bike ride through the park this week.
The raised platform comes with a staircase and hand railing all around it. It also has what I gathered is an electrical panel and a place for an electrical meter to be installed. A deep trench in the ground looked ready for an underground power supply.
What could that thing be for?
Were they planning go-cart races on the loop around the park, and was this the place where the guy would stand and wave the checkered flag? Or how about a cyclocross event with racers doing laps on the grass below?
Or maybe somebody was preparing for broadcast coverage of future disc golf tournaments, and this would be the perch from which the commentators deliver their whispered remarks?
No, sorry, nothing like that is going on, or planned.
As usual on questions about parks, Rick Barnett had the answer. He’s the Albany parks and facilities maintenance manager.
And on Friday he said: “The platform and the panel are something that Pacific Power is doing to replace the electrical post nearby that serves the ballfield lights. We didn’t have anything to do with it.” (hh)
The raised platform provides a good view of the Bryant Park loop road.
Electrical panel above the occasional flooding sounds like a good idea.
This is a bad idea.
Pacific Power built this in a flood zone.
Did the city make Pacific Power prove that the work won’t harm endangered species including salmon, sturgeon, smelt and killer whales?
Especially killer whales. They could be shocked to death or stranded on this platform during the next flood.
Where is city government when you need them?
1) Look at first picture above.
2) See two transformer cans on utility pole.
3) See cable chase/run down the pole and going underground.
4) What you can’t see is the Utility Easement that the electric company owns and they have probably owned for decades if not a century.
Ta Ta Gordon. You can rest easy now.
Perhaps the electrical panel is raised high enough to put it above any possible flooding in the park? It would need to be accessible without standing on a ladder. In anticipation, perhaps, of a 10,000 year flood, if there is such a thing? The conduit feeding the electrical panel and the panel itself are all rated for wet conditions.
Bryant park floods regularly because it’s right where the Calapooia River and Willamette River meet.
Nice spot for a guitar player to play music for those interested in hearing.
It’s a platform for the Public hangings that are coming as we get tough on crime in the coming year.
I like the cyclocross idea. It’s the perfect spot for a cyclocross event.
A platform for public hangings, really? WTF.
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” It is as true today as it was a long time ago.
It will be a homeless condo tomorrow
It’s for all the curmudgeon commenters here to share their limitless knowledge on all subjects. We can even invite Gordo to break it in if he can fly back from the East Coast.