The 9-acre park, located in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood, has been in the making for over eight years. It cost $85 million to build, only a fourth of which came from taxpayers; most came from private endowments including $20 million from the Bill and Mimi Gates Foundation. Functionally, the park has reclaimed a toxic property, long vacant, that was used as a fuel-transfer site for Union Oil of California. In 1999, the parcel was bought in a partnership between the Trust for Public Land and the Seattle Art Museum, which will manage the park.

One of the main highlights is the entrance from the park into Myrtle Edwards beach, which will serve as a newly restored habitat for foraging chinook salmon. “It’s layers,” said Marion Weiss, one of the designers. “It’s unfolded and unfolding landscape that suddenly becomes a beach.”

Forming the shape of a Z, the park contains four diverse ecological environments. Scattered throughout (not densely, as the number of installations is not complete) are over 20 works of modern art.

The biggest is Wake by Richard Serra ?EUR??,,????'??+ five rust-colored steel slabs in 14-foot high curves. Alexander Calder?EUR??,,????'???s 39-foot-tall Eagle perches on reddish-orange scythe-like legs that according to one critic, ?EUR??,,????'??cut through the gray of a winter day.?EUR??,,????'??

There is also a giant 19-foot tall Typewriter Eraser entitled Scale X, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Such pieces exemplify the historic ?EUR??,,????'??forwardness?EUR??,,????'?? of Seattle?EUR??,,????'???s art scene. Geoff Carter of the NWsource staff writes, ?EUR??,,????'??The park is a lens through which to see this city . . . Everything that makes the park resonate ?EUR??,,????'??? the skyline, the Sound view, the city’s taste for modern art ?EUR??,,????'??? has been in place for years, waiting for something like this to bring it into sharp focus. Even if you despise modern sculpture, the Olympic Sculpture Park will make you fall in love with Seattle all over again.?EUR??,,????'??