Humans of Seattle Parks: #ParkProfiles

I stumbled across #ParkProfiles the other day, and it’s now a regular part of my social media routine.

The Downtown Seattle Association posts thirty-second interviews with everyday people they find in Westlake Park and Occidental Square Park. It’s part of the recent mission to revitalize these downtown parks and turn their drug/crime/sketchy stereotype into a welcoming/fun/family-friendly stereotype.

They’ve made good progress on that, by the way.

#ParkProfiles is like Seattle parks’ own Humans of New York (HONY). It’s refreshing to see these simple, uplifting stories amid all the more sobering reports that so often dominate the news. It’s good to be reminded that yes, there is happiness and love all around, and that more often than not, strangers turn out to be people just like you and me.

#ParkProfiles has been posting for about a month so far. Most of the interviews talk about the improvements to the parks and what people like about them. That’s to be expected (this is a marketing tactic, after all), but it would be interesting to see if #ParkProfiles eventually moves more in a HONY direction. It could show the variety of people who come to these parks, get deeper into their stories, and just have more slice-of-life, objective interviews.