Genesee Park and Playfield is located in the Mount Baker neighborhood at 4316 S Genesee St, 98118. It is 57.7 acres.
When John Charles recommended several acres at the north end of Maynard’s Lake Washington Addition for a park in 1908, much of Genesee Park, located along the route of Wetmore Slough, was underwater. As the Olmsted Brothers noted in their report: “[a]bout 40 acres of this area is now under water, . . . and should eventually be filled in.” Some filling of the slough had already begun with the construction of Rainier Avenue in Columbia City in 1890. Columbia Park, Rainier Playfield and the crossing of Genesee Street would all be filled in by 1920. In 1937, when the trestle bridge for Lake Washington Boulevard became unsafe, that roadbed was rebuilt on fill as well, and by 1945 the community began petitioning for a playground in the former slough. The city bought the property in 1947, initially as a possible small craft airport at the behest of Congress, but instead it was turned into a landfill. The land was transferred to the Parks Department in 1968.