Tom B.
Yelp
How have I never reviewed this place? It's been a part of my consciousness since before I can remember--literally, my mom still loves to tell stories about me at Wright Park that I can't remember happening. Evidently, the two nymph (or whatever) statues on the north side used to strike me as creepy old women hiding in the bushes when I was little. They don't anymore, and not just because they cut down the bushes. I'm older and wiser, and can tell the difference between statues and people.
But this place still makes me feel connected to my youth, even though they have improved it immeasurably since I was young. They significantly reinforced the banking around the duck pond about ten years ago, adding a cool little footbridge over it.
By and large, the rest of the place is the same--you get dozens of lush green trees, and even more than that in the summer when the deciduous residents of the park leaf out again. There's that duck pond, and there's an extremely cool greenhouse, and a handy little playground. There are many pockets of green space among the trees, zig-zagging gravel paths, and an appealing small playground.
My goddaughter and her family used to live in north Tacoma, and I can remember swinging her in the swings here when she was young. They moved far away, and, when they came back to visit, we brought her here to feed the ducks. There are a couple good places not far from here when you can get healthful bird food--evidently, the stale bread we used to feed them when I was little is not exactly nutritious. They do better with millet, or corn.
And, as it turns out, I don't need to have kids with me to enjoy feeding the ducks. I fed them most of ten pounds of corn this weekend and never got tired of it. In fact, I was more worried that the ducks might get full and wander off before I ran out of corn. It's an age-old memory that never fails to delight me. Given that bird food is about 70 cents a pound, it makes me a pretty cheap date, too.
This is not the biggest part around, and certainly has fairly narrowly-focused features. But it's a great break from whatever else happens to occupy your day in Tacoma, whether it's food or errands or sight-seeing or whatever it might be. And for some of us, it's a soothing connection with secure, happy memories that stretch back beyond our consciousness to earliest childhood.