Albany Hill Park

Albany Hill Park is an interesting foil to the Albany Bulb.  Unlike the Bulb, which is an emergent, non-defined space that exists because people have never really dictated what it is or isn't,  Albany Hill Park exists because everyone, plus their mothers, seems to have an opinion about it.  It is perpetually stuck in a mindless bureaucratic purgatory, it has both a Yelp and Wikipedia page, and it is completely covered with fucking eucalyptus.

When driving in the East Bay the park is a striking point of visual relief.  Out of nowhere a hulking green hill protrudes from suburbia, dominating the skyline.

The interior is mildly spooky.  The Eucalyptus creak and sigh like old floorboards.  I have been twice and it has been virtually empty both visits, despite the fact that it is surrounded by a residential area.
Besides a few benches and a renegade swing, it is non-designed and non-maintained.  Paths are desire lines and informal.

It turns out that everyone has plans for this land, build more apartments, build a better park, tear out the Eucalyptus, make money- change it, improve it.  And that's the precise reason why it hasn't changed in years nor likely will in the future.  Too many meetings, too many approvals, people screaming "Nimby," etcetera.  And so it stays just like it is, a giant green mascot of the shortcomings of bureaucracy.  If Kafka were alive, this is where he would hang out.