Over the course of the past four years or so, parks all over the city have gotten a face lift. Somehow, Central Tacoma seemed to end up at the end of the line. At long last, three center city parks are receiving playground upgrades: Franklin, Wright, and McCarver. This summer I ran into Ms. Darcy and her toddler Max at Franklin Park, where he was magnetically attracted to the orange caution tape that was supposed to signal to pre-verbal children that they should not climb the decaying remnants of the Big Toy.

I know it's super late, but here's the Sprayground/Wading Pool map all updated for 2010.

The Wright Park sprayground is a work in progress, and Franklin's update should take place this year. Hopefully, a new sprayground will open there next fall and there won't be any gap between wading pool removal and sprayground installation as there was at Wright.

Do you remember The Temple of the Bean? I don't, it was way before my Tacoma time, but lots of people seem to have very fond memories of the place. The tiny space it occupied above Tricky's Pop Culture Emporium and Supernova Tattoo, across the street from Wright Park, has finally reopened as a new, non-corporate coffee spot, Satellite Coffee.