"Lake City Center," or more plainly, "Lake City's Roots," is looking for new life and better public service. The flat area in the downtown west of Lake City Way and north of NE 125th Street is part of a "Draft Plan" presented to the Seattle City Council on Tuesday evening, March 16. The citizen turnout was encouraging.

It seems to me that a next step in the study of the potential uses and character of the Center should be a land-use and circulation place, including automobile and pedestrian circulation patterns, recreation and lunch cafe spaces and general architectural character and building materials. Certainly, the egress for a fire station should be direct, safe and fast. Different for a library, city offices, and community offices. Professionals call this an "Urban Design Plan," with block models and character sketches. Property owners should participate and hopefully cooperate for the success of the whole. Such an effort would make good neighbors and a successful and popular center to succeed the old radio advertisement of "Little Old Lake City."

-JOHN (JACK) MORSE,

Wedgwood

(an architect and planner, an interested neighbor and long-time friend of the library)