This image shows a sanitary landfill on 43rd Ave S between Genesee St. and Lake Washington Boulevard. A sanitary landfill, or fill, was a type of garbage dump in which trash was deposited, spread out and compacted, then covered in several inches of dirt. The city had proposed to expand the fill eastward to 45th Ave S, but residents of the area objected. They claimed that the fill produced bad odors, drew in disease carrying vermin, and polluted Lake Washington when water drained through the garbage into the lake.

Like many dumps in Seattle, the 43rd Ave S sanitary fill was built on a low-lying area. As garbage was dumped and covered with dirt, the area would be raised up to the level of land around it. When this process was done, the land was often landscaped and converted into a park. The fill on 43rd Ave S was open until 1963 and is now part of Genesee Park and Playfield. This photo was taken from 45th Ave S and looks west, across the proposed addition to the fill.

Caption information source: "Owners in 2 districts rap fill extension," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 17, 1942, p. 1.
Caption information source: Miller Street Landfill, Montlake (Seattle), by John Caldbick, HistoryLink Essay #10171, retrieved from https://www.historylink.org/File/10171.
Caption information source: Genesee Park and Playfield history, Seattle Parks and Recreation, retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20061011085428/https://www.seattle.gov/parks/history/GeneseePFandPk.pdf.