Yongsan Park, seen here June 14, 2022, includes the Yongsan Children's Park, and was once part of the U.S. Army Yongsan Garrison. (Yoojin Lee/Stars and Stripes)
SEOUL, South Korea — A former section of the U.S. Army’s base in Seoul, now a public park, has removed access restrictions imposed when the South Korean presidential offices were located nearby.
The Yongsan Children’s Garden, formerly a part of the Yongsan Garrison, opened to the public Tuesday without the need for inspections and reservations, according to a statement that day from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
South Korean presidential offices occupied an adjacent site beginning in 2022. Those offices returned on Monday to the Blue House, for more than 70 years the presidential office building, according to a Blue House news release.
Former U.S. Army officers’ quarters, seen here June 14, 2022, occupy a section of Yongsan Park in Seoul. (Yoojin Lee/Stars and Stripes)
The Yongsan Children’s Garden will be open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, except 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday. The park is closed on Monday. Daily shuttles between the main entrance and interior areas are also available, according to the park’s website.
In addition, the government will launch a renaming campaign to reflect the park’s opening to people of all ages sometime next year, according to the ministry release.
The ministry installed a soil monitoring system inside the park and will be regularly checking air and soil quality and publicly sharing the results, according to the ministry.
“We want the public to freely experience the temporarily opened Yongsan Park without the inconvenience of reservations,” Jung Woo-jin, head of the planning team for Yongsan Park development, said in the release.
The property includes the 5th Military Officer’s Housing Complex, part of the garrison left as a vestige that has turned into a popular attraction in the city.
The park, occupied first by the Japanese military and then by the U.S., was inaccessible to Korean citizens for more than 120 years, according to a ministry statement in 2023.
U.S. Forces Korea began the phased return of the garrison to South Korea in December 2020, after the headquarters for U.S. Forces Korea and the United Nations Command relocated in 2018 to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, followed by the Combined Forces Command in 2022.
