Park on the Lid to be renamed Aubrey Davis Park at dedication this weekend

The Aubrey Davis Park dedication (formerly known as the Park on the Lid) will take place at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 13.

By Reporter Staff • July 8, 2013 6:33 pm
The ‘Park on the Lid’ was established as part of the agreement between the City of Mercer Island and the Washington State Department of Transportation to build a ‘lid’ over the new lanes of Interstate 90. The Lid and other changes to the design of the interstate was led by Islander Aubrey Davis and a team of other Island officials who sought to rein in the impact of the massive construction project across the Island’s North end.
The ‘Park on the Lid’ was established as part of the agreement between the City of Mercer Island and the Washington State Department of Transportation to build a ‘lid’ over the new lanes of Interstate 90. The Lid and other changes to the design of the interstate was led by Islander Aubrey Davis and a team of other Island officials who sought to rein in the impact of the massive construction project across the Island’s North end.

The Aubrey Davis Park dedication (formerly known as the Park on the Lid) will take place at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 13.

Former Mercer Island mayor and City Councilmember Aubrey Davis and his wife, Henrietta, moved to Mercer Island in 1960. Mr. Davis served as Councilmember from 1967 to 1978, and served as mayor from 1970 to 1974.

He died earlier this year in May.

Among his many achievements, Mr. Davis served as the principle negotiator in what became the 1976 Interstate 90 (I-90) Memorandum of Agreement.

Davis demanded that the state redesign the highway to take into account the impact on the Mercer Island community.

When asked about the freeway expansion, Davis’s signature response was, “We don’t want to see it. We don’t want to hear it. We don’t want to smell it.”

The resulting design transformed Mercer Island into a corridor of landscaped parks, green landscaping and pedestrian pathways adjacent to the I-90 expanded freeway.

The dedication will be located at the park on S.E. 22nd Street by the tennis courts.


File Photo

Construction of the ‘new’ I-90 corridor in the late 1970s caused extensive disruption to Island life on the North end.