Mercer Playground (demolished) Improvements – Seattle WA

Description

The former Mercer Playground at 2nd Avenue North and Harrison Street in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood was the site of several small WPA maintenance and improvement projects. In 1938, WPA workers painted the playground shelter house, as part of a city-wide initiative to repaint various park structures that had not received any paint maintenance since the start of the Depression due to budget cuts. The following year, workers regraded the playground’s ballfield, installed a water and drainage system, and built a new handball court. A lighting system was also installed.

Twenty years later, Mercer Playground, along with much of the surrounding neighborhood, was demolished to clear a site for the Century 21 Exposition, which Seattle hosted in 1962. The area of the playground was reconfigured into an open pedestrian plaza for the exposition, with the iconic International Fountain as its focal point.