Capitol Hill's Perugia Park a No-Go In Light of Knox Conviction
The former parking lot at East John St. and Summit Avenue East--now Summit Slope Park. Photo courtesy of seattle.gov.
Just over a year ago, Seattle Parks announced its plans to bestow the name "Perugia Park" on an 0.22-acre slip of a park on Capitol Hill. That plan was subsequently shelved in the wake of Amanda Knox's conviction in Italian court for the murder of her British flatmate Meredith Kercher while both girls were studying abroad in Perugia.
The decision disappointed Perugia's mayor, and the local head of the Seattle-Perugia Sister City Association.
The park, located at the corner of East John Street and Summit Avenue East (behind the fancy overhauled Olive Way Starbucks) languished nameless for a year (the adjacent P-Patch is named the Unpaving Paradise P-Patch...see parking lot photo above). On Thursday, acting Seattle Parks superintendent Christopher Williams announced the department has officially nixed the Perugia Park plan in favor of Summit Slope Park, a name designed to ignite zero controversy whatsoever.
So as not to offend the Perugians, plans are supposedly in the works to honor our sister city with a future park. It won't be named for Perugia, but might have, say, a plaque, or a sculpture of a griffin, the city's symbol, rather than straight-up naming the park after the place where Amanda Knox met the mercurial hand of Italian justice.
Perugia has a Sister Orca Park that recognizes its relationship with Seattle.
