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Published in The Seattle Times online on Jan. 30, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Feb. 2, 2025

Compassion bolsters winter fishing for 90-year-old Tengu Club

By Clay Eals

Up, down, up, down.

Over and over.

Perseverance, patience, peace.

This approach has buoyed a little-known organization that has plied the waters of Elliott Bay off West Seattle most every winter for nine decades.

The all-volunteer Tengu Club, an aggregation of Seattle-area Japanese Americans and others, has forged a hearty culture and tradition of yearly fishing derbies.

Early on, Tengu became the club’s name based on reddish-faced supernatural beings in Japanese folklore with long noses that grow as they tell lie after lie — much as those who fish are prone to do.

Tengu Club’s durability, however, is no exaggeration. It stems partly from a fishing method members developed long ago called “mooching” — constantly moving a herring-baited line up and down, imitating the flutter of a wounded fish to entice bigger ones to bite.

The club’s venerated historian, Mas Tahara, 89, of northeast Seattle, also sees significance beyond its fishing. The underlying point, he says, is kizuna, a Japanese word that means enduring bonds.

“Tengu is people,” he says. “”It’s very, very important for anyone. It makes people alive.”

Summoning that spirit was a challenge when the club began in the mid-1930s. Though well-publicized spring and summer fishing derbies proliferated throughout Puget Sound, Japanese people weren’t invited to participate.

Ostensibly this was due to the success of mooching, as noted in the Sept. 16, 1940, edition of Time magazine. Describing the Sound’s 25 established salmon derbies, the article stated, “Japanese are barred (because they are too skillful).” But Tahara and other Tengu Club members assert that discrimination also was a factor.

To provide an alternative, Tahara says, Tengu Club set its derbies in the winter, a relatively unpalatable time for local fishing. The weather is bracing, and the fish typically available then are juvenile blackmouth salmon, smaller than their fair-weather adult counterparts.

Tengu Club’s contests ceased after Japan’s Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Post-war, in December 1946, Tengu derbies resumed, lasting days and even weeks, and continue today.

Derby data starting in 1946, kept by Doug Hanada, longtime president, show 100-190 annual members through the mid-1990s, dropping to 20-35 in more recent years. Still, they’re a hardy crew.

Tahara emphasizes a pair of longtime Tengu Club philosophies: maintaining dignity and momentum in the face of unavoidable hardships, and extending goodwill by opening derbies to non-Japanese.

“We always try to see things with compassion,” Tahara says, “and we are always interdependent.”

The resulting camaraderie in the cold and wet, he says, is precious.

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Mas Tahara, Doug Tanada, Nancy Ishii and Linda Ishii for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Clay Eals‘ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below, you also will find a video interview of Mas Tahara and Doug Hanada, a dissertation (at the end), 85 additional photos and 18 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

 

Following are 40 historical thumbnail photos, courtesy Doug Hanada, of Tengu Club events (click once or twice to enlarge):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following are 17 thumbnail photos, courtesy Doug Hanada, of the Jan. 8-9, 2022, Tengu Club Cracker Derby (click once or twice to enlarge):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following are 20 thumbnail photos, courtesy Doug Hanada, of the March 25, 2022, Tengu Club Banquet (click once or twice to enlarge):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following are 3 thumbnail photos, courtesy Doug Hanada, of the April 29, 2022, Tengu Club Fish Fry at the home of member Dan Hicks (click once or twice to enlarge):

 

 

 

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Published in The Seattle Times online on Jan. 23, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on Jan. 26, 2025

Lakeside Denny manor falls victim to religious landmark loophole

By Jean Sherrard

Turns out the mission was impossible.

Readers may recall our caper last March, attempting to visit Loch Kelden to capture one last photo before its approaching demolition. The three-story Spanish Mission Revival mansion overlooking Lake Washington had been completed in 1907 by Rolland Denny, the youngest member of the pioneer Denny Party.

We requested a final tour from the Unification Church, which had used the 1.7-acre property as a domicile and retreat since 1974. With its $6 million sale to developers still “pending,” the church turned us down.

So we took to the water. Accompanied by Rolland’s

great-grandniece Maria Denny, we boarded a cabin cruiser and, floating offshore, took “now” photos of the mansion gleaming over her shoulder.

Demolition was delayed, but sadly only by months.

Days before Christmas, we received news that the end was nigh. Mere minutes remained before the main structure of the house would be leveled. I grabbed a camera and made a bee line to Loch Kelden.

Unattended, I toured the denuded mansion, snapping photos. Soon I was joined by Aaron Blanchard, director of operations of EarthWise Architectural Salvage.

“We removed beautiful fir paneling, pocket doors,

leaded glass and stained-glass windows,” he said, along with 8-10,000 board feet of old-growth wood. EarthWise also saved the mansion’s front door, rumored to contain wood from the original 1851 Denny cabin.

“Incredibly cool,” Blanchard said, “was the horse-hair terra-cotta cornice above the door in the shape of a clamshell.” (The clamshell could be a sly reference to infant Rolland Denny’s survival, credited to Duwamish-provided clam nectar.)

After our spring caper, readers expressed shock and dismay over the pending demolition. Many asked how such a historic structure could be torn down without public input. What about city landmark status?

University of Washington architecture professor Jeffrey Karl Ochsner notes that the state Supreme Court affirmed in 1990 a claim by Seattle’s First Covenant Church that landmark designation infringed on religious freedom.

“The First Covenant ruling created a loophole in landmarks law,” Ochsner says. “Now what happens is a consecrated church building owner reaches a deal with a developer while the church is still consecrated. Then they get a demolition permit. This bypasses the landmarks process. Next the church deconsecrates and sells to the developer. The demolition permit transfers along with the property.”

For Maria Denny, the razing feels “like the loss of a family member, and it’s sad to think that a little piece of history is gone.”

Some may quarrel with “little” — in this specific case, and as an example for our city’s future.

WEB EXTRAS

Click through for our narrated 360 video featuring the demolition.

For those interested in a public discussion of the issues raised by this demolition, please join us on Feb. 4th at the Good Shepherd Center.

Also, a few last views of the mansion’s interior and exterior, minutes before destruction.

 

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Jan. 16, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Jan. 19, 2025

Bavarian art-glass window resurfaces, but where will it shine?

By Clay Eals

Long missing, a Northwest art-glass masterwork has re-emerged. But will the enormous window ever again gleam in public?

The puzzle surfaced in 2020 when we profiled Seattle’s Suess & Smith Co., owned by German specialists in leaded, cut and stained glass who worked from 1901 to 1906 on Western Avenue in today’s Belltown. The firm morphed in into Suess Art Glass Co. and moved in 1909 to Virginia Street near Westlake Avenue, operating until at least 1951.

One of Suess’ distinctive creations — a 12-by-8-foot, three-panel landscape — depicted a verdant Bavarian scene and hung inside the Frye apartment hotel at Third and Yesler. There, in about 1980, Smith descendant Curt Green photographed it in hotel owner Abie Label’s office. Backlit, its rich hues glowed.

Later, the piece vanished. Since 2020, readers have filled out some details of its origin and whereabouts.

In 1967, Label first saw the window at the old Arlington Hotel at First and Spring, where a maintenance worker found it stored and damaged. “It had been there for decades,” says Label’s business partner Robert Roblee. Label made repairs and moved it to the Frye, where it hung for 30-plus years. Phyllis Lamphere, a former city council member, was a fan, often showing it to visitors.

Label’s friend, Robert White, a West Seattle dentist, bought the window from Label for $5,000 and crated and shipped it to Alaska in 1998 for display at a Skagway sculpture garden but died before that could happen.

When White’s widow, Diane, sold the garden to the Skagway Traditional Council in 2023, the stored crate emerged. Family shipped it to Seattle, stored it in Federal Way and last summer drove it to Cathedral Glass in Portland for evaluation.

When Cathedral owner Nicholas Heinze uncrated it, he found a mixed blessing. “It’s master-level stuff,” he says. “It blew us away. There’s magic in it. It was touched by hands that really knew what they were doing.” But he also spotted significant degradation.

Restored, it could be insurable for $144,000, but repairs would run $26,000 — sobering ballpark figures. The pressing question is: Where will it land? White family members speculate: a museum, train station, airport? A restaurant in Leavenworth?

“At first it was fun, as in ‘Wow, look at this amazing, historic thing,’ ” says White’s daughter, Launi Treece of Renton. “But the last few months, it’s been disheartening to learn how much damage there is, and it’s been hard to find a buyer. On one hand, it’s a treasure. On the other hand, we don’t know what to do with it.”

Who will supply the next piece of the puzzle?

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Launi Treece, Diane White, Dakota White, Nicholas Heinze, Curt and Paula Green, David Label and Robert Roblee  for their invaluable help with this installment!

No 360-degree video this week, but below, you will find 9 additional photos and documents and 1 historical clip from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

And be sure to click here to see our May 2020 “Now & Then” column about this window for further details and a wealth of “web extras.”

Click the thumbnails below to see the photos taken in August 2024 by Nicholas Heinze of Cathedral Glass of the three Suess window panels — two for (exterior and interior) for each panel:

 

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Published in The Seattle Times online on Jan. 9, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on Jan. 12, 2025

Seattle’s new Overlook Walk conjures up a ‘people’s viaduct’

By Jean Sherrard

For those who recall magician David Copperfield’s temporary vanishing of the Statue of Liberty, I have another disappearing act up my photographic sleeve.

Our “Then” photo, snapped just west of the Pike Place Market, shows the Alaskan Way Viaduct, torn down beginning in 2019.

For the forgetful or those unacquainted with this simultaneously beloved and detested ribbon of elevated highway, the viaduct’s double decks provided commuters with incomparable two-minute vistas of the city and Elliott Bay. The sinuous concrete structure bisected the city for 66 years, its traffic-induced bang, clatter and roar, amplified by concrete, thwarting normal conversation on the waterfront.

But presto change-o!

In our “Now” photo, the vanished viaduct is replaced by the newly

inaugurated Overlook Walk, an elevated park redefining Seattle’s relationship to its waterfront. Generous curved walkways, wide staircases and ample terraces allow visitors to freely wander and appreciate the marvels. And the loudest sounds are the cries of gulls.

But don’t take this conjurer’s word for it.

On a December visit to the Overlook, palming a copy of the 2019 photo, I polled locals and tourists alike, asking them to comment on the abracadabra. Many pulled insightful rabbits out of their lined winter hats.

Jenny and Peter Stuijk often have hiked the area from their Ballard home, but rarely made it past the Port of Seattle’s Centennial Park on the north waterfront. “For us, the Overlook is like a front door to the Pike Place Market,” Jenny says, and Peter finishes her sentence: “And the setting is breathtaking.”

“It opens up right in front of you,” says Seattleite Andrew Mosoreti, “and you can feel the living city on the Sound.” Workmate Gunnar Brent concurs. “For the first time in my life,” he says, “downtown and the waterfront are connected.”

Rosemary Koenig and her visiting mom Teresa appreciate the Overlook’s gentle curves. “I prefer a meandering path to a straight shot,” Rosemary says. “Add in a cello,” Teresa says. “I’d love music to amble to.”

French-born Seattle resident Sandrine Morris would conjure up street artists and musicians “to fill the big open space.”

Enchantment struck Tacomans Judy and Paul Rietmann. “This is a real gathering place,” Paul says. Judy slyly adds, “It’s a people viaduct.”

“I’m very impressed,” says Port Townsend’s Joe Breskin, comparing the Overlook to New York’s famed High Line park. “It’s the first investment in public space of this scale since Century 21’s World Fair campus.”

“It’s fabulous,” Leilani McCoy says, “with or without a kid.”

No mere sleight-of-hand here. To quote David Lee of Bellevue, “Quite magical!”

WEB EXTRAS

For a 360 degree narrated video of the column, click here!
More photos from the Overlook and environs:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Jan. 2, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Jan. 5, 2025

For 50 years, racing motorcyclists have thrived on ‘need for speed’

By Clay Eals

I’d like to think I can write about anything, but some topics give me the willies. Such as motorcycles.

In 1972, a friend and I, both 21 and riding a Triumph 650, improbably survived an accident unscathed while cruising at 70 mph on Interstate 5 in Oregon. A novice biker, I’d foolishly forgotten a posted “abrupt edge” construction sign, so while crossing to the left lane while passing a truck, I dumped our bike. Astounded and aghast after we spun to a halt, I vowed never to ride a motorcycle again.

And I haven’t.

So last fall when a colleague suggested I showcase the 50th anniversary of the all-volunteer Washington Motorcycle Road Racing Association (WMRRA), I gulped. Could I go there? Maybe I could explore the group’s longevity by uncovering the zeal of its members.

When asked, they eagerly cite a “need for speed,” embodied by events where some exceed (no typo) 140 mph.

“You feel like you’re flying. It’s the most fun you can have outside your house, legally or illegally,” says club historian Bruce Scholten. “Unless you jump in now and then, you feel like your life is meaningless.”

Scholten, of Edmonds, entered sanctioned races in the mid-1970s at Seattle International Raceway, now Pacific Raceways, in Kent. There, on its 2.25-mile course, members seek high average lap-speeds in 10-minute races and hours-long “endurance” runs. They also vie regionally.

Such contests invigorate Shoreline’s Chris Loomis, an oft-president dubbed Mr. WMRRA (spoken as WOMM-ruh) for his half-century’s involvement. He calls the club’s 400 members “family.”

The sentiment also feeds ex-president Colt Bristow, of Auburn. “We all know how dangerous street riding can be between cars, trucks, speed limits and road conditions,” he says. “But this is the only environment of people who are vested in your family and well-being and want to see you have fun and be competitive and provide a prepared, groomed, custom experience at its absolute potential.”

Some, Bristow admits, make “exceeding thresholds” the goal. “Unfortunately, they tend to get hurt more,” he says, but at least WMRRA provides nearby medical response.

Speed, says Dale Zlock of Spanaway, a veteran racer with his brother Dan, fuels success. He says he nearly died at an out-of-town race in 1987. “I broke multiple bones and ruptured some internal parts. I’m lucky to even be here, so yes, that does go through your mind,” he says. “But you put it aside. It goes into another compartment. You go out and do what you got to do.”

Well, the gears may not lock into place for me, but these racers’ passion is palpable.

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Bruce Scholten and Martha Young-Scholten for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Clay Eals‘ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below, you also will find video of longtime WMRRA members talking of their passion for the association and for motorcycle racing in general, 6 additional photos and 10 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column.