(click to enlarge photos)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Oct. 1, 2026
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Oct. 4, 2026

Dancing with Dorpat:
Armory-turned-museum hosts a tribute to ‘Now & Then’ founder

By Jean Sherrard

On the night of Dec. 22, 1942, the Naval Reserve Armory at the south end of Lake Union held its first dance. Bob Kyle’s orchestra played. A Christmas tree stood at one end of the drill hall, a 5-inch naval gun at the other. University of Washington women joined wives of enlisted men to partner with sailors from the Advanced Naval Training Schools to make roughly 250 couples. Armed sentries stood at the gate; nobody without credentials got in.

Built to give Naval Reservists a home of their own, the building was barely 6 months old that night. At its wartime peak the site held 25 buildings and 800 trainees, among them a barracks for the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). The submarine USS Bowfin trained reservists at the dock out front until 1971. In the 1990s, planners proposed clearing the armory for a park; voters rejected the plan. The Museum of History & Industry moved in at the end of 2012.

On Aug. 30, 2026, the door to the same atrium was unguarded as 300 people gathered to memorialize Paul Dorpat, who died May 27 at 87. (It turns out the date — with Paul, serendipity ruled — also

marked the anniversary of Sky River, the festival he dreamed up in 1968, a year before Woodstock.)

Ken Workman opened the evening with a Duwamish welcome. A Duwamish village stood on this ground for centuries, until waste from David Denny’s Western Mill filled the shallows and buried it. “It’s a tragedy that Paul passed,” Ken said, “but it’s also a wonderful thing that he chronicled all of this.”

Mayor Katie Wilson read a proclamation naming the day for him, describing a Wallingford basement that became “a pilgrimage for scholars, students and strangers alike,” leaving Seattle “not merely better documented, but also better companioned.”

Ann Ferguson, the retired Seattle Room curator who shepherded Paul’s 309,000-item archive to the Seattle Public Library, put it simply: “Paul was unlike any other donor I had worked with in my career.” Her brother, Gov. Bob Ferguson, a surprise guest, said what Paul preserved “is something one cannot calculate with dollars.”

Marie McCaffrey, who co-founded HistoryLink with Paul and her husband, Walt Crowley, closed her remarks: “Paul traveled through time and space and left us with a legacy so we would not forget, and God saw that it was good.”

Former Mayor Greg Nickels warned that a growing city risks losing its soul, and credited Paul with giving us “a way to look at our city, to look in the mirror and ask ourselves what is it we’re becoming, and how are we going to get there.”

Former KING-TV anchor Mike James, among Paul’s oldest friends,

admitted he’d only this past spring noticed — watching Paul sign a book for his son — that Paul was left-handed. His wife, Donna, summed Paul up in a single word: teacher. “You pass a building,” Mike recalled, “and he would say, you know what that used to be on that corner, and he would tell you what was there before what exists now.” More than 56 years ago, in a Pioneer Square gallery, Paul married Mike and Donna. “Do you want to spend the rest of your lives together?” he asked. They said yes. “So be it. You are now husband and wife.”

MOHAI’s Leonard Garfield closed with a line to savor: “For Paul, history was always in conversation with the present. It was now before it was then.”

Clay Eals and I shared our own memories. His was of Paul’s boundless generosity, mine of the camera, rarely out of his hands. We understood it as craft. It was also a buffer, a shield between Paul and the outside world — and he pointed it at everything for 60 years, handing back what he found.

Near the end, I asked everyone to stand and face west. Paul, Seattle’s historian-without-portfolio, always had an uncanny sense of where he was in our forever-changing city. Spin him around and he knew north from south, east from west — finding solid ground through layers of history. So we gave him a compass point.

From the mezzanine, camera raised, there was nothing left to add.

Paul always knew where he stood. For one evening, so did everyone else.

WEB EXTRAS

A slew of extras this time round.

First off, our narrated 360 video, captured on the evening after the memorial.

Watch the full memorial celebration here: https://pauldorpat.com/2026/09/10/video-of-paul-dorpats-memorial-celebration-aug-30-2026/

From Paris, a remembrance

Our friend Bérangère Lomont, a Paris photographer who knew Paul for nearly 50 years, could not attend the memorial but sent this remembrance. Translated from the French.

“Are you Bérangère, the one I lent my bike to 25 years ago?”

It was a moment of immense joy when, in 2003, I received an email from Paul Dorpat inviting me to his 65th birthday party. I had first met him when I joined our mutual friend Bill Burden in Seattle in the summer of 1977. Paul quickly became a friend who understood everything without speaking French, even though I knew very little English.

He lived in an artist’s house filled with books, objects, musical instruments, paintings and photos. His girlfriend’s name was Paula — I absolutely loved that couple, Paul and Paula!

Paul told me he was moving into a studio, which to me, as a Parisian, meant a one-room apartment. I was amazed to discover a few days later that it was actually a film studio.

In the main room there was a huge table covered with contact sheets, prints and a black Nikon camera. Next to it was a window overlooking a bus stop. From that spot, Paul photographed the most eclectic mix of people waiting for the bus — hippies next to serious old ladies. Their poses and expressions delighted us, and we laughed a lot.

Thanks to Paul, I discovered that photography wasn’t just family portraits but a way of telling stories through composition, where the framing gave the image its meaning. It was a defining moment that helped shape my decision to become a photographer.

When I returned to France, I wrote to Paul to thank him for his deep understanding, his calm, his friendship, and for lending me his bike — I didn’t have a driver’s license, which made getting around Seattle difficult. My letter came back.

Twenty-five years passed until that email invitation arrived, then a second, and a third. Then, thanks to the magic of the internet, we corresponded daily for years.

Paul gradually revealed to me the immense research he had been pursuing since 1980. Inspired by his encyclopedic mind, I entered the era of digital photography, and our exchanges let us share our two worlds, Seattle and Paris, with joy.

In January 2004, Paul rediscovered the Kodachrome slides from his 1955 trip to Paris. The project of repeating them was sketched out, then carried out when Paul and Jean Sherrard came to Paris, 50 years after that first trip. It was a time of extraordinarily deep friendship, one of the happiest moments of our lives. Bill Burden joined us as well, and all our Parisian friends wanted to share in the celebration. In 2011, the exhibition at MOHAI became a meeting point for our research, our artistic passions, our love of each other’s cultures, and our friendship.

All those years of corresponding with Paul were a daily excitement of new discoveries about Seattle, Ivar and Paris. His interest in every photograph I sent him, and his comparisons with maps, other photos and documents he had found, were invaluable and revealed Paris to me in a new light. Paul was a historian, of course — but an extraordinary storyteller with a wonderful sense of humor, who spoke in his beautiful, deep voice about time and change. He had his own conventions, and a brilliant way of seeing things and then making them fascinating.

The repeat photographs Paul made in Wallingford — using yellow marks as reference points so he could return to exactly the same vantage points at intersections, a pub, trees — showed his close observation of the neighborhood and his love of places and seasons. Juxtaposed at MOHAI in 2011, those series were dazzling with life, and Paul’s eye stood out as the very essence of photography and time.

How can I thank and honor this dear and generous friend who inspired me so much? A happy coincidence — serendipity, as he liked to say: this year France celebrates the 200th anniversary of Nicéphore Niépce’s invention of photography, and I plan to organize an exhibition of Paul’s 1955 Kodachromes of Paris — he was one of the first to photograph the city in color — alongside my new repeats.

— Bérangère Lomont, Paris

Le texte original

« Êtes-vous Bérangère à qui j’ai prêté mon vélo il y a 25 ans ? »

Ce fut un moment de joie extrême lorsque j’ai reçu en 2003 le mail de Paul Dorpat m’invitant à la fête de son 65e anniversaire. En effet, je l’avais rencontré la première fois lorsque j’avais rejoint notre ami commun Bill Burden à Seattle l’été 1977. Paul était rapidement devenu un ami qui comprenait tout sans parler français alors que moi je connaissais très peu l’anglais.

Il habitait une maison d’artiste remplie de livres, d’objets, d’instruments de musique, de peintures et de photos… Son amie s’appelait Paula, j’adorais ce couple, Paul et Paula !

Paul m’avait annoncé qu’il déménagerait dans un studio, ce qui signifiait pour moi, parisienne, un appartement d’une pièce, et j’ai été vraiment ébahie de découvrir quelques jours après que c’était un studio de cinéma.

Dans son grand studio, il y avait un labo photo et, dans la pièce principale dont je me souviens, il y avait une immense table, couverte de planches contacts photo, des tirages et un boîtier Nikon noir. À côté, une fenêtre où l’on pouvait observer un arrêt de bus. De ce spot, Paul photographiait les personnes les plus hétéroclites qui s’installaient en attendant le bus ; la juxtaposition des hippies, des vieilles dames sérieuses, leurs poses et leurs expressions nous réjouissaient et nous riions beaucoup.

Je découvrais, grâce à Paul, que la photographie n’était pas seulement des portraits de famille mais une manière de raconter des histoires par la composition dont le cadrage donnait le sens. C’était un moment décisif qui contribuera à déterminer le choix dans ma vie de devenir photographe.

À mon retour en France, j’ai écrit à Paul pour le remercier de sa profonde compréhension, de sa sérénité, de son amitié et de m’avoir prêté son vélo, car je n’avais pas le permis de conduire, ce qui rendait difficile tout déplacement à Seattle. Mon courrier est revenu.

25 ans ont passé jusqu’au mail d’invitation, puis un second mail est arrivé et un troisième… Puis nous avons correspondu quotidiennement grâce à la magie d’internet, pendant des années.

Paul m’a révélé progressivement l’immense recherche qu’il menait depuis 1980. Stimulée par l’esprit encyclopédique de Paul, je suis entrée dans l’ère de la photo numérique et nos échanges nous ont permis de partager nos deux mondes, Seattle et Paris, avec allégresse.

En janvier 2004, Paul a retrouvé les Kodachromes de son voyage parisien en 1955. Le projet de reconductions parisiennes fut alors ébauché puis développé lors de la venue de Paul et de Jean Sherrard, 50 ans après ce premier voyage. Ce fut un moment d’amitié extraordinairement fort entre nous, un des moments les plus joyeux de nos vies ; Bill Burden nous avait rejoints également, tous les amis parisiens voulaient partager notre fête.

En 2011, l’exposition au MOHAI a été le point de rencontre de nos recherches, de nos passions artistiques, de l’amour réciproque de nos cultures et de notre amitié.

Toutes ces années en correspondance avec Paul ont été une exaltation quotidienne par de nouvelles découvertes réciproques de Seattle, Ivar et Paris, mais aussi très constructives : son intérêt pour chaque photographie que je lui envoyais, ses comparaisons avec des cartes, d’autres photos et documents qu’il avait trouvés étaient très précieux et m’ont révélé Paris autrement. Paul était historien bien sûr, un conteur extraordinaire avec un merveilleux sens de l’humour ; il parlait avec sa belle voix grave du temps et du changement que nous vivons. Il avait ses propres conventions, il avait un mode génial de voir et ensuite de rendre les sujets passionnants.

Les répétitions photographiques que Paul avait réalisées dans le quartier de Wallingford, avec les marques jaunes comme repères pour conserver exactement les mêmes endroits de prises de vues des perspectives de carrefour, de pub, d’arbres, montraient son observation fine du quartier, son amour des lieux, des saisons ; mais exposées et juxtaposées au MOHAI en 2011, les suites de repeats étaient éblouissantes de vie et le regard de Paul se distinguait comme l’essence de la photographie et du temps.

Mais comment remercier et honorer cet ami chéri et généreux qui m’a tant inspirée ? Hasard heureux ! (Serendipity, comme il aimait dire) : cette année, la France célèbre le 200e anniversaire de l’invention de la photographie par Nicéphore Niépce, et je prévois d’organiser une exposition des images de Paul jeune homme en 1955, l’un des premiers à photographier Paris en couleur en Kodachrome, avec mes nouvelles reconductions.

Merci à Jean Sherrard, pour tout le soutien qu’il a apporté à Paul par son amitié fidèle, exceptionnelle, et son immense talent.

— Bérangère Lomont, Paris