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Published in The Seattle Times online on Jan. 11, 2026
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Jan. 8, 2025

Built in 1925, restored Devonshire Apartments preserve affordable housing

By Jean Sherrard

FOR A CENTURY, the red brick Devonshire Apartments have anchored the northern edge of Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. The Tudor flourishes of the handsome, U-shaped touchstone have greeted generations of clerks, shop workers and downtown strivers.

Yet this resilient 1925 structure has more than once come close to death, threatened by economic collapse, eyed by developers and nearly surrendered to decay.

A rare alignment of community will and financing has granted the Devonshire a new lease on life, securing the property’s 62 units as affordable housing for the next century.

Designed by locally prominent architect Henry

Bittman, the building rose during Belltown’s regrade-fueled boom as Wall Street Court — a name that reflected prestige until the 1929 stock market crash. Two weeks later, newspaper ads quietly reintroduced the property under a less toxic banner: the Devonshire.

For nearly a century, its design remained intact, including a basement garage tucked beneath its courtyard — a rare amenity in the early auto age. Discreet brick openings in the exterior masonry reveal vintage pie-safe vents, narrow enough to cool a pastry but too tight for anyone to pinch one. What’s more, the original terrazzo floors and mirror accents in the central stairwell were carefully preserved during the gut renovation.

By 1979, developer Martin Selig, who later built the 76-story Columbia Center, proposed replacing the three-story walk-up with a 48-story tower. Tenants protested and prevailed, saving the bricks but not stopping time. In 2021, a plumbing failure signaled the structure’s pending demise.

Community Roots Housing, the Devonshire’s nonprofit owner since 1993, chose to preserve and modernize. Backed by $33 million from the city Office of Housing, Heritage Bank and federal tax credits, the organization completed a top-to-bottom restoration. “Every time we peeled back a layer, it was like playing back an idea from 100 years ago,” says Jordan Sullivan, real estate director.

Crews poured new concrete shear walls inside the masonry to meet seismic codes. They solved puzzles ranging from odd rooftop structures composed of stacked old-growth timbers to ancient ducts, nicknaming the new walls after cheeses — cheddar, never Swiss. (“No holes allowed,” Sullivan quips.)

One facade detail puzzled the team: repeating terra-cotta shields bearing a large “S.” Did it stand for Seattle? Newly unearthed 1925 documents offer a clue:the letter likely honors F.M. Stanley, the original owner who abandoned the “Wall Street” branding after the crash.

For new tenant Kat Metrovich, the “S” means survival.

A former PCC cheesemonger priced out of Queen Anne, Metrovich says landing affordable digs feels life changing. “It’s challenging to locate housing in this town if you’re not right in the money,” she says. “This feels like home.”

According to Community Roots CEO Colleen Echohawk, that sentiment is the renovation’s true measure. “The goal is simple,” she says. “To keep people housed and happy for another 100 years.”

WEB EXTRAS

 For a narrated street-side 360 degree video view of the Devonshire Apartments, click here.

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

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

Meadowbrook Pool turns 50

‘A sense of belonging’ where there’s ‘nothing but water’

By Clay Eals

If you zip along busy 35th Avenue Northeast, Meadowbrook Pool is hard to miss, just as when it opened 50 years ago.

The building bears a distinctively broad and slanted roof. Up a wooded sweep of steps and inside the entry, its bustling lobby acts as a prelude to action in the pool itself. Swimmers dot the pool’s water beneath a wood-beamed vault ceiling that creates the aura of a mountain lodge.

Smiles are everywhere — exactly the point when the natatorium was dreamed up with six other city pools  and voter-approved as part of the Forward Thrust campaign in 1968.

“In a place like Seattle, there was really nowhere to learn to swim except the lakes,” recalls 94-year-old Green Lake resident David Towne, city Parks superintendent when Meadowbrook opened. “I think the idea was to teach everybody to swim and live in this part of the world where we have nothing but water.”

Designed by Seattle architects Calvin/Gorasht, the 44-by-75-foot pool was dedicated Oct. 28, 1975. It presides at the southeast corner of Meadowbrook Playfield, a site with deep roots. Formerly part of Meadowbrook Golf Course, established in the early 1930s, the complex abuts the 1963 Nathan Hale High School, mirroring school/pool placements elsewhere in Seattle.

Though fueled by Forward Thrust money — bond measures that created the Kingdome, neighborhood improvements, arterial highways and other projects — Meadowbrook Pool’s construction was no easy endeavor.

Hindered by swampy land near Thornton Creek and bids more expensive than forecast, plus economic fallout from the notorious Boeing Bust in the early 1970s, the project took several years longer than anticipated to complete.

Today, however, the pool — with a newer community center built next door in the late 1990s — is a point of pride, what Towne calls a “mark of achievement” for a district tucked between Lake City Way and northern Lake Washington. Of course, he allows that not everyone is a swimmer, but the pool and community-center combo provides a sum greater than its parts, a place “to socialize, be involved. It adds a sense of belonging.”

Embodying that spirit is Jenson Yuen, who grew up in the neighborhood and began swimming at Meadowbrook at age 4.

He started volunteering at the pool in 2010, has been employed there for 11 years and is now senior lifeguard and assistant coordinator.

“Connecting with various generations” inspires him, he says. “In our recreation swim, we have grandmothers bringing their grandkids. We have parents who take the day off, who take their newborn babies here, and they swim. It’s truly a way for everyone to come together, and it’s a really great place to just have fun.”

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Valarie Bunn, Jeanette Voiland, Dave Belanger, Stacy Moe, Jenson Yuen and especially David Towne 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 while hearing this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below, you will find a video interview of Jenson Yuen,  the pool’s dedication program, 14 additional photos and 8 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

 

 

Click each headline or photo to see the complete Postscript!

City Light surplused ‘Evolution of Lighting’ panels as scrap metal
— by Clay Eals

Newly restored, Marvin Oliver’s poles soon will return to Steinbrueck Park — by Jean Sherrard

Click each headline or photo to see the complete Postscript!

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Published in The Seattle Times online on Dec. 11, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Dec. 14, 2025

For Space Needle’s longtime Santa, Christmas is all about presence

By Jean Sherrard

Some things must be seen to be believed. The transformation of mild-mannered Russell Long into Santa Claus is one.

Emerging from a basement changing room beneath the Space Needle, snowy-bearded Santa Russ encounters wreaths of smiles and spontaneous delight.

“Santa, you’re back!” exclaim Needle staffers with childlike glee. In the gift shop, visitors clamor for ussies with Saint Nick as others point and wave.

While we ride the elevator to the observation deck for our photo shoot, I ask what draws people, young and old alike. He twinkles, then takes my breath away.

“Unconditional love,” he says gently but firmly.

Long’s metamorphosis began nearly 30 years ago when, facing early retirement from Microsoft, he felt adrift. A pastor at his church made an offhand suggestion: with his rotund figure, full beard, and kindly demeanor, why not play Santa for the season?

He joined Arthur & Associates, the Seattle company that has supplied Santas for many decades. In 1943, its founder, Seattle Post-Intelligencer photographer Art French, watched crowds visiting the Frederick & Nelson Santa through his office window and thought, “We should be taking pictures of that.” The following year, French opened a photo studio in the department store and began snapping shots of tots on Santa’s lap. He made over $10,000 in a single month, several times his annual P-I salary. His idea spread nationwide, becoming a holiday tradition that endures eight decades later.

Long dove in. Dyeing his blonde hair and beard white was, he recalls, torturous. “The bleach was so strong, I had to breathe through a hose for half an hour.” A local tailor hand-sewed his first velveteen red suit.

By 1998, Santa Russ was greeting families at Bellevue Square. Later generations followed him from mall to Needle, bringing children and grandchildren to perch on his lap.

The work isn’t without strain. “My cheeks hurt those first few days,” he says. “You don’t realize how much smiling it takes. And you have to train your mustache to curl up — it makes the smile bigger.”

Each appearance begins with a quiet ritual of transformation. “White gloves first, then gold spectacles, then the robe,” he says. “By the time I’ve finished dressing, Santa has arrived.”

The enduring moments aren’t about presents. “One boy, around nine, told me what he wanted most was for his dad to quit smoking,” Long says. “I turned to the father and said, ‘Did you hear that? He wants you to stick around.’ That’s when you realize Santa can touch a whole family.”

He also recalls parents arriving from Seattle Children’s Hospital, bringing fragile children for what might be final photos. “You never forget those visits,” he says softly.

So what’s Santa’s secret? He sparkles. “We all need to give our gifts,” he says. “Everyone has something: time, kindness, love. It does us good when we give it.”

For Santa Russ, the gift is presence itself. “I know how to listen,” he says. “Being heard and accepted — that’s the true spirit of Christmas.”

WEB EXTRAS

First, a bit of shameless self-promotion. Join me for the 18th annual Rogue’s Christmas, this Sunday at Seattle’s Town Hall!

Now back to our regular programming! To watch a narrated 360 degree video of the Santa Russ column recorded atop the Space Needle, click right here.

Also, check out a few extras from Santa Russ himself beginning with 18 sequential annual photos of Isabel Brownlow.

Afterward, you’ll find a half-dozen Seattle Post-Intelligencer news clips detailing the origin of Santa photos here at Frederick & Nelson by P-I photographer Art French in the mid-1940s.

Plus, there’s video of a Dec. 20, 2017, “Eric’s Heroes” story from KOMO-TV, courtesy archivist Joe Wren, covering the Frederick & Nelson Santa-photo story.

In addition, here’s a column from four years ago about Seattle’s 1968-1976 giant Westlake Santa.

And from my column partner Clay Eals, scroll down further to see several more Santa-related extras!

Santa-related extras from Clay

By Clay Eals

First is a charming take-off on a classic holiday poem, “T’was the Plight Before Christmas,” by West Seattleite Sue Barry. It makes for a delightful, read-aloud piece, perhaps best-timed for Christmas Eve. You might call it a union tale, but the message goes much further. To download it, just click the Santa-hat image here:

Next is a repeat from five years ago from this blog — but actually from 40 years ago when it first was published!

I offer this “Black Santa” story of mine that appeared Christmas Day 1985 on the front page of the West Seattle Herald, for which I served as editor. The fine photos were by Herald photographer Brad Garrison. This is posted with the permission of Robinson Newspapers.

I have tried searching online for Tracy Bennett, the subject of this story, who would be 62 today. Alas, I have turned up nothing.

Still, this story about Tracy and his view on the Santa milieu remains timely, powerful and inspiring — at least, that’s my hope.

At the time I wrote it, the story resonated quite personally, From 1985 to 1993, I volunteered more than 100 times to play Santa for children and adults at parties and in schools, community halls and private homes throughout Puget Sound as part of the American Heart Association’s “Santa with a Heart” fundraising program. As any Santa will tell you, it was a uniquely heartwarming and unforgettable experience. (See clippings at bottom.)

Please click any of the images once or twice to enlarge them for easy reading. And if you want to read the transcribed Black Santa text instead of reading directly from the images, scroll down.

Merry merry, and ho, ho, ho!

West Seattle Herald, Dec. 25, 1985

‘Just for you’

Black Santa relishes children’s happiness

Santa Claus, known as Tracy Bennett in the “off”-season, walks into a class of busy fifth- and sixth-graders at Hughes Elementary School in West Seattle.

“Hi, boys and girls,” says Santa.

“Oh, hi Santa Claus!” the students respond, almost in unison.

“Howya doin’?”

“Fine.”

“That’s good. I thought I’d drop in and visit you for a minute.”

“Yeah,” say a couple of students. “You changed colors.”

“Yeah,” answers Santa, “I sure did, didn’t I?”

By CLAY EALS

When most of those who are opening packages under the Christmas tree this morning think about “the man with all the toys,” their vision probably doesn’t look like Tracy Bennett.

That’s because Bennett is Black, while nearly all of the Santas in the world — at least in the United States — seem to be as white as the North Pole’s year-round snow.

Bennett isn’t bothered, however. He keeps an upbeat, optimistic attitude about the seasonal craft he’s practiced for the past 12 years. He says he’s encountered subtle prejudice from adults and skepticism from kids, but he boasts of being able to win over most of the doubters.

Exposure is what Bennett says he needs most. And so do the other Black Santas in America, he says.

Bennett got some of the exposure he desired last week when he walked the halls of both Hughes and Van Asselt elementary schools, the latter of which is attended by some students who live in southern West Seattle and the city side of White Center.

He roamed the halls at Hughes and, with the assistance of teacher Willa Williams, peeked into classrooms and dropped off sacks of candy canes, occasionally stopping for a few minutes to talk to kids on his lap. Bearing a staccato, smile-inducing “ho, ho, ho,” he almost resembled a politician, repeatedly extending his hand for a shake and greeting children with a steady stream of “Howyadoin’? … Howyadoin’, guy? … Hiya guys. Workin’ hard?”

The racially mixed classes responded in a generally positive way. Although one sixth-grader was heard to say, “I thought Santa Claus was white, because I saw a white Santa Claus at The Bon,” for the most part any negative comments centered on whether he was “real,” not on his skin color.

“He’s nice, but his hair’s made out of cotton. Weird,” said fourth-grader Jessica Canfield. “And he has clothes under his other clothes.”

“He’s fine, and I like him,” said fellow fourth-grader Johnny Cassanova. “He said that he would visit me, and he would try to get everything that I want for Christmas and to get good grades.”

Was he the “real” Santa? “Yeah,” said Johnny, “to me he is.”

“It went real good,” Bennett said afterward. “They were very polite. They weren’t skeptical. Mostly loving, you can tell.”

Bennett, who at 22 is unemployed and intends to go to school so that he can get a job either as a police officer or working with handicapped kids, began his Santa “career” at the young age of 10. “I started as a little dwarf and moved my way up,” the Rainier Valley resident said with a laugh.

Over the years, Bennett said, he’s been Santa at private gatherings and community centers in Seattle’s south end, and he’s pieced together a costume he thinks is unimposing. The key part, he said, is his beard, which is a rather flat affair.

“The big Santa Claus beards and hairs are so flocky, so thick, that it scares some children,” Bennett said. “His color of his suit and his beard is so bright already, along with the brightness of his face.

“A Black Santa Claus with a white beard seems to bring out an older look, and the color of my skin makes it look like a normal Black man wearing a suit.”

Consequently, he said, kids warm up to him rather quickly. “Apparently I work out pretty good,” he said.

Children, both white and minority, raise the racial question fairly often, Bennett said. They usually just say, “Santa Claus is white,” expecting a response, he said.

“But I really don’t say nothing. I just look at ’em and smile, or I say ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ and they usually don’t ask anymore,” he said. “I’m used to it, so it’s no problem.”

Bennett does look forward to a day when more Black Santas are around to break the racial ice at Christmastime.

“I’m not the only one, but I never see ’em in stores,” he said. If just one major downtown store would feature a Black Santa, “that would mean the 12 years that I’ve been working on it has started to come through,” he said. “It would be a breakthrough. I want it to happen.”

He also would like to see children exposed to Santas of a variety of races. “If we bring the children Black Santa Clauses, Korean Santa Clauses, Japanese Santa Clauses, the kids will like it after a while,” he said.

For that to happen, however, some prejudices will have to be broken down gradually. “You can feel it’s there,” he said. “You try to believe it’s not there, but you can see it in people’s eyes.”

Like any Santa Claus, Bennett finds it a “thrill” to portray Saint Nick to children. “When kids are happy, I’m happy. When they’re sad, I feel for ’em. I’d like to give ’em more than I can.”

He insists, however, that it’s important not to insist that he’s the “real” Santa when kids challenge him. He tells children, “You don’t have to believe in me. But I’m doing this just for you.”

“Why ruin a kid’s mind and say, ‘I’m real, believe me’?” he said. “He (Santa) is a beautiful man, OK? No one can take that away from him. But we have to tell what’s real from not. We have to tell our kids we play Santa Claus because we love children.”

Bennett also said it’s important not to push the religious aspects of Christmas as Santa. “When we talk about religion, we have to let kids do what they want, do not force them.”

Williams, the teacher, took the same approach in deciding to invite Bennett, a friend of hers, to visit Hughes. While Christmas “is a fun time and should be a time for joy,” she said she’s well aware of the Seattle School District’s policy that’s intended to separate religion from school activity.

Bringing Santa to the classroom — and a Black Santa at that — was an attempt to get students to “understand each other’s differences,” she said.

“When I told them Santa Claus might visit, one student told me, ‘I don’t believe in Santa Claus.’ Another said, ‘Santa Claus is my mom and dad,’ and another said, ‘Santa Claus is Jesus’,” Williams said. “It was just the idea of general thought and letting them express themselves and learning to accept each and every person and their differences as long as there isn’t any harm.”

For Bennett, the delight of being Santa is that “guy is just a giving person, you know?

“He gives away things to make people happy. If a child’s sick in bed, he sees Santa Claus, he’s going to try to smile as much as he can because he’s happy. When they say, ‘Santa Claus, you didn’t give me so-and-so,’ I say, ‘Well, maybe next year, OK?’

“I don’t tell them I’m going to get this (particular item) for them and get their hopes up. I tell them that maybe somebody will get it for them very soon.

“One guy said he wanted to go to college, and I said, ‘Maybe next Christmas or a few Christmases from now, you’ll be going to college and be saying you got your wish.’ ”

Bennett clearly is hooked on his annual role: “As long as I live and as long as I stay healthy, I’ll always be Santa Claus.”

P.S. Clay as Santa

As promised above, here are tidbits from my eight-year volunteer Santa Claus “career” for the American Heart Association: two clippings in which I demonstrate for other Santas the best way to don the uniform, plus a sketch I created to provide step-by-step guidance. Click once or twice on the images to enlarge them. —Clay

A bonus:

Just for fun and to keep with the theme, I also am including a Santa article I wrote that appeared on Christmas Eve 1980 in The Oregonian near the end of my eight-year stint as a reporter and photographer for that newspaper. Again, click once or twice on the image to enlarge it for easy readability. Enjoy! —Clay

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Dec. 4, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Dec. 7, 2025

Rollin’ on the river: 1975 Red Barn move launched flight museum

By Clay Eals

To soar, sometimes you’ve first gotta float.

The 22.5-acre Museum of Flight near Boeing Field south of Seattle is no secret. The world’s largest independent, nonprofit aerospace museum — home to 175 aircraft and spacecraft, thousands of artifacts, millions of photos and dozens of exhibits — is bedrock here. But few know of the spectacle that set its course.

Fifty years ago, on a foggy Tuesday, Dec. 16, 1975, a battered, two-story, 1909 building eased off Port of Seattle property along the Duwamish River in West Seattle. Once a boat shop and Boeing’s original airplane factory, the edifice had been long abandoned. That day, its 150-by-65-foot frame, weighing 325 tons, began a two-mile barge journey upriver, arriving at the Duwamish’s east bank. The next day, it rolled across East Marginal Way to its eventual home base.

Bright red, with distinctive white lettering, the building was Seattle’s beloved Red Barn.

On the eve of the nation’s bicentennial, the move became what the first executive director, Howard Lovering, calls the museum’s “fulcrum” — the pivotal moment turning civic nostalgia into collective action.

The move, following the shortest route from points A to B, was a nail-biter. “The industrial canal was a wonderful way to do it,” says Lovering, 88, “but it wasn’t easy. The structure was in such bad shape that it was going to fall apart if you tried to move it. It had to be secured.”

The bigger challenge was an electricians’ strike. “We had to cross East Marginal Way, and the high-tension wires there carried an awful lot of power,” Lovering says. “Facilities people said we needed a three- to four-foot rise, and there was no crew to do it. They said, ‘If you cross the street, this wood structure with its wrought-iron fire exits, you’d have the world’s largest toaster.’

“It scared the heck out of all of us. I ended up in the union hall saying, ‘Is there some way we can get those raised?’ They cared enough about this building to say, ‘No, we can’t do that, but we know a non-union firm that might.’ And those wires were raised just adequately for us to pass under. When we got across, everybody breathed a sigh of relief, and we headed for the taverns.”

And the museum’s new home began to soar.

A 1976 open house drew 20,000. The restored Red Barn opened in 1983. Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush headlined the 1987 opening of the next-door Great Gallery. Today, the much-expanded museum lures a half-million visitors and serves 140,000 students each year.

Lovering still marvels: “I’m not sure all of that would have happened without the move.”

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Ted Huetter, Alison Bailey, Peder Nelson, Cody Othoudt, Jeff McCord and especially Howard Lovering 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 while hearing this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below, you will find a video of the 1975 Red Barn move, a present-day video interview of Howard Lovering, 7 additional photos and 9 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

See this 2020 article on Howard Lovering at MarketingNW and listen to Lovering being interviewed earlier this fall by Feliks Banel on Cascade of History.

 

(click to enlarge photos)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Nov. 27, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Nov. 30, 2025

Seattle’s Chinese Baptist Church has fostered community for more than 100 years

By Jean Sherrard

It was Friday, June 13, 1952. Fifteen 4- and 5-year-olds gathered for a graduation ceremony at Seattle’s Chinese Baptist Church nursery school, dressed in pint-sized mortarboards and black gowns. The school’s supervisor, Mrs. Harry Ruehlen, handed diplomas to each graduate.

Among them was Betty Lau, who still remembers the

musty basement classroom, the smell of chalk dust and the comfort of belonging.

Seven decades later, Lau stands before the same brick façade, joined by several former classmates. They reminisce about games, songs and afternoon naps, recalling how the church provided a place of warmth and community in post-war Seattle.

Founded in 1892, the Chinese Baptist Church served generations of families who made their homes and livelihoods in the surrounding neighborhood. Originally an outreach mission of Seattle First Baptist Church, it combined prayer services with English lessons for Chinese immigrants.

With no permanent home, early congregants first gathered in private homes and leased halls in old Chinatown. In 1902, they built a modest structure at Maynard Avenue South and South Washington Street. Two decades later, in 1922, the growing congregation purchased property at 10th Avenue South and South King Street.

By the early 1950s, Chinese Baptist served as a

spiritual center and anchor for young children whose parents worked long hours nearby. Its nursery school offered early education, socialization and — perhaps most important — a sense of place and welcome.

Lau recalls her teachers’ patient voices, one in English and one in Chinese, and the joy of receiving her diploma, which she kept for years. “I was very shy in public, but nursery school felt normal, like being in a bigger family,” she says with a smile. “I didn’t know the word ‘community’ yet, but that’s what it was.”

In the decades since, the church building has changed hands, and the neighborhood around it has evolved. Yet for Lau and her classmates, returning to that spot rekindles vivid memories of friendship, faith and beginnings.

Retired after 41 years as a secondary-school teacher, Lau sees clear lines between that early experience and her lifelong devotion to education and youth activities.

“Understanding where we come from,” she says, “gives students confidence and connection. Those who feel seen and supported thrive and carry that forward.”

The basement classroom may be long gone, but its lessons endure. Each reminiscence shared among Lau and her classmates summons cherished childhood scenes of caps and gowns — and parental pride — from a June day more than 70 years ago, when the future felt as bright as a diploma freshly handed to a 5-year-old.

WEB EXTRAS

For our narrated 360 degree video of this column, click through here.

Just to make trouble, I’m appending the initial draft of the column I submitted to The Times. In a Now & Then first, our editors summarily rejected it. It took a complete rewrite to ease it into print. 

Here’s the original version that was, said the Times, not ready for prime time:

Chinatown longtimers shun ‘international’ label: ‘We are Americans’

It was Friday, June 13, 1952. Fifteen 4 and 5-year-olds gathered for a graduation ceremony at Seattle’s Chinese Baptist Church nursery school, dressed in tiny mortarboards and black gowns. The school’s supervisor, Mrs. Harry Ruehlen, handed diplomas to each graduate.

Among them was Betty Lau, who still remembers the musty basement classroom, the smell of chalk dust and the thrill of belonging.

Seven decades later, Lau stands at that same brick façade, surrounded by former classmates and recalling with a smile how the church offered sanctuary in a city that had long drawn invisible lines denoting where Chinese families could and couldn’t live. Those borders, she says, still define a struggle for identity in Seattle’s Chinatown.

It was a pattern etched long before her time.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 made Chinese immigrants the first group in U.S. history barred by race and nationality. In Seattle, exclusion persisted through property covenants, housing codes and loan denials that confined Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Black residents to a few downtown blocks.

Redlining maps from the 1930s shaded Chinatown bright pink — “hazardous”— a warning to banks not to invest.

This was coupled by what was labeled progress.

In 1928, the street called the Second Avenue Extension sliced through the second Chinatown, forcing re-location to King Street. The Interstate 5 corridor carved away another section in the 1960s. Construction of the Kingdome in the 1970s further impacted the neighborhood.

Each project promised renewal. Each time, Chinatown’s footprint shrank.

In 1951, a year before Lau’s nursery-school graduation, Mayor William Devin renamed Chinatown by proclamation, calling it the International Center. For the Chinese community, it felt like erasure.

Restaurateur Ruby Chow, who became the first Asian American elected to the King County Council — and become Lau’s mentor — bristled. The city of Seattle, she believed, had created a “reservation.”

“International,” son Brien Chow argues, implies Asian Americans are perpetual outsiders when they are Americans.

The linguistic sleight-of-hand eventually became civic policy, morphing into “International District,” then, as mandated by a 1999 city ordinance, “Chinatown International District” – the collective name of Chinatown, Japantown and Little Saigon.

Retired after 41 years as a secondary-school teacher, Lau says identity is essential to belonging.

“Understanding place and heritage,” she says, “gives students pride and connection. Those who are secure in their self-identity thrive and strengthen community.”

As former classmates gather with her at the church’s entrance, Lau eyes the neighborhood that raised them. Whatever any signs may read, for her it always will remain Chinatown.

So what do you think, gentle readers, on this rainy Thanksgiving? Interested to hear your opinions…

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Nov. 20, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Nov. 23, 2025

‘No way’ to keep couple from UW stadium’s new roof in 1950

By Clay Eals

At age 19, many of us dream of rising above it all. In 1950, Nancy Knox did just that — literally — by climbing onto the brand-new southern roof of University of Washington Stadium.

This was no sanctioned visit. Nor was it entirely safe. Newspapers had reported two weeks earlier that a steelworker had fallen from the cantilevered construction site to his death.

But for Nancy, a Roosevelt High graduate and incoming freshman who aimed for a job in teaching or librarianship, it was merely a sneaky transgression with her new boyfriend and future husband Charley Lennstrom.

“There was no way I should have been up on the roof,” the 94-year-old Normandy Park resident says, “but there was no way to stop us. When stuff is under construction, sometimes they don’t have all the barriers in place. So it wasn’t hard to get up. There were stairs that took you to the upper level of the ceiling, right? And then we were on the back side, outside of it, and went on up.”

Proof lies in 11 black-and-white snapshots taken by the pair with Charley’s camera during a late-summer caper just 12 days before the expanded stadium opened Sept. 23, 1950, for UW Husky football.

The images show the pair in various rooftop spots, along with impressive vistas. Long before drones and Google Earth, the soaring, 210-foot-tall roof — atop a distinctive zigzag grandstand and twin spiral walkways — provided glimpses never before seen from that vantage because until then, the 30-year-old stadium had resembled a flattened bowl.

Long known as Husky Stadium, the gridiron shrine in 1987 gained a twin north grandstand that famously collapsed during construction when support cables were prematurely removed. Repairs were completed in time for fall ball.

From Nancy’s and Charley’s trespass in 1950 grew a shared lifetime, which began at her family’s U District rooming house. The quieter Charley was a UW engineering student who later worked for Boeing. Outgoing Nancy, after they had four children, finished her degree in 1974 and worked at the Highline Community College library.

Over the years, they followed the Huskies, even attending the Rose Bowl in 1964. Charley died in 2007. Today, Nancy fondly recalls their rooftop rendezvous.

“It was an afternoon adventure, and there’s always the call to look at the view,” she says. “You could see all around to the north part of Lake Washington, around to the east and quite a bit to the south, the Montlake Bridge, all this stuff from above. You know how kids are. They like to explore. And it was our university.”

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Kathleen Lennstrom Bogue, Diane Lennstrom and especially Nancy Knox Lennstrom, as well as UW information officers Victor Balta, Dan Erickson, Kurt Svoboda Chip Lydum and Jeff Bechthold 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 will find 4 additional photos and 10 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

Also, click here to download the 2010 Seattle nomination report for Husky Stadium.

 

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Published in The Seattle Times online on Nov. 13, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Nov. 16, 2025

Expresso insight 50 years ago still inspires Cafe Allegro

By Jean Sherrard

Blink and you might miss it. Nestled in a University District alley just off The Ave, Café Allegro is an unassuming temple to coffee — and community.

For the past 50 years, its caffeinated regulars, many from the UW campus one block east, have gathered to study, create, reflect and converse in a locale that seeded ideas and conventions that forever transformed how the world sees and drinks coffee.

The café’s first owner, Dave Olsen, had no grand ambitions when he first opened its doors. After serving as an Army air-defense officer in Seattle, followed by two years as a carpenter, he rode his bicycle to San Francisco in search of direction.

North Beach’s legendary Caffè Trieste, often cited as

the first espresso coffeehouse on the West Coast, offered a roadmap.

“I was completely smitten,” he says, “by the taste and aroma of coffee, the whole vibe of a café.”

Olsen returned to Seattle in pursuit of a dream. In December 1974, he signed the lease for an improbable location — the alley garage of a former U-District mortuary — and, with $17,000 in cash and buckets of sweat equity, he opened Café Allegro in May 1975. He had assembled all the essentials: an Italian espresso machine, fresh-roasted beans, recipes and techniques.

Then the first customer strolled in.

“He walks up to the counter and orders a cappuccino,” Olsen says. “I did the best I could, slid it across the counter, and took his money.”

They made eye contact, and Olsen had a lightbulb moment.

“I suddenly realized it’s all about connecting with people and taking care of them,” he says. “That has served me ever since.”

After 11 years at Allegro, Olsen accepted a job under a

rising young executive at Starbucks named Howard Schultz.

“We really hit it off,” Olsen says. “Howard was the creative force with business acumen and ambition. I was sleeves-rolled-up behind the counter, roasting coffee and training people.”

Schultz bought Starbucks’ original six Seattle storefronts and within a decade expanded to more than 1,000 shops. Olsen served as the chain’s first green-coffee buyer, scouring the world in search of beans.

In 1990, Olsen sold Café Allegro to then-managers Nathaniel Jackson and Chris Peterson, who continue the traditions Olsen established. Peterson juggles his day job as a lawyer with managing

the café and takes pride in roasting Allegro’s signature coffees.

“Our focus has always been the coffee and the community,” Peterson says. “We encourage people to hang out all day — to socialize and connect. And we’ve always been that way.”

WEB EXTRAS

For our narrated 360-degree video featuring the Allegro and environs, click here.

Also, check out a video of Clay Eals’ Steve Goodman biography event held in the cafe’s upstairs room on Oct. 3, 2008. Clay’s book, Steve Goodman: Facing the Music, is now in its updated 6th printing!

Finally, a selection of photos from photographer Bill Kuhns, who’s documented Allegro life and times for decades.

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

 In new ‘secret’ book, dancing maidens sweeten Tacoma’s stature

By Clay Eals

Modeled on Grecian nymphs, two French-cast statues of dancing maidens have welcomed visitors at downtown Tacoma’s showcase Wright Park for an astounding 133 years.

Their pale patina glows against the rich green of the 27-acre park’s abundant woods. Yet the maidens also hide, says Chris Staudinger, within the persistent persona of a city of 228,000 that’s shadowed by its Space Needled northern neighbor.

Tacoma, dubbed the City of Destiny when it was named the Northern Pacific Railroad’s western terminus in 1873, is “close to my heart,” says the 40-year-old ex-journalist. In the past nine years, Staudinger’s guided-tour business, Pretty Gritty Tours, has grown to 26 employees who mount a busy slate of excursions around the state, especially in Tacoma.

“It is such an incredibly important and historically rich city that gets passed over by a modern lens all the time,” he says. “There’s so many firsts or huge achievements that took place here. But the City of Destiny is still better known as the ‘Tacoma aroma.’ And I aim to fix that.”

In his 190-page book, “Secret Tacoma: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure” (2025, Reedy Press), Staudinger transforms the odiferous paper-mill/smelter reputation into a fragrant, fun collection of 94 unique, quirky spots that anyone would want to visit or revisit.

Notably, they include Tacoma’s oldest existing building, the 1873 Old St. Peter’s Church, which still operates in the city’s Old Town, and, not far away, the 1907 Engine House No. 9, now a pub.

Back at Wright Park, the maiden statues, like many of Staudinger’s entries, bear a colorful backstory. They arrived with Clinton P. Ferry (1830-1909), a booster known as the “Duke of Tacoma.” Ferry acquired them and other pieces, intending them for a new marital home, during a late-1880s European trip with his second wife.

One day on that trip, as recounted in Murray Morgan’s Tacoma-centered tome “Puget’s Sound,” Ferry returned early to their Parisian suite and caught his wife and her French tutor in flagrante delicto. Heartbroken, Ferry ended the marriage and gave his collected art to the city of Tacoma.

Over the years, the sculptures acquired nicknames — “Annie” (for her Annie Wright Seminary, now Schools, and for the wife of park donor Charles Wright) and “Fannie” (for nearby Fannie C. Paddock Memorial Hospital, now Tacoma General Hospital) — as well as a few bruises. Fannie’s right hand once reached her chin but now crosses her midsection. And today her right foot is missing.

Each mini-chapter in “Secret Tacoma” ends with a “Pro Tip.” The one for the maidens is “Be good to your loved ones.”

Short and, yes, sweet.

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Boo Billstein and Chris Staudinger 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 will find a video interview, 2 documents, 4 additional photos and 5 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

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Published in The Seattle Times online on Oct. 23, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Oct. 26, 2025

‘Secret Sauce’ saves island’s special gathering place, the Nordland General Store

By Jean Sherrard

Just east of Port Townsend, Marrowstone Island — so dubbed by Capt. George Vancouver on May 8, 1792, the same day he affixed “Mount Rainier” to a conical volcano southeast — harbors a bucolic sanctuary.

With a population of just under 1,000 that swells with vacationers each summer, the island’s unincorporated town of Nordland was founded by Norwegian immigrant Peter Nordby (1862-1919) who bought and platted its 187 acres in 1892.

Four years later, in 1896, Congress approved construction of Fort Flagler, a U.S. Army coastal artillery post at the island’s north end.

For more than a century, the Nordland General Store, built circa 1922, has stood at the island’s heart, selling groceries and supplies to locals and visitors alike.

Early records also illustrate a flip side to the business — its centrality to the community as a gathering place. The annual Strawberry Festival, first held a century ago, continues to draw celebrants peninsula-wide.

In recent decades, a lively Tractor Days parade has drawn farmers and lawn jockeys, rumbling their heavy machinery past the store every Memorial Day weekend. Other festivities include a pumpkin-weight guessing contest held before Halloween, a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in which Santa arrives by boat, and a Polar Bear Dip at noon on New Year’s Day.

In the early hours of Nov. 5, 2020, the store was sustained major damage from an electrical fire. The building was declared a total loss. “A little piece of

Marrowstone Island died when the Nordland Store was destroyed by fire,” reported the Peninsula Daily News.

Then-owners Tom and Sue Rose, nearing retirement, made the painful decision to put the business on hold. Townsfolk were unnerved, faced with the prospect of losing the island’s soul.

Longtime Marrowstoner Barcy Fisher and a more recent arrival, Patti Buckland, friends for more than 30

years, collaborated on an audacious business plan. To save this touchstone, why not convert the store to community ownership?

Cue huzzahs and applause. Inspired investors stepped up with nearly $400,000. 592 neighbors and friends chipped in $250 each for lifetime memberships to the co-op. What’s more, dozens of volunteers stepped up to help rebuild. Within 10 months, on May 25, 2024, the Nordland General Store staged its grand reopening. Rain notwithstanding, Buckland says, the event was attended by hundreds of exuberant neighbors.

“At the end of the day,” she says, “what we’re all about is serving our community. It’s not just about groceries. It’s about connection. That’s our secret sauce.”