Paul Byron Crane - Landscape Architect, Activist, Allied Arts Board
Today, I am talking with Paul Byron Crane about the history of the Rainier Valley. I-90 Tunnel portion of the Central Area. What would you call your neighborhood?
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| Paul Byron Crane. Photo: Madeline Crowley |
Well,
it’s affectionately known as “Garlic Gulch” (Rainier Valley roughly from south
of Jackson down Rainier Ave & west Mount Baker). It was a large, primarily Italian community with
wine presses in the houses. The Napolis, the Furfaros, they still live across
the street. (Former Governor) Rosellini grew up right up the street on Nineteenth Ave.
The
neighborhood also had a lot of Irish and Polish immigrants as well. Saint Mary’s is where the Irish boys would go also the Polish community went to that Church.
The Italians largely went to Our Lady of Mount Virgin in the Mount Baker (neighborhood)
facing west. That’s where the good Italian Catholics went. They wouldn't let
their daughters go to the CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) dances at Saint
Mary’s because the Irish boys were there.
My neighbor down the
street, Vince Furfaro, has some great pictures. He is 82 years old. He remembers
when it was farms where I-90 is now. People had livestock and big Italian farms.
The Desimone’s grew (produce) there, as did other Italian families. They trucked
their produce to the (Pike Place) market (video of the Desimone stand and other interesting info) We’re
talking a time prior to the Jose Rizal Bridge being built, before
electrification (the availability of electricity) in the area.
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| Paul Byron Crane, baby picture. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
So,
anyway moving onto the later political scene in the area. The best example
would be, well, it’s now called Jackson Place Community Council. It is sort of
a newcomer. When I when moved here,
it was called the Judkins Rejected Community Council. There’s a great history on that if you want to hear it.
it was called the Judkins Rejected Community Council. There’s a great history on that if you want to hear it.
Okay. First, can you give me some context? You
mentioned to me that you moved here
in 1975.
in 1975.
We
raised three kids in this house.
We
moved to Seattle in 1975. We bought the house and we closed on Pearl Harbor Day.
We moved in February of 1979. We
bought it for the price of a used Volvo.
It
had been abandoned for 15 years. The (former) owner was a displaced Polish
citizen who raised his family here. I put down a nice, large down payment that he
used to go back to Poland for the first time since the war (WWII).
Anyway,
we moved here in 1979. I was a young student at the U (University of Washington) going to landscape architecture school and taking urban design
projects and studio classes. Our neighbor down the street, Vince Furfaro,
talked me into going to a community council meeting, the Judkins Rejected Community
Council meeting. I was looking for an urban design studio project to do, and by
God, they sucked me in. Within two years, I was president of the Judkins Rejected Community Council.
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| Paul Byron Crane, baby picture. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
Do
you want to hear the history of why it’s called Judkins Rejected Community Council? I
think you might want to. It used to be called the Atlantic Street Association.
There was a guy by the name of Hilra Preston who was the father of the founder of CAYA (the Central Area Youth Association).
Now as you may know, the RH Thomson Freeway (more info re: 520 history) was
scheduled to go along Twenty-third Avenue (actually Martin Luther King
Avenue, then Empire Way). That was one planning blight for this area. And the
other was I-90 cutting through this neighborhood.
There
were several different configurations of I-90 they wanted to build: one on the
eastside; one on the westside. There also was a suggestion of a humongous one
that was going to take up both sides of the I-90 corridor (and Garlic Gulch).
All
that development blight was planned while we were living here. You have to
remember that back then this area was like living in the country. We had no
houses around us. It was empty. We had this beautiful house perched on the hill
looking west over the Olympic Mountains and downtown.
Anyway.
Hilra Preston was in charge of the Atlantic Street Association, a community
group. At that time, Seattle (government) did not recognize community councils
in the Central Area. They only went to the black churches (for community input). They considered the black Reverends the only community leaders. Whereas
other areas of Seattle they also met with community groups. That’s a racist legacy
in the city.
So
other areas of town had community associations, community councils (to represent
their interests) while the Central Area did not, then. When the RH Thomson
Freeway was in the planning stage all this (federal highway and developer) money
came into this area. And the city applied for and wanted that money.
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| Paul Byron Crane, picture from his youth. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
There
was a program called Forward Thrust (more on that program) that tore down what was a beautiful old business
district at 23rd and Jackson similar to what is in Ballard and Columbia City.
It was all beautiful brick buildings where they had bakeries and small retail. It
was just a beautiful little business district. These under urban renewal programs
promised to rebuild it. Then Forward Thrust acquired all this Federal money to
rebuild when Wes Uhlman was Mayor and Paul Schell (later mayor too) who was the
Head of the Department of Community Development at the time. After they had the
money to rebuild 23rd and Jackson and this area (Garlic Gulch) of the Central
Area what they did instead was move that money into rebuilding Leschi, Madrona,
and Mount Baker. Their reasoning was that the RH Thompson Freeway, which at
that point was nearly at its final gasping end, might still be built.
And
so, they used this area and the fact it had a minority population to get money for
development – (and then use that to) benefit wealthy folks (living) at the
lake. Hilra Preston and I realized, well, I wasn’t a part of this, this is as
related to me. Anyway, Hilra Preston was really, really upset (about the moving of the money
meant for the primary business district Central Area to wealthier parts of that
area). So he called a press conference.
The
story goes that a fellow who was working for the Office of Management and
Budget at the time, Jackie Rab, remembered Wes Uhlman walking into the Mayor’s
office with a couple of little white pieces of paper on his chin where he cut
himself shaving. He walked into his office and slammed the door. Apparently, Uhlman
was shaving in the shower and heard this press conference on the radio. He was
angry that people in this area of town and their community organization had
gotten some time at this press conference. At the conference Hilra said, we
have been rejected (from getting the monies allocated for our community and
from having a voice) so we are now the Judkins Rejected Task Force Community
Council. Hence, the rejected name.
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| Paul Byron Crane, recently. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
Later
we changed our name, the community decided in 1995 to change it to
the Judkins Park Community Council because we didn’t feel rejected anymore.
They were giving us money. Things were being built. Things were happening. So,
as a result, they changed the name. I remember Margaret Pageler and other City Council
people coming up and saying, “Paul, you guys should have never changed your
name. Keep the rejected there. You got your ‘in’ there. Keep the Rejected name.”
So, that’s
the history of the name.
It’s interesting, too, to learn how this area has been used as a pawn.
I have seen pictures of the old buildings on 23rd and Jackson in a Jewish history
booklet. I wondered how all those pretty little buildings were taken down. So
they just got mowed down and were replaced with big boxes and parking lots.
Well,
some of it, yes. It’s interesting. Jimmy Sumler owned Promenade 23. The city was trying to wrestle that from them. The Central Area had the largest per capita African
American home ownership of to any city in the United States. It was a very,
very wealthy, sort of, black enclave here. These were middle class blacks and
upper class blacks. This is because a lot of people had good jobs on the
railroad. Seattle was the terminus. The NAAM has all
that history. It (the black middle and upper class) just kept getting chipped
away and chipped away.
The
Promenade 23 development was the first of its kind (in this area). People were
dying to have that. There was no place here to buy a pair of socks because
of urban renewal (removed all the stores). There still isn’t.
Another
thing. I was told by a City Planner when we first bought the house in 1979.
“Paul, in five years you’re not going to recognize the area. You’re gonna have
stores, you’re gonna have retail offices, this whole place is going to be
renovated.”
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| Paul Byron Crane, recent picture. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
We’re looking at 2014 (the time of this interview), and
we’re still looking for more development in the area particularly 23rd and
Union, 23rd and Jackson. There’s planning studies and going on right
now but it hasn’t happened yet. Not to make this neighborhood equal to other
neighborhoods in the city. (Since this
interview Vulcan has revealed its plans: http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2016/05/vulcan-eyes-tax-breaks-to-include-affordable-housing-at-23rd-and-jackson/
)
Why does that persist?
I
would say it’s planning blight. You have a lot of nonprofits that wanted an area
that can be used as a permanent place for low-income, subsidized rental housing.
It is an
area that as it, as people term it, gentrifies, people are priced out.
The
thing is what they didn’t get is, people aren’t being priced out. They own
their houses here.
During
the decades I was President of the Judkins Rejected that’s when everybody was
wanting economic development.
Now,
there’s more to this. I chaired the I-90 Advisory Development Committee so I
can get to the point of the development and the big boxes (large retail chain
stores). When I-90 was finally agreed upon, I would have to give kudos to
Mayor Royer, who made them put up a lid. That was going to be a big V open
space with 16-18 lanes of freeway traffic (going through the ridge).
For those who don’t know, the freeway lid is in Mt. Baker.
The
I-90 lid (was built) instead of cutting a big swathe through the Mt. Baker
Ridge. If you look at the Jose Rizal Bridge you can see they cut a notch
from the hill back in the early 1900s. With I-90, they tunneled through the
ridge of Mt. Baker and built a tunnel, for I-90 with a concrete lid over the
top for a park.
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| Seattle Municipal Archives. Dearborn Ave, Jose Rizal Bridge |
They
specifically made that lid thin enough so that you couldn’t put housing there, to
ensure it would be public open space.
That’s
what Mayor Royer brokered with the federal government and the state. They had
an EIS, Environmental Impact Statement that laid out specifically what the
agreement was to build that highway with Bellevue, Mercer Island, and Seattle.
On the Seattle side, they were going to build this lid, which they did do. They
were also going to restore the neighborhoods (affected by the I-90
construction). Part of that agreement was to form a committee to oversee the
restoration of 54 acres of housing to knit the communities all back together.
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| Paul Byron Crane, Judkins Park Spray Feature he designed and got built. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
I
was asked and was elected chair of that (committee) for a couple of terms, ten
years altogether. We were a tenacious group. I was the lightning
rod. What we did (in committee) was everybody’s idea, not my idea. But somehow when
you chair something, you become a lightning rod.
We
wrote the I-90 development policies that were adopted by the City Council, and are
still in effect. It’s been a long time. We oversaw these properties being developed.
We oversaw the developers, the RFPs (Request for Proposal), the RFQs (Request
for Quote) that went out. We also rezoned areas as well. We rezoned it as an up-zoned L2 and L3 for higher density (link shows examples). What we wanted to do in the policies, was first
bring in people with expendable income, people who were homeowners, and then to
look at more density: townhomes; low-rise duplexes; triplexes. Once we have
that in (the community) then let’s look for high density.
Let’s
go for it. Let’s go for the higher density. What we wanted was to build in a
layer of urban design of urban development. We wanted to build a
good basis for retail to want to come in, and that means, people with
expendable income.
I
was interviewed on the Compton Report with Earl Richardson and others about why
this is a big idea. Well, development was under a lot of pressure. The
Fremont Public Association, which is now Lehigh, did an end run around us to
get the property to build in high density, low income, subsidized rental
housing, similar to Cabrini Green (in Chicago). This was the old days of urban design, urban
planning. Also, the high end condo people wanted to come in and they wanted to
turn the place into what we now have in South Lake Union in a way. Then, there
were the wannabe developers that wanted to come in, to kinda filter in, to see
what they can grab to the side if they have friends in the City (government).
We were under a lot of pressure, and the City stonewalled us for a number of
years so we brought in HomeSight who provided money, first time homeowners
assistance for first time buyers. Then we went out and we found minority
contractors to build the houses. Mike McGinn did that as well, it was great.
The
success rate was high, 80% of the houses that were bought were bought by
minority homeowners for their first house. There was also the down payment
assistance, they would get financial help for the payment, and they wouldn’t
have to pay it back if they stayed in the house for more than 7 years. That was
a huge boon. And it happened. And it worked. And you can drive around the area
and see that there’s one over there, they’re all over this neighborhood.
I
think I sent you some information on a disc.
Yes.
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| Paul Byron Crane, Judkins Spray Feature. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
It
covers a bit about I-90’s turmoil, the clash of visions, rents, the decaying
neighborhood, as well as new sites, and everything.
Another
thing also happened during this whole deal of knitting the neighborhoods
together. Some people on the eastside of the Mt. Baker Ridge (the lake view
part of the neighborhood) wanted a freeway ramp. You see, the new I-90
configuration is a Department of Defense project. All the Interstate Highway
system is under the Department of Defense by Dwight Eisenhower. Dwight
Eisenhower started all of that. When they design a highway, they design it to
land fighter jets and commercial aircraft in the event of an emergency and the
clover leafs are designed to handle large military vehicles that they have,
tanks or whatever. I don’t know if you knew that…
I did not know that!
Going
through all of this, you learn a lot [laughs] also from going to school at the University
of Washington in architecture, landscape architecture.
A
lot of the well-heeled along the lake wanted their own access, they wanted
access right to their houses like they had (enjoyed). So because they wanted this,
the State offered to build it over the water. Then, of course they said no,
that would block our views; we don’t want that. They wanted it on the other
side of the tracks. They wanted to put the freeway ramp at 23rd and Judkins.
Right where I-90 passes 23rd. That would have taken out the entire south end of
Judkins Park. It would have run an arterial all the way up Thirty-first Ave.
Do you think that, “let’s create an arterial barricade,” was that deliberate?
Well,
at the time, I worked for a large airplane company which will go unmentioned. So,
I would show up at these meetings in a coat and tie. They never dreamed anyone
in this neighborhood (who) was a professional wearing a coat and tie… (would
not want to divide the neighborhood by socio-economics and race). They ignored
the fact that those doctors, lawyers, dentists, engineers, and highly paid,
blue collar professional workers lived in this neighborhood too. They just
didn’t know. So, I heard things mentioned, yes. And I heard things said, yes.
I’m definitely not going to mention any names, but…
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| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
No.
Yeah.
It was, you know… (intended).
It was deliberate?
It
was. Okay. So, anyway. So anyway. (For example) one woman who had a grocery
store here moved back to South Carolina because she didn’t like the polite
racism here. I mean, she wanted to move back to South Carolina, what? So,
anyway, it (active racism) does exist in Seattle.
Yes.
Everybody
knows it. But it’s polite. It’s kinda passive aggressive
Seattleite-type politeness. Like the north of ship canal vs. south of
the ship canal (largely white v mixed and minority) but, not to digress too
much.
Anyway,
those on the east part of the Mt. Baker neighborhood wanted to put a freeway
ramp in (dividing the neighborhood) and the State said no. The late Bill
Southern was our best friend on that. They thought they had it (sewn up) they
thought there was no voice (from the rest of the community). So, they were going
to have this meeting with WSDOT officials at Seattle U that they set up with
all the media. One person, a business owner from Leschi said, heads are gonna
roll if WSDOT comes up with a ‘no’ again for (our ramp on) 23rd. All the
cameras were whirring. They got up there and said, we need to have this happen
now. And half of the room broke out, “Booooo. Noooooo. Boooooooo.” And they
were turned (out).
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| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
John O’Brien, who is the longest serving state representative in the Guinness Bookof Records and a business owner who will go unmentioned, thought they had it in
the bag. They didn’t realize the entire Judkins Rejected Community Council, (part
of) Mt. Baker and community portions of Leschi and Atlantic Street were our
allies who came to that meeting and said no, they didn’t want it.
The
media wanted to interview us. Even King5 news reported on it as being a ‘no.’ Then
the next day this guy who had some clout had King5 change the newscast. It got
to be this big deal. They were interviewing people, and it just got to be this
huge media event over the next year or so. Then there was a report in the
Seattle PI (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) Gold…, what was his name? Goldsmith. He was a saint. The guy
was wonderful. [laughs]. He uncovered all this information
that a politician who was pushing for this had property would have benefited from
this ramp because he owned property that would have a higher level of service
going by it. That did it. God, everybody ran from it. The ramp didn’t happen,
and now we have basketball courts, bike courts, spray pools, dog run areas, we have a
wonderful, wonderful, park.
And a skateboard park, too.
Yes,
the skateboard park is right where it would have been directly underneath the
cloverleaf. And my spray pool there would have been gone, too.
All
of that would have been gone. And so the ramp didn’t happen. The longest
serving person in the history of the Guinness Book of Records for the State Legislature
was voted out of office immediately. He was up for election. And the other guy,
the business owner, thank God, didn’t get in the State Senate. So, that was it!
That was the freeway ramps battle.
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| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
What a great story.
And,
a lot of my professors loved it. They saved the clippings from all that.
It’s unusual to find people with knowledge who are also able to
spearhead an effort with the will and the persistence to see something through
over that amount of time.
Well,
I made a lot of enemies too.
Yes.
You
know, most of them are all gone or dead but there are a few out there,
especially with the rezoning.
When
our committee got the rezone, a lot of speculators were planning on trying to
get that property and build it up to benefit them. The committee made its
recommendation that the city followed, and so, that’s where a lot of those
houses came (from). We only did residential; we didn’t do commercial.
A lot of
those were Yesler and Atlantic (Street) properties,
a lot of
those have been kind of shifted around. They’re looking now at
redoing Promenade 23 completely. We have met with
Weingarten (in 2014) who now owns it (now owned by Vulcan Corp).
So,
right now there’s a lot of pressure on this area again because of its (central)
location. A lot of people have moved in and it’s really great. That was the
other thing. We were in the pizza dead zone. [laughs] Nobody would deliver here (to the Central Area).
Nobody.
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| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
Which is funny because it was originally an Italian neighborhood.
Yes,
it was. We had a beautiful Italian restaurant right where I-90 runs (now). It
had a hundred-foot long oak bar and booths with the names of every little village
and large city in Italy on there. Vince Furfaro when you, if you interview him
will tell you all about that.
I’d love to interview him.
So
anyway. We couldn’t get pizza here.
Now
we have Humble Pie, then we had nothing. The only place I found that would
deliver were a couple of Greeks that were operating out of Mercer Island, they
would come over here and deliver from Mercer Island.
Why wouldn’t anyone else deliver here?
Because
it was ‘that’ area of town.
Was it really dangerous or was it perceived as dangerous?
It
was perceived as being black and…
Therefore dangerous?
Yes.
I lived here. We never… well, this is on
the other side of 23rd. We never really had trouble here. The only trouble we
had with gangs was that they’d come over here to try and steal things and kick
down doors and take things. But we never had any problems like violence or drug dealing. No. I’m not going to say we don’t (have any
problems), not anything worse than any other part of town. We don’t have
dealing in the streets, no shootings or anything like that. No.
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| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
Was there any of that when you moved here in the 70s?
No,
my God, when we moved here it was like living in the country.
We had a
guy that used to fly an ultralight out of Judkins Park to his job over in the
summer, in Issaquah. He’d land at the airport that used to be there by the Mormon temple. That’s all gone, it’s now a business park.
This is
before they built I-90.
It
was like living in the country. We had a guy across the street who had a horse
for about 4 years in his backyard. It was an entirely different world.
What
happened (in the Central Area, Central District) was the Bloods and Crips discovered
sleepy little Central District here back in the late 80s and late
90s. They were gangs from Los Angeles.
Yes.
The
Bloods and the Crips; Gang History Seattle) and the Black Gangsters’ Disciples. They came up here
because it was new territory. They infected the Central District. The city
really at first did a lot under Mayor Rice. Mayor Rice was another savior.
Wonderful guy. And it was the Weed and Seed program. (Op-Ed on effects of Weed and Seed http://citylivingseattle.com/Content/News/Opinion/Article/THE-BOTTOM-LINE-Weed-and-Seed-s-aftereffects/22/207/89258); (Academic view of Weed & Seed: Academic view: http://ssa.uchicago.edu/landscaping-neo-liberalism-weed-and-seed-strategy)
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| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
So he did nothing?
Well,
he got hit in the face by Omari (Tahiri-Garrett), who I know. I know Omari
quite well.
I don’t know him well.
Omari’s
an interesting person. I don’t hang out with him, no, no no no. I know him, he
knows me; we get along.
He’s a very intelligent guy.
Yes,
he is. Incredibly, incredibly intelligent, but vilified. I know about his
background, he founded Africatown and his father founded the community Liberty Bank). Let’s leave that at that.
Fine.
Going back to what I was going to say with the Bloods and Crips was at that
time, the Central Area had a large middle class population.
And when
the police started not doing anything, containing the crime here in a
containment zone, they (the middle class) moved (out of the neighborhood).
Because you’re looking at a black middle class kid who might go to O’Dea (High School) or Bush (School) or Garfield (High) walking home from playing basketball or
walking home with his friends. He gets rousted by the police because they think
he’s a gang member. He walks a couple more blocks, and the gang members come up
and roust him up because they’re not in the gang. So their parents didn’t want
to raise him in a neighborhood like that where they'd be stereotyped.
Yes, Michelle Purnell-Hepburn, DeCharlene Williams
and Carver Gayton talked about that, that there was black flight, the middle class from this neighborhood.
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| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
Yeah.
Black flight. It was big. They moved, anywhere they wanted to move.
Was it simultaneous with the Jewish flight?
No.
Jewish flight was earlier. That was way before my time. I’m not an expert on
that.
That must have been in the early 60s.
That
was in the early 60s. A lot of that was Mercer Island when they cleaned it up,
when they cleaned up Lake Washington, a lot of people bought there and left the
Central Area. The Japanese, of course, they owned a lot of this area. They were taken and moved (incarcerated/internment). I think you saw the map I sent you
from the 30s.
Anyway,
there was a huge black flight out of the area at the time. It wasn’t because of
high prices and gentrification or white people moving in.
We
had African American neighbors. I served on (the Judkins Rejected Council), I was the
first white president of the Judkins Rejected Community Council.
We all got
along really well. This had nothing to do with race or education and economic
status; we all got along. Race didn’t matter.
Right. That’s a hidden secret of America. It’s often about class as
much as race.
Exactly.
Exactly. It’s a class structure thing. And an education thing.
So then at the same time the black middle class was moving, I
imagine the white middle class was also leaving.
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| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
Uh…
no? The black middle class had not really moved here (Garlic Gulch) that much.
There
were a few pioneers. You got to realize, we didn’t have the big, big problem
here. We had a larger white influx here.
There
was a period of time there that the Bloods and Crips took over, but as things
sort of settled down, and (Mayor) Rice got out and (Mayor) Nickels came in
after (Mayor) Schell, Nickels began to put more police involved in the issues here.
And,
then white people came in and bought houses and this area began to get uplifted again… You got
to look at the economic conditions change.
When did the, when did the Bloods and the Crips get driven out
roughly?
Well,
they’re still here. They have never really left and we still have a small gang
problem. Nickels tried to stay on top of it, and so did (Mayor) Mike McGinn. It’s
not as a bad as it was. Weed and Seed, took care of a lot.
They took a
lot of drug houses out. We haven’t
had any shootings in a long while, but there’s a couple of areas… they call them the
‘grandma’s houses.’ These are around Garfield (High). There’s one up
by 26th and Judkins, that area. That are kind of hotspots.
There are
two, maybe three hotspots.
That’s
where your main activity is coming from. Then with weed and seed, a lot of
people left, gangbangers left when there was a lot of pressure on them. They
come up from Federal Way. They come up from Kent where they’re living or Tacoma
and try to reclaim the area as their turf. So that’s it now. But it was really,
really bad for a long time in the Central Area.
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| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
Especially
during those years of the Schell administration Just, it was an ugly,
ugly place to live. And very, very unsafe. I’m talking primarily
from Jackson (Street) north to Union (Street) and from 20th to 27th, 28th Avenues, that area [around
MLK Avenue]. So, there's been a lot of people who’ve come in (there now) and bought.
And yes,
they’re Caucasians. And, you’re now beginning to see a few middle-class African Americans move
back into the area. Which is great. And mixed families.
So. We’ll
see. There’s still a lot of history to be written.
There is! The new arrivals I have seen include a lot of foreign
nationals, who work for technology companies.
Oh,
Somalis have moved in.
And Somalis.
I
just got done interviewing and looking at settlements in Stockholm on. I’ll
tell you about that. We are doing a presentation on that
(settlements) in Rosengard, Malmo Sweden. At a conference in
spring. It’s about settling political refugees in Sweden.
But
anyway going back to the neighborhoods, a lot of Somalis have come in and opened
up restaurants. It’s becoming now really a neat multicultural area.
I
don’t use the term gentrification because that, I mean, what's gentrification?
Because you don’t have shootings on the street anymore? I mean, it’s, it’s…
It’s like most things, it’s way more complicated than…
…far
more complicated than just a word.
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| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
Yes.
The
other thing is, I guess, one of my swan songs, or what I thought was gonna be
my swan song, but it isn’t. I’m still involved in stuff in the neighborhood…
Mainly, I’m
on the board of Allied Arts. Mainly. My whole focus for the last…
What do they do?
We
used to call it the Beer and Culture Society. It was started in the 1950s, we’re coming up
to our 60th anniversary. We led the Waterfront for All. I led a couple of
waterfront charettes and Open Space 2100, I led one of the charette groups. We’re involved in city-wide issues. We were the ones that rallied
for the King Dome north lot development and kicked it off on King Street by the stadiums.
A lot of my
time has been spent on that.
I’m
now kinda dabbling back a little bit into politics, but what I did locally was I designed
the spray pool up in Judkins Park. And the community built
it.
Those pictures are terrific.
Thank you!
The
only way anything works is to work for free sometimes.
And my
time, there was a match. I charged them the going rate for landscape architect,
$165 an hour. I charged that, but used it as leverage to get that
matched 50% for the materials for the community to build it. Nobody got paid.
But it was
placed in the park.
That’s
when the, the council renamed itself the Judkins Park Community Council.
Instead
of the Judkins Rejected, but you know? Yeah, Margaret Pageler was probably
right, we never should have lost that name.
 |
| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
It’s pretty terrific.
Yeah.
So. That’s my history here.
You gave me those great things from the 1930s. I wanted to ask you…
Oh,
that was the dump. Oh, the history of Judkins Park!
Yes.
Okay.
People
who lived around the park who, I guess, they fixed their basements. (The
Judkins area) used to connect to Lake Washington. Lake Washington is part of
what is known as a sockeye salmon system.
Right.
Sockeye
salmon go into lake areas and they come out as part of the smeltation process.
Judkins Park had a creek that flowed from there into Lake Washington and you
can look at the topography and you can see exactly kind of where it went.
They used
to have trout in there and fish in there.
So it probably, it probably at least had depending on the season, Duwamish (Native Americans) there, too, then?
This
was the closest location between the Sound where my house is, between the sound
and the lake, and there were Native American trails all through the year.
 |
| Judkins Park when it was a dump. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
Yes.
They
did come there to fish, I’m sure.
I’m sure of it too
What
the city did, to a lot the places (the Natives lived), Genesee is another
example, I’m sure there are some up north, too, they decided to make those
areas (Native Longhouse Sites) city dumps. I gave you the pictures of that. A
city dump. They dumped garbage in this river system, but it didn’t change the
hydrology.
Now,
since people live over it when they get a lot of heavy rains still have geysers
in their basements shooting up from the hydrology. We have a system that comes
here right by that fence line that goes down. When they redid the street, they
had to do a big pit going, it’s (the streams) are underground. It flows there,
and there's another one further down here on Hiawatha (Place) that gets
flooded. These are coastal beginnings of coastal drainages. Rainier Valley was
like that as well. I mean, if you look at the topography, you can tell, pre-European
settlement, Rainier Valley had water running through it. It was wetlands. Swamp
area, and fen.
Interesting. Is there a book on that?
The topology prior?
Yes.
You can get that all through the University of Washington. Paul Dorpat has a
lot of great information on that, he’s got the shot of the horses here and
Dearborn street. Right up here at the corner of Davis and Dearborn looking west in one of his books. That’s all available at the University of Washington. It’s really easy to get a hold of.
 |
| Seattle Vice Map, 1940. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
Okay. I’ll look at that, it’s fascinating. I love that stuff.
Then
they fill it (the wetlands and dump) in with this, and now there’s a geo-membrane
in Judkins Park.
What’s a geo-membrane?
It’s
used to encapsulate methane gas.
So it’s a clay lid?
It’s
rubberized material. That’s down there. There’s a methane issue, I
know when we did the spray pool, I had to stay above a certain level to make
sure…
 |
| Former Bordello, Davis Place. Photo: Madeline Crowley |
That methane comes because it used to be a swamp?
No,
the methane is coming because they buried garbage down there and they didn’t
take all of it out.
They never took it out?
They
didn’t take a lot of it out.
They built over it?
Yup,
yup, yup, yup. Cheap way to do it. And so, that was an issue when they were
siting the Thurgood Marshall School. That was one of the areas we were looking
at. So Judkins Park is going to be impossible to build on that unless you want
to do extreme restoration. Dig all that out down. You’ve got the pictures.
 |
| Seattle Suicide Map, 1938-42. Collection: Paul Byron Crane |
That’s
all owned by the school district. Judkins Park is leased by the Seattle Parks
Department but the Seattle School District owns it. There's a street platted
through the middle of there but they’ll never build the street.
When they
plan things then they might. It’s still platted through; it hasn’t been
abandoned.
And
so, that’s the history of Judkins Park. It used to be a trout stream, and maybe
sockeye got up that far. I don’t know.
Definitely if there were sockeye and trout, there were Native Americans,
the Duwamish Lake peoples (about the Duwamish Lake Peoples)
Oh,
definitely.
There were people in this area for 10,000 years.
Yes
there were. Definitely.
Terrific. Thank you.
Did
I forget anything else? No, I think I
got it all, pretty much.
Thanks to
the elegant, incomparable Andrea Lai for this transcription!
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