Echoes of Seattle's Garlic Gulch

Our church was Mount Virgin church. We had several Italian grocery stores at Atlantic Street, Italian pharmacy, Italian barbershop. The residents were mainly east and west of Rainier Avenue going all the way up to Beacon Hill. As far south as – oh, a little south of McClellan Street. We had the ballpark. We had the Vacca Brothers farm. And we had the Italian language school here, at Atlantic Street.

Thus did baker and businessman Remo Borracchini describe the neighborhood of Seattle’s North Rainier Valley that came to be called Garlic Gulch due to the large number of Italian families settled there.

A Garlic Gulch home and garden. Patricelli family. Mary Grace Briglio Patricelli and Michael Patricelli. Courtesy Rainier Valley Historical Society.

 Little Italy

The main wave of Italian immigrants to Washington’s “shores” came at the turn of the 19th century. Many came to work in the coal mines in South King County; others were farmers who set up truck farms in the Rainier and Duwamish Valleys. By 1910 some 2,000 Italians congregated in the Rainier Valley. They were not always welcomed by the existing population; language, cultural, and religious barriers led to stigmatization and discrimination.

A sociology graduate student at the UW, Nellie Roe, wrote her 1915 thesis on “The Italian Immigrant in Seattle.” Despite clear biases in her narrative, we can thank Roe for hand-drawn images of the North Rainier area, including this one.

Sketch by sociology student Nellie Roe in 1915. 

While poverty and overcrowded conditions may have been the norm in Garlic Gulch during the early years (as it is in many immigrant communities), the Italians worked hard and created a vibrant community centered on institutions such as Our Lady of Mount Virgin Church and School. For several decades beginning in 1911, Mount Virgin and revered priest Father Ludovico Caramello were the heart of the Italian community in Seattle. Long-time resident Ralph Vacca recalled: 

The church in the Italian community, at least in that generation, was the center. And Father Caramello was God in America. You could take a string or measuring stick and go out whatever distance from Mount Virgin Church and there would be a lot of Italian names and families.

Small grocery stores sprang up to serve the Italian families, as well as the German and Greek families that were also a part of the social fabric. Families that may have originally lived with friends and relatives in ramshackle houses and boarding houses built sturdier homes, planted vegetable gardens, grape arbors, and fruit trees, and often added Italian traditions such as wine presses and bocce ball courts. 

Winemaking was an important tradition and the center of many family and community celebrations. “Sometimes the wine was good and sometimes it wasn’t,” remembers Croce.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is tempting to see those early days through a rosy hue. Bill Ferrari recalled: 

It was a fantastic neighborhood. It had different cultures of people. There were Italians, there were Jewish people, Japanese, Chinese. All mixtures within the neighborhood. Anglo-Americans, a few of those. But everybody got along. 

The pillars of the community

If Mount Virgin was the spiritual heart of the Italian community, Borracchini’s was its stomach. The popular bakery and Italian delicatessen was a part of Seattle’s culinary scene for nearly a century, beginning with a small delivery business in 1922 and continuing in 1938 with a huge retail establishment designed to look like an Italian villa. The specialty cakes and imported delicacies were enjoyed by generations of Seattleites, not just Italians.

But Borracchini’s was not alone in achieving lasting renown. A relative late-comer, Oberto Sausage Factory, was founded in 1953 on Rainier Avenue. The New Italian Café, opened in the early 1930s, was a gathering spot at the hub of the community, Rainier Avenue and Atlantic Street. Add to these institutions a macaroni factory, several Italian barbers, an Italian druggist, and a singing shoemaker and you have the ingredients for a thriving ethnic community. 

The children of Garlic Gulch were sent to Italian School, an after-school program designed to teach them the language and reinforce the culture of their parents. Lucy Salle remembered the experience:

I went there a couple of years at least. I must have been about seven years old. A friend of mine from the neighborhood went with me and we went down to Atlantic Street…to Valentine Place. And there was this little place, a garage or something. And they had desks in there and that was the Italian School. It was called Scuola Italiana Dante Alleghieri. We always put that at the top of our paper, so it’s in my mind.

Atlantic Street Center began life in 1910 as the Deaconess Settlement House at 1519 Rainier Avenue South. The Methodist deaconesses who founded the charity wished to serve the unmet needs of the many Italian immigrant families in Garlic Gulch. 

Several fraternal and athletic organizations maintained and strengthened ties among Italian families and businesses.

Children at Atlantic Street Center, undated. Courtesy Atlantic Street Center.

Beginning of the End

In 1940, the highway that would become part of Interstate 90 sliced through the heart of the Italian community in North Rainier and tunneled through the Mount Baker neighborhood to reach Lake Washington and the first floating bridge. 

Despite this incursion, the resilient Italian community clung to its traditions and institutions for some time. Dino Patricelli recalls his childhood growing up in the heart of Garlic Gulch in the 1960s:

They had the New Italian [Cafe] right there. And then my brother Louie had an ice cream shop right there on the corner of 23rd and Rainier. And then there was a meat market and then the New Italian and then around the other side from my brother was Tony LaSalle Shoemaker. And he did shoes, you know? So everybody on the weekends always kind of gathered at the New Italian. 

I was just having fun, you know, just like the youngest one living there, never had to worry about eating because there was plenty of food everywhere. And if we didn't eat, we could walk down the alleys and stuff. They had plenty of fruit, you know, or somebody would call you in and say, come on and eat.

A few decades later, despite community protest, the highway was elevated to freeway status, many homes in the heart of Garlic Gulch were demolished, and South Atlantic Street, the locus of many Italian businesses, was vacated between 22nd Avenue South and Bradner Place South. Garlic Gulch was never the same. 

By this time, farmland in the valley had largely succumbed to urban development. World War II caused additional disruptions. Many families moved south to the still rural areas of King and Pierce counties. Others moved to the Eastside. Demographics shifted and new waves of immigrants moved into the Rainier Valley putting their own stamp on the landscape.

End of the End

For decades journalists and others proclaimed the demise of Garlic Gulch. Residents grieved when the New Italian Café was razed in 1986. The following year, Eric Scigliano wrote his definitive piece “Good-by Garlic Gulch” for The Weekly. Yet pieces of the old enclave persisted. Today, however, it feels that the last nail has indeed been hammered into the coffin. Beloved Rainier Avenue institutions Borracchini’s Bakery and Oberto Sausage Factory closed permanently just this year. (Oberto Sausage Company still operates out of headquarters in Kent. Borracchini’s fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic.) And now Our Lady of Mount Virgin Church, along with St. Mary’s to the north, teeters on the brink of closing and perhaps sale as the Catholic Archdiocese makes difficult decisions for the allocation of scarce resources. 

Remnants of the gulch can be found if you know where to look. Here and there are plum trees, fig trees, and grape vines planted by the early Italian families. The Atlantic Street Center’s 1927 Italianate style building stills stands on South Atlantic just at the edge of the vacated portion of that street. The agency has adapted to the needs of new immigrants. Big John’s PFI (Pacific Food Importers, founded by John Croce) offers Italian and other Mediterranean specialties at the corner of Dearborn and Rainier Avenue. And, Florentine style Mount Virgin still occupies its own little gulch in the shadow of the Mount Baker lid, although it has been decades since it served a predominantly Italian congregation. 

Change is inevitable. Demographic and landscape transformation is part of the urban dynamic. While tempting to look back at an era with fond nostalgia, we must also accept the present with all its assets and failings -- and perhaps celebrate the multi-cultural community that is the North Rainier Valley today. Garlic Gulch is gone, but the ever-changing immigrant-built city lives on. 

All quotations are taken from oral histories in the collection of the Rainier Valley Historical Society. For more information on the term "Garlic Gulch," see my post Deciphering Garlic Gulch.

Rainier Valley Historical Society display at San Gennaro Festival.

Deciphering Garlic Gulch

"Gulch" = a deep or precipitous cleft : RAVINE (Merriam-Webster)

Two women in Garlic Gulch, undated. Courtesy Rainier Valley Historical Society (RVHS)

The term "Garlic Gulch" is thrown around often to describe the large Italian community that nestled at the north end of the Rainier Valley from the early 1900s until the 1960s and perhaps beyond. But where did the term come from and how was it received? I offer no concrete answers, but a lot of theories and speculation.

Did it all start with Big John Croce?

I [wonder] if I originated that term, because the reason that it got famous was I had this buddy, a little tiny guy that got drafted in the army. He went to Korea, right? That's a buddy of mine. So when he comes back from Korea the paper, the PI, said we have a veteran Italian kid immigrant returning to Garlic Gulch, his home and so on. And that's where we became famous. (John Croce RVHS Oral History)

Croce, founder of Pacific Food Importers and a well-known figure in the Italian community, may well have had a hand in popularizing the name. A newspaper article -- no doubt the one he refers to (although not the P.I.) -- backs up his story:  In an article titled "Throng Greets Troop Transport," (February 9, 1953) the Seattle Times took note:

Vincenzo's best friend, John Croce, waved a huge sign, declaring a welcome to the soldier from 'The Gulch.' Not everyone understood the significance of the big placard. 'Why, that's Garlic Gulch!' exploded Croce. 'Everybody down around Rainier Avenue and Atlantic Street is Italian." 

However, even Croce admits that the term was used well before the 1950s, "but just around the neighborhood or something."

Sociology student Nelllie Roe, in her 1915 thesis "The Italian Immigrant in Seattle," appears to be entirely unfamiliar with the term. However, an item in the collection of the Rainier Valley Historical Society proves the existence of a "Garlic Gulch Athletic Club" at Franklin High School as early as 1935. 

Clearly some members of the Italian Community adopted the name with glee. The sentiment was not shared by all, however. Some viewed the term as degrading. Interviewed in 2011, Lucy Salle, who grew up in the valley, at first denies all knowledge of the term, then admits that it is used "by people who don't know any better."

So what about political correctness? 

Is the term "Garlic Gulch" a slight or slur? Or is it an affectionate nickname proudly adopted by the Italian community? Unfortunately, there is no clear answer. An informal poll conducted on a local social network finds answers running the gamut from "Something that the men's club and bar patrons used with endearment" to "the ultimate racial slur." One person commented "My father still cringes when he hears the term." Others say it reminds them of the anti-Italian sentiment during World War II.

But, for some, the name conjures up fond memories of Italian cooking and gardens "full of garlic, which gave off a lovely smell while growing."

What does seem clear is that the name gradually faded from use as the Italian community fractured and dispersed. 

Where was the Gulch?

So what and where exactly was the "gulch?" Was it the chasm between Beacon Hill and, roughly, the Mount Baker neighborhood which defines the north end of the Rainier Valley? Was it, as some have postulated, related to the dump that existed where Judkins Playfield is now and which was derisively referred to as a gulch by those who considered it a nuisance? Or was it simply a conveniently alliterative metaphor to describe a contained geographic area and the folks therein?

Ironically, the opening of the first Lake Washington floating bridge in 1940, and the build-out of freeway approaches that followed in the next decades, opened up another "gulch," one that effectively separated the northern section of the Italian community around Judkins Park and Dearborn from Atlantic Street and points southward.

Mary Patricelli standing on the edge of Interstate 90 from the vestige of Atlantic Street. Undated, Courtesy Rainier Valley Historical Society.