Friday, June 21, 2013

All the Way to Chinatown

 
I thought I had been to San Francisco's Chinatown before...but I was wrong. There are two Chinatowns (at least two). One for the Chinese, one for the tourists. OK, so they kind of blur together. Still it is easy to tell the difference. Chinatown for the tourists is lined with shops that feature signs in Cantonese and English. Chinatown for the Chinese needs no English and the trinket shops are far outnumbered by the fruit and vegetable sellers, butcher shops, and Chinese bakeries.

I set out to visit Chinatown, taking a city bus from my hotel on the waterfront into the heart of the city (how brave am I!!). More or less by accident I arrived on Stockton Street amid the hub bub of early morning produce deliveries and the opening of all the shops. Within half an hour the sidewalks were so crowded with shoppers I could barely navigate. For blocks I saw no other occidental person. It was only when I turned east to Grant Street that the crowds thinned and the more familiar tourist Chinatown took shape.

So why is my photo (all my photos) of Grant Street and not Stockton? I can only assume I was afraid of doing the Ugly American thing by pulling out my camera to take photos of the quaint shops! Fortunately there is no dearth of images on Flicker.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

See all the people: Mt. Virgin Church changes with the times


A somewhat longer post than usual. I prepared this originally for publication on SouthEndSeattle.com.
 

The old church, St. Boniface, appears in this circa-1915 sketch prepared by Nellie Roe, Master’s candidate at the University of Washington, for her thesis “The Italian Immigrant in Seattle,” University of Washington,  Special Collections.
Her caption reads: "The Catholic Church and School on 29th Ave. So where 102 Italian children attend."

HERE IS THE CHURCH


It started with a small wooden church on a hill between the Rainier Valley and Seattle’s Central District named for the patron saint of Germany. St. Boniface was built, probably sometime in the 1890s, by and for German Catholic immigrants to the city who hoped to worship in their own language.
 
Information on the little German church is scarce. The 1901 and 1902 Seattle Polk Directories list St. Bonifacius, German Roman Catholic” at 28th South and Massachusetts, along with the words “no services.” Later additions of the directory make no mention of the church at all. The 1912 Baist Map show the church alone on the hillside except for a small house immediately to the north. Anecdotal evidence indicates that a succession of caretaker families lived in the basement of the church, some German-speaking, some Italian.


THE ITALIAN TRANSFORMATION

 
By 1910 the area surrounding St. Boniface was made up largely of Italian immigrant families --  so much so that the area was nicknamed “Garlic Gulch” --  and thus the little church was the natural choice for an Italian parish. Seattle Bishop O’Dea called on the Jesuits to minister to the growing Italian community in the city. On September 10, 2011 Fr. DeRop, S.J. said the first mass in Italian at the church. The diary of the Jesuit order notes that two weeks later Fr. DeRop took “some of our old pews” to the new Italian church. About this time the church’s name was changed to Our Lady of Monte Virgene, after a well-known church in Caserta, Italy. A sketch rendered by Univeristy of Washington graduate student Nellie Roe in 1914 depicts the church and school surrounded by a fenced garden. The caption states that “102 Italian children” attend the school.
 
In 1913 Fr. Lodovico Caramello arrived to take over for the ailing Fr. De Rop and immediately began to fast track plans for a new, grander edifice in the Florentine style of his homeland. The fruition of this project in 1915 is credited largely to Fr. Caramello’s commanding personality and his contacts in his native Italy.

The Italians built their church just to the west of, and back-to-back with, the old German church. The 1916 Sanborn map shows “Mt. Virgin R.C. Church” almost touching the “Old Church.” The small house is labeled “School,” although it was also the parish rectory. With the tower removed, St. Boniface became the parish hall and later served in a number of capacities, including as a gym, kindergarten, and workshop, before ultimately being torn down about 1970. Army surplus buildings, placed on the church property in the 1940s, became the Mount Virgin School where local children received instruction from Irish Dominican nuns and sometimes from the priests themselves.

For several decades, Mount Virgin and Father 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.
 
Vincent LaSalle spoke of the Italian culture that defined the church:

I was raised in the Catholic school with the Dominican nuns, Mount Virgin, the little Italian parish. And I became an altar boy when I was only in about the fourth grade and Father Caramello says he’s “gonna make an altar boy out of me.” So I became an altar boy; I was number one! And you never seen anything like it – such beautiful boys! You know the altar boys at the end of the year, they used to have a great big party, you know, all the Italian kids. They were all Italian, all of them.

To this day Our Lady of Mount Virgin is designated as a “national parish,” one without traditional geographic boundaries. Specifically it was, and is, an “Italian National Parish,” one of several in the country created to serve a specific immigrant community.

OPENING THE DOORS


In the last decades of the 20th century, the Italian population in Garlic Gulch began to disperse, pushed out by the I-90/Mount Baker tunnel projects and changing demographics. Many Italian-Americans had already moved out to the suburbs by the time the second major freeway expansion began in 1979. Attendance at mass dwindled steadily and there were fears the church might close altogether. However, in that same year the first of several waves of Laotian Catholic refugees arrived in the Rainier Valley. Assisted by an Italian Catholic group working with the tribal people of Laos, these refugees were adopted into the parish, bringing new life to the little church.

Mount Virgin also has a special relationship with Native American Catholics in Seattle. For a number of years the parish offered a special mass for Native Americans. Today it continues to offer a meeting place for the Kateri Circle and a home for a parochial vicar for the Native American community.

Today Mount Virgin offers a weekly mass for the Laotian community, as well as a mass for ethnic Chinese, spoken in both Mandarin and Cantonese. A Lao and a Chinese deacon are in residence, assisting Fr. Clarence Jones. The early 8:00 a.m. mass, however, is the province of “a faithful remnant” of Italian families from the neighborhood, in the words of Fr. Jones.

Although the school attached to the church closed its doors in 1978 after being open continuously since 1911, the classrooms find use as a private pre-school and for many community functions.

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE


In 2008 a group of sixth graders from The New School toured Mount Virgin and reported on their experience. Several wrote about Fr. Jones’ vision for the parish:

What the priest of Mt. Virgin wants for the future is for the church to be more diverse. Even though they accept everyone, they have different service times for different ethnics/languages. -- B.J.

I thought the priest was going to say something like “I hope more people come to church.” What he said was kind of like that, he wishes to have more nationalities at church. There is Italian, Chinese and white people; he would still like more though.—Asia

Things have changed for Mount Virgin, but there is hope for the future as the church embraces the Catholic tradition of “adopting and adapting” to new circumstances and cultures.

****

Information for this story was drawn from the archives of the Seattle Archdiocese, Special Collections at the University of Washington, and oral histories collected by the Rainier Valley Historical Society, as well as the project “Bringing World Religion Home,” conducted by Mikala Woodward for the Rainier Valley Historical Society and The New School and funded by King County 4Culture.

 



 
The "new" church today: Our Lady of Mount Virgin. Photo, Alan Humphrey.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Point of No Return: the Will Rogers - Wiley Post Memorial Seaplane Base

Photo: Alan Humphrey

Wiley Post and Will Rogers were the super stars of their time...an aviator with one-eye and a part-Cherokee lasso-twirling humorist, both out of Oklahoma. When they died together in a plane crash in Alaska August 15, 1935 it was a national tragedy.

Post and Rogers were a week into their trip of exploration. Post planned to fly across to Siberia and perhaps even repeat his round-the-world feat of 1933. Rogers was along for the ride, or part of it. The end came all too soon when the cobbled-together float plane Wiley piloted stuttered on lift-off from a brief stop and crashed into a lagoon near Point Barrow.

The Seattle Connection
Post and Rogers' final journey began in Seattle...or more specifically at the Renton Airport (sometimes called Bryn Mawr airport) on the southern shore of Lake Washington. From here the fellows took off in the unnamed plane for the north after fitting it with pontoons and test flying it over the lake. The rest, as they say, is history.

Where tragic history goes, a memorial follows. At least one. The City of Renton chose to remember the heroes in 1949 by naming the refurbished float plane facility the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Memorial Seaplane Base. Fourteen years to the month following the tragedy the base was formally dedicated with the unveiling of a plaque and speeches by Governor Arthur B. Langlie and Renton Mayor Perry Mitchell. The solemnities were augmented with a bathing beauty competition and various seaplane-themed contests, including an award for the seaplane carrying the most girls. (Seattle Daily Times, 8/16/49 and 8/29/49).

Fast forward to the 21st century. Flying buffs, including Washington Seaplane Pilots Association president Bob Dempster, a story unto himself, advocated for improvements to the monument. Specifically, Dempster and others pushed for additional plaquage describing the lives of the celebrated pair, as well as the provenance of the doomed plane. A second dedication of the monument was held August 7, 2003, 68 years to the day after lift-off.

How to get there from here
Finding a small monument in a busy airport is not as daunting as one might think. Enter the Renton Airport from the west side off Rainier Avenue South. The left fork will take you easily to a small parking area near the shore line just outside the airport perimeter fence. The monument appears on a small hillock ahead of you.

Full text of the original panel:
Will Rogers - Wiley Post, Memorial Seaplane Base, Dedicated August 28, 1949. To the memory of Will Rogers, America's most beloved ambassador of good will and his fellow Oklahoman, Wiley Post who took off from this base August 7, 1935, on their ill-fated flight to encircle the globe. City of Renton.

Will Rogers and Wiley Post at Renton Airport prior to take-off, August 7, 1935.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, Museum of History & Industry, Seattle; All Rights Reserved.
 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Point Reyes Coast Guard Cemetery

This obscure little cemetery contains only a handful of graves: four surfmen who died while serving at the nearby Life Saving Station and the family of the the man who first commanded the station. If others are buried here, the markers have been lost. Most of the graves date from the 1890s.

It is easy to breeze by the cemetery on your way out to Drake's Beach or the Point Reyes Lighthouse, although it is only a few hundred feet off the main road. A sign pointing the way from Sir Francis Drake Boulevard reads "Historic Life-Saving Station Cemetery;" some find this amusing.

I love to stop here because of the beauty and serenity of the spot up on a small hill under eucalyptus trees with a beautiful 360 degree view of the bay and meadows. A great spot to see birds, too.

 
Anderson and Carstens, as well as Larson (below) died in accidents caused by large waves hitting their boats. Korpala died from a sudden illness.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Santa Barbara Mission

My intention is to devote this space to little known or threatened places. The Santa Barbara Mission is neither. However, while I'm in a learning mode I'll devote some attention to this and other worthy landmarks.

 
The mission has a small cemetery in back shaded by an enormous Moreton Bay Fig Tree. The more famouse Moreton Bay Fig is in downtown Santa Barbara near the railroad tracks and the beach. Moreton Bay is in Australia and the trees are native to that country; they are a type of Banyan tree.
 
 
Crumbling entrance to a family mausoleum.

 
This way to the graves.
 
 
The inner courtyard.

Sand Point



Fin Project

Magnuson Park cannot completely bury its military heritage. Remnants of fortifications and decaying outbuildings can still be seen along the beach path. A public art project, entitled Swords into Plowshares tweaks the military theme by converting diving plane fins from navy subs into an intriguing monument mimicking a pod of orca whales.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

What it's about

This is a blog about the things we have lost and the things we might still save. Old things; ancient things; ways of life; places where man, landscape, and architecture intersect.

Like this: Brixham Harbor, England.



A number of the posts originally appeared on Inside Passage, the blog of the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society.