This column highlights the many restaurants lining Jackson Street beginning in Leschi at Jackson and 31st Ave. S. and down to Rainier Ave. Jackson Street offers a wide selection of food choices from pizza, international, barbeque, sushi, pub food, soul food, before hitting the mecca of great Asian restaurants in the ID. Join me as we take a short drive, walk, bike or hop the 14 bus to check out nearby spots. The Wonder Ethiopian Restaurant Wonder Coffee and Sports Bar , 1800 S. Jackson, open Mon-Thurs from 11am to 11pm, Fri and Sat 11am to 1pm, Closed Tues. Prices range for $15-22, meat combination platter is $33, vegetable platter $18. The bar features an extensive selection of cocktails, beer, and wine. The Central Area is a hub for Ethiopian cuisine. From Cherry Street down to Jackson, there are many restaurants to try. The Wonder Coffee and Sports Bar, the location of the former Wonder Bread Bakery on Jackson, has been serving its version of Ethiopian food for over a decade. As well has Ethiopian food, it has standard bar foods such as hamburger and fries and other sandwiches. Half of a sports car is placed in the entry sets the stage for a dining experience surrounded by screens and Seahawk banners. I questioned if a sports bar atmosphere would take away for enjoying the delightful experience of sharing a platter of Ethiopian food. Instead, the sound was off on the games and world music was playing in the background. The ample dining area has tables with fresh white table cloths and although the music is a bit loud, it’s fairly quiet given the tall ceilings. Having traveled to Ethiopia, my husband was pleased to see the variety of authentic offerings on the menu when we had dinner on a cold, drizzly night. We were immediately greeted with a warm welcome and the smell of spicy, slow-cooked food. The next week a friend, who lived In Ethiopia for a while, joined me for lunch and she too was struck by the unique flavors of the vegetable platter we chose. She declared the food “the best Ethiopian food I’ve had in Seattle.” Wonder’s Ethiopian offers the traditional cuisine of some spicy and mild meat and vegetable dishes served on a large platter with small mounds of meat and vegetable stews artfully placed on injera, a spongy sourdough flatbread. Traditionally, one does not eat with utensils but instead you have roll of your own injera to break apart pieces to scoop up dishes with your hand. The injera soaks up the juices making each bite flavorful. However, it is perfectly okay to ask for a spoon or fork. Some of the meat and vegetable dishes can be very spicy but there are cooked greens, lentils, vegetables or a feta-like cheese to cut the heat. Our server Meron guided us through the restaurant’s menu which features wat which is a hearty stew, stirred fried meat called tibs, and many vegetarian options. The menu offers a variety of meat and fish entrees and many vegetarian options. You can create your own platter or eat a singular portion. We decided to have some dessert and listen to the St. Bee’s duo who play on Friday nights. Our choice of baklava was disappointing. However, our choice of staying to listen to jazz was very enjoyable.  We liked the musical journey the duo took us on from standards to rock classics with jazz arrangements. Eating Ethiopian-style is a communal experience with brings a slowing down and sharing of tastes with your friends and family.  On one of Seattle’s gray days or chilly evenings, the Wonder is a nice escape and a chance to explore a unique cultural cuisine. It’s a warm, intimate experience with a friendly host and his chef wife, reservations recommended. I like it so much; I’ve been reluctant to write a review hoping it won’t become inaccessible. ~Mary Carter Creech

Seattle Art Museum, 1300 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98101 Runs until June 1, 2025 Thaddeus Mosley in his studio First, we think that these two artists, Alexander Calder and Thaddeus Mosley, could not possibly be more dissimilar in this new iteration of the Calder donation curated by Catherina Manchanda. “Following Space,” the title of their joint exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, captures the central feeling of the exhibition. As we walk through the galleries, we do indeed feel we are following the spaces that both of these artists carve and cut and slice in their sculptures. But how different they are! Calder’s mobiles are light and constantly moving with many small pieces of metal hanging from fragile wires.  Mosley’s work is heavy, made of chiseled tree trunks. Calder uses industrial materials like sheet metal, Mosley uses only wood, Calder emphasizes lines created by wire and light shapes of metal, Mosley chisels carefully on solid shapes. Thaddeus Mosley, Following Space, 2016. Cherry. Overall: 117×28×28in. But we must look again at this provocative pairing. In the first gallery we see White Panel  1936 by Alexander Calder and First Port,  2008, by Mosley.  Calder’s work descends from on high, while Mosley’s work reaches up. The carefully chiseled wood creates a sense of liberating the wood from itself. Following Space , 2016 in the center of the gallery, gives the exhibition its title, and is even more clearly rising up from its base. Mosley works with wood that he finds in the forest, cherry and walnut. The wood is chiseled carefully to highlight the given shape of the log, then he connects separate pieces by inserting it into a notch or large hole in the wood. This use of notches means that the pieces balance with no outside support, unlike Calder’s mobiles which balance with carefully calculated lengths of wire and the weight of the small pieces of metal. Calder’s mobiles seem to almost flutter like clouds sometimes. Mosley is entirely self- taught, his rhythms drawn from jazz seen in the abstraction of his shapes. But he has also looked at African sculpture from Dogon, Senufo, Banum and Mossi. He has his own collection of African sculpture. The African artists also carved wood with many different results.  Often they were figurative, but also they sometimes allowed the shape of the wood to speak on its own, making an abstract shape. Mosley also learned from looking at Giacometti and Brancusi  who work in bronze and stone. Mosley’s work brings together these inspirations in an original composition in wood. Some of Mosley’s pieces seem to sit solidly on the ground, like Oval Continuity , 2017 that appears to be a carefully cut large oval ball.  But the more we look at it, the more we feel it is about to burst forth into some magnificent vertical shape. Next to Mosley’s Oval Continuity  is Calder’s Bougainvillea , 1947. It has a base on the ground, but it bursts forth in delicate flowers in all directions. Other examples of pieces that appear to be grounded, but also rise up are Little Escalation,  2018 and Bended , 2018. They are single pieces of wood, with no insertions or extensions, but they too seem to be straining upward with an accordion pleat or a twist. Mosley is 97 years old! He has been making sculpture since the 1950s. But only in the last few years has he achieved real recognition. He readily admits that is because he is Black. The current situation for artists of color is more open and accepting. But if we were to see one of these muscular sculptures without knowing the artist, we would still be overwhelmed by their beauty: the artist’s respect for wood as a material shines through as we look at his careful chisel marks and his surprising shapes and juxtapositions. It is sometimes tempting to anthropomorphize his shapes, an animal, a bird, a face, but look again and it is gone. Fortunately, you have time to see this show, (it ends on June 1) but don’t put it off. I have been three times and each time I experienced it entirely differently. Hats off to Catharina Manchanda for this wonderful idea. ~Susan Platt, PhD www.artandpoliticsnow.com

The Army Camp: A Researcher’s Odyssey Part 3 Soon after my second search through school district papers for references to the army camp at Garfield’s playfield, I was invited by chance to a reading from a new book, “We Are Not Strangers,” by local artist and writer Josh Tuininga. It’s the story of a friendship between Sam Akiyama, a Japanese American, and Marco Calvo, a Sephardic Jew in Seattle who was a great-great uncle of the author. When Mr. Akiyama and his family, along with most other Japanese Americans in the western US, were taken away to concentration camps in 1942, his Jewish friend offered to look after the family’s business and property. At the end of the war, the family returned to Seattle and found all of their possessions and affairs intact. This was unusual; Japanese American property was often stolen or ruined, sometimes by people who had pledged to care for it. The surname Calvo was familiar to me. Back in the 1970s I had been friends with a fellow around my age with that family name, and I knew he was Sephardic. We hadn’t seen each other in decades, but I knew how to find him because of our common interest in hydroplane racing, so I called him out of the blue. We remembered each other well. When I told him that I was interested in learning more about the relationships between Japanese Americans and Sephardim, he offered to introduce me to some community elders. Before long, he connected me with a circle of nonagenarians, actual eyewitnesses to the army camp: people who had lived within walking distance of it. Several of the old-timers told me that they saw a searchlight in a “nest” surrounded by sandbags. The Garfield camp was a spotting location for anti-aircraft brigades. There was great fear of bombing by Japanese planes, especially attacks targeted on Boeing, shipyards, and Seattle’s port. Searchlights scanned the night sky for enemy bombers for at least three years. There were tents for the company of about 30 soldiers, with water piped to the site for makeshift showers. A fellow who was a pre-teen at the time and lived directly across the street recalls that soldiers would visit his family to take indoor showers, and officers would sometimes be invited to dinner. Housewives brought cookies to the army men. After the soldiers left, their tents remained for a while. My informant told me that he would climb into tents and find “girlie magazines” left behind. Typical army anti-aircraft searchlight from World War II, 4 or 5 feet in diameter. No one, however, has repeated the notion that the camp was there to spy on the Japanese community. It was not a suitable location. The Japanese American district was centered from Yesler to Jackson up to about 14th Avenue, much closer to downtown in what is still known as Nihonmachi, or Japantown. And it is now evident that the camp was an installation for spotting enemy bombers, not a spy center, based on the observations of contemporary eyewitnesses. My supposition is reinforced by the school board minutes regarding Franklin and West Seattle: the Army’s request came from its Anti-Aircraft Division. Once I had learned that I was looking for documentation on anti-aircraft installations, I got back in touch with the National Archives. The specialist there on pre-1960 military records found something of interest. But before returning to the Archives in Maryland, I followed up on another lead the Archives provided: a HistoryLink story entitled “Guns force children from city parks in 1942.” The article reported that, in January 1942, army anti-aircraft guns took over city parks to defend Seattle from aerial attack. Troops of the 63rd Coast Artillery Regiment (Anti-Aircraft) installed guns and searchlights. My search of Seattle Parks Department archives produced 56 pages, which further revealed that in April 1944, the army contacted the Parks Department, noting that the military’s occupancy of numerous parks had been covered by a variety of informal agreements, and that it would be in the interest of both the government and the Parks Department to formalize the arrangements. The Parks Board requested and obtained from the City Council an ordinance (#73374) ratifying the Army’s use of the parks. But I have found no such documentation for the school district. Declassified drawing showing Garfield HS playfield: location of army searchlight Camp, marked by arrow a bit north of the floating bridge. (Present-day Powell Barnett Park). Camp, marked by arrow a bit north of the floating bridge. (Present-day Powell Barnett Park). On my return to the National Archives, I searched an index for documents mentioning Seattle or searchlight. I combed through several boxes of folders without finding anything helpful, until I was just about at the bottom of the pile. Folded and taped into the back of a binder was an 11” x 17” piece of tracing paper with what looked like a hand-drawn map. It was evident that trying to remove the tape would damage the paper, so I went to the help desk. My problem was escalated through the bureaucracy, finally ending up in the hands of the document conservation office. The job of Archives is to make information available to the public, and they were happy to do what would be necessary, but it was going to sit on someone’s desk for a few weeks till it reached the top of the queue. I paid a $20 fee, and eventually I received a good-quality scan of the whole drawing. It showed the location of every searchlight defense installation in Seattle and vicinity from December 14, 1941 (a week after Pearl Harbor was attacked) to September 1944. And sure enough, one of them is marked right where Powell Barnett Park sits today. After a while, a helpful staffer at the Wing Luke Museum reached out to one of Sally Tsutsumoto’s daughters, who reported that Sally is in fact alive but doesn’t remember the playfield being used as an army camp. Eventually the daughter invited me to meet Sally. It was true, Sally no longer recalled the army camp, but it was delightful, finally, to close the circle and meet the person with whom the whole story had begun. What I don’t know, and probably never will, is what Sally actually said to her interviewer. It’s possible that Sally and others believed that the Army was spying on their community. But she might have been misunderstood or misinterpreted. The key quotation: “While Japanese-Americans isolated themselves within their homes, military troops established stations to monitor Japanese activity.” Note that “Japanese” activity was to be monitored. In the context, it sounds like that refers to Japanese American activity. But perhaps Sally really knew what it was about: the searchlights, looking for Japanese bombers. ~Roger Lippman The author writes monthly about Leschi history and his experiences over his 48 years in the neighborhood.

This column highlights the many restaurants lining Jackson Street beginning in Leschi at Jackson and 31st Ave. S. and down to Rainier Ave. Jackson Street offers a wide selection of food choices from pizza, international, barbeque, sushi, pub food, soul food, before hitting the mecca of great Asian restaurants in the ID. Join me as we take a short drive, walk, bike or hop the 14 bus to check out nearby spots. When You Crave Barbeque Reckless Noodle House , 2519 S. Jackson, open Mon-Thurs from 4-11pm, Fri and Sat 4pm to midnight, and Sunday 4-10pm. There is seating inside and an outdoor patio (ask if it is open). There is a very good wine, craft beer and fun cocktail list. Happy Hour starts at 4pm every day with varying hours. Reckless Noodle House owners named their restaurant to reflect not only their love of Asian-inspired food but a passion for the outdoor sports, adventure, and travel. Look around and you will see surf boards, mountains and landscapes, and a bathroom wall papered in surfing and beach photos. Started as a tiny restaurant almost 10 years ago, the immediate popularity of the restaurant helped grow it to twice its size today. Most nights it is packed with adventurous eaters enjoying the lively atmosphere and Asian food with the chef’s special twist. The menu is divided into Snacks and Small Bites ($9-19) which include many dishes easily shared, Large Bites which are larger entrees, ($19-27), Wok Bites which are bowls of rice or noodle dishes ($18-27). Remember the restaurant is named Reckless which translates into many spicy and bold dishes on the menu. But be assured there are many milder dishes, just ask your server for advice or how to lessen the heat. Recently I met up with friends on a rainy, cold evening eager to be warmed by the comfort of Asian-inspired foods. I’ve eaten at Reckless many times and have always liked the food. We were on the early side and discovered the restaurant was not as full as we thought it might be. Our server Joe said they had just finished the two-week run of Restaurant Week when every evening was full so having a mellow night was appreciated. However, by the time we left, the restaurant was buzzing with most tables and the bar filled. Joe gave a mouthwatering description of the evening special which we could not pass up: Lobster Rangoon Bao ($14), two bao buns filled with creamy lobster sauce and just a little kick of heat. We also ordered Mu Xu, a tasty crispy roast duck roll ($10) filled with wood ear mushrooms, carrots, scallion which you wrap in lettuce and dip into a sauce of hoisin. For our main dishes we had the Reckless Fried Rice ($19), a bowl of coconut rice seasoned with turmeric, Thai basil, scallions, tomato, cucumber and seasoned with chili jam, and soy and topped with a soft boiled or scrambled egg. It was the perfect comfort food for the rainy night. You can add on either pork belly, pastrami, prawns or tofu. I added pastrami and my friend added tofu. The other two both ordered a seared turmeric rockfish ($21) seasoned with dill, fennel, lemongrass, galangal, coconut cream, fresh herbs and served on top vermicelli noodles with a toasted chili lime fish sauce on the side. Both were delighted with the dish and said it was perfectly cooked and the topping was flavorful. I had a taste and agreed with them. We shared a coconut tapioca pudding with roasted pineapple and coconut ($7). The bites of the cooling dessert gave a refreshing ending to our meal. Reckless can get noisy. If you want quiet, come early and ask for a table near the front, or the heated patio. They do not take reservations but there is a wait option on their website which makes it easy to stay home and wait until a table is ready. Take-out orders are popular as well, with some folks eating theirs at the Dog Bar across the street where dogs are allowed but no cooking on the premise. ~Mary Carter Creech

Once again, the BluWater Bistro has been holding its end-of-year annual fundraising effort for Leschi Elementary. Buy a $100 gift card and BluWater will make a matching donation of $100 to the school. This is the fifth year BluWater has supported neighborhood students. The goal is to raise $10,000 and this year Bart Evans and his staff hope to surpass that amount. Check with them now to see if you can still get in on this generous and vital effort to make an immediate impact at our local school. If it is too late, plan for next year! https://bluwaterbistro.com/leschi-elementary/ From Bart Evans: “p.s. Yes, we know we lose money on this. Please don't email us about learning math. c'mon it's for the kids.” ~Anne Depue

Come learn about the new Jackson Street Jazz Trail. Join Paul de Barros, nationally renowned jazz critic, book author, and a living archive of local jazz lore as he presents a journey through the music scene that established Jackson Street as one of the nation’s leading jazz hubs from the 1930s to 1950s. Paul will tell stories about local clubs where the likes of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and Billie Holiday played and sang. And he will introduce the new app that allows you to map where those places were located and to see how the landscape has changed. Copies of Shall We Play That One Together , Paul’s biography of the great jazz pianist and radio host Marian MacPartland, will be available for purchase. ~Anne Depue

Want to get involved in the LCC but aren’t sure where to start? Join us on January 7, 6-8pm at the Grace United Methodist Church where we’ll be setting our 2025 priorities and projects! Some of the ideas on the agenda include monthly event programming, green spaces, Leschi ArtWalk, public safety, and the  Leschi News . Interested but don’t want to over-commit yourself? Don’t worry—all levels of involvement are welcome! If you have ideas but can’t join the meeting, reach out to us at leschicouncil@gmail.com . Looking forward to seeing you on the 7th! ~Nicola Davidson

This column highlights the many restaurants lining Jackson Street beginning in Leschi at Jackson and 31st Ave. S. and down to Rainier Ave. Jackson Street offers a wide selection of food choices from pizza, international, barbeque, sushi, pub food, soul food, before hitting the mecca of great Asian restaurants in the ID. Join me as we take a short drive, walk, bike or hop the 14 bus to check out nearby spots. When You Crave Barbeque Wood Shop BBQ, 2513 S. Jackson, open every day from 11am to 8pm. There is ample seating both inside and out and a bar offering a nice selection of craft beers and cocktails. The bartender and staff have the affability that goes well with a good BBQ joint. Wood Shop BBQ on S. Jackson pays homage to the roots of barbeque by a graphic at the entrance highlighting the famous barbeque meccas in our country – Kansas City, St. Louis, Memphis. Austin, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Salina, Kansas. Where and why, you ask Salina, Kansas? It is the hometown of the co-owner Matt Owens and the inspiration for the restaurant’s style of BBQ. Seattle has many barbeque restaurants each having their own take on the way to cook the meat and a sauce that best complements. The author Calvin Trillin helped to sell the world on Kansas City barbeque and spread the gospel of finding redemption in a well-balanced sauce whether it be tomato or vinegar based. Wood Shop BBQ brings this same Kansas love to their version of barbeque along with introducing tastes from the other regions. The meats are smoked in giant smokers in the back using wood brought in from various parts of the country. The sauce is a tangy tomato which comes in a mild and a hot version called The Ghost . I have been to the restaurant several times with friends and family, always loving the smell of barbeque filling the air. While I have enjoyed the variety of sandwiches including the brisket ($15), pork spareribs ($18) and pulled pork ($13), I recently discovered the smoked chicken sandwich ($14) which was delightfully tender and with just the right amount of smokiness. All the sandwiches are served on a brioche roll with pickles and buttermilk cole slaw on the side. There’s also a variety of mac & cheese bowls to choose which come with their four meats and portobello machaca. They are around $16. My nephew had the chicken wings and merely said “Wow!” as he smiled and wiped sauce from his mouth. Recently friends and I had take-out and chose a selection of meats sold by the pound and half pound. We chose brisket ($34), pork spare ribs ($34) and smoked chicken ($24) and for sides we had the Cole slaw and potato salad sold by the quart. The favorite of the group was the smoked chicken with regrets we had not ordered more. The ribs also were a hit as the meat was done to perfection and easily fell off the bone and into your mouth. We enjoyed the brisket but there were comparisons to other BBQ restaurants offering brisket a bit juicier and moister. While the house made potato salad had a very fresh taste primarily due to a generous amount of dill, it seemed lacking in character. However, the humble cole slaw, which usually comes in second place, managed to knock the potato salad out of the park. Its dressing is well balanced and complements the meats well. We definitely are a group who have been around the barbeque pit! One friend who is an author pursued the restaurant while we waited for our take-out and sent me his thoughts. “The interior is clean and basic, some simple tables on a beautifully polished wood floor, but you won't find any polished china or cutlery—orders come in paper-lined plastic baskets. Walk down a hall whose walls educate you on the attributes of five common woods used for smoking; mesquite, post oak, alder, apple, hickory (hint; for strong flavor, skip the alder), through a door, and you're into the business end of the establishment, with its two huge awe-inspiring 1000-gallon Moberg Smokers with four chambers each, enough to handle 30 briskets at a time. Here also in the industrial zone are picnic tables under a cover, allowing diners to sample the smokers' products protected from any relentless drizzle and rain that the Seattle sky might choose to unleash.” ~Mary Carter Creech

Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Avenue, Seattle, 98101Runs until January 19, 2025. “I want to be amazed when I’m working. I want to confound myself. I want to tell a new story each time. I want to see the poetry in it. I want to see the labor in it. It is a kind of sacred embrace. That’s the part you use to create. That’s the part that others may not know or see.” Joyce Scott is not afraid to be in your face. It has helped in her expressive journey that she learned about the peyote stitch in 1976 from Native American artist Sandy Fife Wilson. The peyote stitch is created off a loom allowing much more freedom for the artist than simply attaching her chosen medium, beads, to a flat surface. We see it used throughout the works in the exhibition. Let us start where the exhibition begins with her sense of connectivity through generations of her family in art making. We first see a large construction made of fabric, with quilts on the walls outside. Inside beaded “quilts” hang on the walls of a “living room” setting complete with a comfortable sofa, sculpture, books, and art works from many cultures. Scott titles this work The Threads That Unite My Seat to Knowledge , 2024. It brings together quilts by her mother (Elizabeth Talford Scott (Fifty Year Quilt, 1930–80); maternal grandmother, Mary Jane Caldwell; maternal grandfather, Samuel Caldwell; and godmother, Lucille Foster Brown. Inside is a quilt by her paternal grandmother. This connection across generations is accompanied by sculpture in the same gallery that suggest three powerful images of black womanhood: the birth of a baby, the birth of a dead baby and the selling of white body parts by a black woman (called Dead Albino Boy for Sale  from the Series Flayed Tanzanian Albinos, 2021-2022 ). An early group of works titled Mammie Wadi 1979-1981 (Mother Water)  refers to black people who are now in the ocean and have transformed into semi aquatic forms or goddesses. “I’m a water sign. I also have always lived near water. Many religions see underwater as where a lot of the powerful Orishas or gods are. Bones are at the bottom, people who jumped off slave ships or who were thrown off. Ships that went down, planes that drop.” Look closely at the dresses and many necklaces throughout the exhibition that contain small souvenirs from other cultures, reflecting Scott’s own life experiences. Each gallery has a theme, I can’t cover them all here. For example there is the Black Nanny series, The Racist Stereotypes, Messing with Stereotypes, (in collaboration in one work Donald Byrd of Spectrum Dance ). Her fearless confrontation with stereotypes like the hypermasculinity of black men is seen in her works like Cuddly Black Dick  from 1995-7. She includes so many aspects of black stereotyping and mythology that it would take pages to discuss them all. An almost room size installation of a white person being lynched, hanging upside down from a tree, suggests her rage and her courage. In the same section she sends up Aunt Jemima, watermelons and most shockingly, Baby Bait  a pair of earrings that refer to a practice celebrated by Southern racists, to feed black baby children to alligators. On a more cheerful note her delightful Thunder Thigh Review , 1975-1990, flows with her sense of humor and irony. The theme of celebrating the magnificent posteriors of black woman in contrast to the skinny white body was hugely entertaining as well as sending up traditional concepts of beauty. Scott’s frequently intersects with African sculpture as in Birth of Mammi (Anansi) , in which the artist has added complex bead work to an African carving to suggest the birth of Anansi, a spider who is a mythical African trickster. Other section titles are Rest and Reflection, Making A Way When there is no Way , (sexual and physical violence) and Ancestor and Progeny. At the end of the exhibition with “Turning the Tables”, we are given an opportunity to join in communal weaving, the yarn is supplied as is the frame. It returns to the theme at the beginning of the exhibition, of her powerful intergenerational experience and inspiration, only now we are also part of it as well: As Joyce Scott put it at the end of the show: “I am a sharer. I don’t sit on my knowledge. When I go over, I want to leave a cadre of people who are like, “That Joyce” taught me this stitch. Watch me write a whole new book with that stitch. That is a kind of legacy.” ~Susan Platt, PhD www.artandpoliticsnow.com

The Army Camp: A Researcher’s Odyssey Part 1 Before the present-day Powell Barnett Park in Leschi was acquired by Seattle’s park department, it was school district property. It was originally intended as the site of a junior high school. That never happened, and the location was eventually used as a running track for athletes at Garfield High School, which is four blocks away. By the late 1950s, the area had the look of an abandoned lot. My brothers and I, growing up not far away in Madrona, played there and explored the little caves on the hillside. The area had fallen into disuse by the school and, after the district offered it to the park department, that agency made some use of it even before acquiring title. What was then known as the “East Garfield Playfield,” sometimes referred to as “Temple Place” (from the street’s former name) was declared surplus in March 1964 and transferred from the school district to the city in February 1966, in part because of the inconvenience of crossing the new expressway, Empire Way (now Martin Luther King Jr. Way). While researching the life story of Powell Barnett, I became acquainted with his granddaughter, Maisha Barnett, who was instrumental in the renovation of the park in 2006 and has remained a guardian of the park’s quality. She mentioned to me that the location had been an “army camp” during World War II, though she had little detail about it. During the renovation, an official from the Parks Department told her that he had heard from one of the workers about a vault in the ground near the south end of the park. No details about that have emerged. However, a Japanese American woman who grew up on Alder Street across from the park told me that her mother cautioned children not to play in that area, because someone had fallen through into an underground void. I raised the question of the military camp with the downtown library’s Seattle Room staff, who came up with the following interesting tidbit: In the collection of essays Women and War in the Twentieth Century (1999), the article “The Silent Significant Minority” references an army camp at the Garfield track field. In that piece, author Ivy Arai (now Tabbara) relates a 1996 interview with Sally Sakai Tsutsumoto, who was born in 1930. Sally grew up on the 200 block of 28th Avenue, just south of the park. Ivy writes, “Many Japanese-Americans felt uncertain about their future, so families moved in together. Several families living in one home created a base so everyone could evacuate together. While Japanese Americans isolated themselves within their homes, military troops established stations to monitor Japanese activity. In Seattle, the military converted the Garfield High School track field into a temporary army camp. Intrigued, I began to look for more information about the army installation. I tracked down the author, Ivy Tabbara. She had not saved notes or a recording of her interview with Sally Tsutsumoto. Then I started looking for traces of Sally. She would be about 94 years old, and I doubted she was still alive. A search of Seattle newspapers turned up nothing about the army camp. I consulted Seattle’s Smithsonian-affiliated Wing Luke Museum, which focuses on the culture, history, and art of Asian Americans. From there I was referred to Densho, the Japanese American Legacy Project, which has a massive archive of interviews with Japanese Americans who were incarcerated after Pearl Harbor. A digital search of the archives for keywords produced nothing about the encampment. The local office of the National Archives referred me to the main collection at headquarters in Washington, DC, which pointed me to its military archives in Columbia, Maryland. The Seattle city archives steered me to the school district. Archivists at the school district headquarters were most cooperative. The collection includes the minutes of school board meetings and correspondence of the superintendents. All of it is exquisitely indexed by topic on 3x5 cards. There are plenty of hits for Garfield High School, but not a one for Army. I visited the office and read through all the board minutes from 1939 to 1941, along with all the superintendent’s correspondence for the same period. Still nothing useful. I was puzzled. It would seem that the use of school property by the Army must have been discussed and authorized at some high level in the district. Then I got back to Maisha Barnett. She wrote me, “Basically any Black Seattleite over the age of 60 knew the park as Army Camp. All of my older siblings, parents, neighbors, elders in the community, and random Black folk all called it Army Camp.” I thought I’d try that out on a couple of Garfield grads I know. Both African Americans, they had been students there in the early 1960s. I vaguely described what I was curious about, not wanting to lead them on, and each one, at about the same point in the conversations, said, “Oh, you mean the army camp.” Both had been athletes and had run on the track. But their presence there had been 20 years after the fact, and neither had an idea of why they called it that. I later learned from a Parks Department project manager that, when the park was being renovated, people he talked to in the neighborhood also referred to the army camp. Next month: A deep dive into Army archives. ~Roger Lippman The author writes monthly about Leschi history and his experiences over his 48 years in the neighborhood.

The City and community members from Leschi and surrounding neighborhoods met on 11/14 at Leschi Elementary to discuss the proposed mural for King St and 31st Ave S. There were strong, passionate opinions about the topic. Due to the very strong opposition, the City made the decision to stop their effort to move the proposal forward. They will be available if the community aligns and comes back to them with a proposal. If they don’t hear from the community (with alignment in place), they will take no action. Of the folks who attended the two meetings with the City, it’s fair to say the majority were against it. But some people raised the question of whether the group was representative of the community. We discussed this at the LCC board meeting and many of us think that’s a valid point. We recognize the passionate opinions on both sides. Until we have leaders come forward who are working to organize a representative slate of the community around their perspective, we as the Leschi Community Council don’t see how we can productively engage. Once they do, we can assist those groups with community outreach and ultimately organize a fair vote. We don’t believe that the council itself has appropriate representation to advocate one way or another. Please email us at leschicouncil@gmail.com  if you have feedback or if you’d like to get our detailed meeting recap. Note: The LCC board meetings are the Tuesday following our community meetings and are open to all. Email us if you’d like to attend.

Wing Luke Museum, 719 South King Street. Open Wednesday to Sunday 10am-5pm. Runs till May 11, 2025. Curated by the pioneering art historian Barbara Johns, this exhibition brings us three first generation (Issei) Japanese artists who were prominent as modernist painters of the American scene in the 1920s and 1930s and then taken into Japanese incarceration. They disappeared from art history until the amazing detective work and painstaking research by Barbara Johns brought them back. Over the span of many years, Johns has located descendants, art works, and most exciting of all, wartime diaries. The exhibition includes both art and diaries, giving us an intimate look at day-to-day life in the camps, including the Puyallup temporary camp, before the move to Minidoka. Most of us on the West Coast are now familiar with the fact that the Japanese were rounded up after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, and taken into camps. They lost all their possessions except two suitcases they could carry with them. But even before that, the Alien Land Law of 1921 declared Issei could not own, lease, or rent land. In 1924, the National Origins Act created a quota system that encouraged immigration from Northern Europe. Issei could not become citizens. But the artists in this exhibition demonstrated that nothing deterred them. They had businesses and pursued painting, studying with various teachers. Takuichi Fujii was educated as a youth in Japan, then followed his father and brother to Seattle, although he was the only who stayed and made his own way. He had some training in sumi-e (ink painting, but his main training came in Seattle from various teachers and friends. He joined with Kamekichi Tokita and Kenjiro Nomura in a group called Shunjukai. The three, with other artists went on painting trips and as well as depicting the Nihonmachi district, the highly concentrated Japanese area in Seattle. Tokita had the most education in Japan, but he mainly learned painting in Seattle, coming there in 1919, after deciding not to pursue his father’s tea business. Kenjiro Nomura came to Tacoma at the age of ten and was left on his own at the age of seventeen when his parents returned to Japan. He enterprisingly moved to Seattle two years later and became involved with the cultural community. The exhibition focuses on two topics, the 1920s and 1930s paintings by all three artists, and the wartime experiences of incarceration seen in journals paintings and drawings. The paintings are a prime example of the blending of modernist perspectives and American Scene painting, with a level of authenticity rarely seen in that era. Since the artists painted their immediate surroundings in urban Seattle, scenes we can still locate today, they were deeply connected to what they were depicting. The paintings rarely include figures, but the subtle browns, reds, and ochres of the buildings set off by sharp green patches of trees, and complex perspectives give us a view we can identify. My favorite is the 4th and Yesler series, by all three artists, they explore the intersection where the Yesler bridge crosses Fourth Ave using tricky intersecting angles that gives the scene dynamic energy. When the incarceration order hit, Fujii immediately began a diary with drawings. This remarkable document, only recently discovered by Johns, gives brief comments and extraordinary drawings. Some of the journal appears in the exhibition, but there is far more in John’s excellent book, The Hope of Another Spring: Takuichi Fujii , Artist and Wartime Witness  (University of Washington Press, 2017). Johns began her trio of books of these Issei artists with Signs of Home: The Paintings and Wartime Diary of Kamekichi Tokita  (University of Washington Press, 2011). Finally, Kenjiro Nomura survived incarceration and restarted his career in the 1950s with the support of friends, creating impressive abstract paintings which are not included here but illustrated in John’s third book, Kenjiro Nomura, American Modernist  (Cascadia Art Museum, 2021). In these paintings, we clearly see the artists’ unique blend of modernism and Americanism, abruptly truncated by the incarceration. Survival of all three took different paths, but their art works and diaries have not been shown or discussed until the last few years, with Johns’ path-breaking work. “Side by Side” gives us an intimate view of the three artists. The obstacles that they overcame throughout their lives make this rediscovery all the more important. ~Susan Platt, PhD www.artandpoliticsnow.com