Densho Digital Archive - Frank Yamasaki Interview II (denshovh-yfrank-02-0006)

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AI: Well, now, later in the '30s as you became a teenager, your parents leased a hotel, and that was -- as I think you said earlier -- was at First and Cedar in Seattle?

FY: It's First and Cedar. We had a hotel business that was 56-unit. The, in moving there, my father was still in South Park. The family was living there, and he was working. And my mother and I moved into the hotel to run the business while my father was closing the house up that we were renting in South Park. And the hotel business, again, we just learned by trial and error. And in those days on First Avenue, First and Seattle on Seattle -- First and Cedar in Seattle, they had streetcars running on First Avenue. And right at that junction there on First and Cedar, there would be a lot of intersections. So these trolleys with their connecting wheels would run across the tracks, and it would throw a spark of flash. And of course, the -- these streetcars with their metal wheels, it sounded like a railroad going across. And then we were on First and Cedar, and then down on the, toward the waterfront, they had the train running there. And you hear the train. And then beyond that is the -- that would be equivalent of around Pier 70 now, they had the boat out there. So in the morning when the, some mornings when it's slightly foggy, they have the, the foghorn on the boat. And then, of course, the train running regularly, everything coming across and they're entering the city, so you hear them blow the whistle. And then constantly hear the track -- the streetcar running in front of the hotel. So I , I, it was horrendous. It was so noisy. I, I couldn't believe how noisy a place could be. But strange, you know, after a few months, you get used to that.

One day a friend of mine, their parent had a grocery store, Hank Hirabayashi, and we went camping out toward Quilcene in the Olympic Peninsula. And I couldn't believe how quiet it could be. So I guess people in the city are living under stress constantly.