<Begin Segment 3>

TI: So let's talk about some of the places you lived. When you were born, where did you...

TK: Okay, I was born in, like I said, next to the Nippon Kan Hall. The first building next to it. There were two there, they're not there now if you go by there. Then I moved to this Montrose, M-O-N-T-R-O-S-E, Apartment, which is next to that building you showed me on the corner.

TI: So Fourteenth and Main, roughly.

TK: Fourteenth and Main, yeah.

TI: So this is literally just a hundred feet away from where we are.

TK: That's right, yeah.

TI: And so I'm curious, when you were growing up in that place, what was where we are right now? What existed where the Densho building is? I'm curious, I never knew what was here before.

TK: Oh, here?

TI: Yeah, here, in this building.

TK: I don't recall what was here, but eventually, this building was built as a dairy. And we used to come and look in through the Jackson Street window and watch the people working. [Laughs] But I don't know if, I don't remember exactly what was between that time and the time we were there. There must have been something here, but I don't remember now.

TI: Oh, interesting. So when you were a kid, though, they built a dairy right here.

TK: Yeah, uh-huh.

TI: And so, it's funny, I don't think of a dairy being in the city, I always think of it being out, but so they would bring milk in and they would churn butter?

TK: I think they were bringing milk in in big trucks and then putting it into bottles. And then I don't know how they made butter, but my sister, Mary Jane, said they were making butter here, too.

TI: That's good. And so was this neighborhood around here pretty much Japanese?

TK: It was pretty much Japanese, yes.

TI: And then where the Buddhist Church is right now, what was there before?

TK: I don't remember what was there before the church was built. I think there were houses. See, up on, is that Washington...

TI: Well, that's Main Street.

TK: Main Street. There were all houses up there.

TI: What about Collins Playfield?

TK: That was there. Collins Playfield was there. And that's where we grew up. We used to play basketball and then during the summer we would play games, inside, outside. I don't know if you remember the Yanagimachi family. Nobuko Yanagimachi was one of the people working at the Collins Playfield, one of the first Japanese hired by the Parks Department, I think.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.