<Begin Segment 18>

TH: No, I understand that during the war days when service men come in, a lot of these hotels they would have three or four beds in the room or even cots out in the hallway. That's hearsay, but that's what some of these people downtown, operating downtown were saying.

ET: Yeah. When I was running the Benton, one soldier came in kind of early or, I forget, anyway at odd hour at night. And I said bed's not made, every room was taken. And he says that's okay. He paid me the dollar and a half or whatever, ran upstairs, went to sleep. We didn't have to make the bed.

YM: That Japantown was quite a place though huh? It started maybe from Yesler Way past Dearborn in the south and from 4th Avenue up to Rainier, huh? Rainier Avenue. All the places were, business were all Japanese except for Chinatown. Chinatown had Chinese. All the hotels and most of the shops except for Chinatown was all Japanese.

ET: Milwaukee was not run by a Japanese?

TH: I think you had a variety of businesses, you name it. Except maybe a funeral director.

YM: Milwaukee?

ET: Was that run by Japanese?

YM: Must have been.

ET: That's in Chinatown.

TH: Yeah, but that was -- most of the hotels even in Chinatown was run by Japanese.

ET: Like the Alps, (Atlas, Adams.)

TH: Alps, Milwaukee. You had everything. You had a doctor, you had a dentist, you had a grocery store, you have a clothing store, you have a 10 cents store, you got a drug store, you get restaurants.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.