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SF: Maybe one of you can, can give us a feel for the sort of boundaries of Nihonmachi in '19, say, '20, right before the war. Where, how big was it, and what were the, where did it sort of, sort of end? Get some idea of how many stores there were and that sort of thing.
TS: South would be what? Dearborn? Roughly, huh?
CK: Yeah, Dearborn, I think.
TS: Yeah, South Dearborn. And --
YM: Yes -- Yesler?
TS: Yesler --
CK: Isn't shown here.
YM: Maybe little bit more --
TS: Yeah.
YM: Than Yesler, but --
TS: Well, very few.
CK: Yesler would be about the --
YM: About the hub.
TS: Yeah. Before the --
CK: Yeah. The most northern part.
TS: Yeah.
CK: Right?
TS: Yeah, the only -- there's only one --
CK: Yeah.
TS: Other --
CK: Yeah.
TS: Like Beefo was little farther north.
CK: Yeah. I mean --
TS: He was the only one though, huh?
CK: Well, there are some businesses, but they're mainly in such a, businesses as small grocery stores --
TS: Yeah.
CK: Apartment --
TS: Yeah. Well, they're all over --
CK: Or hotels. Right, yeah.
TS: The Green Lake and stuff.
CK: So the main Nihonmachi would be considered between Yesler and Dearborn, Seventh Avenue down to maybe Skid Row.
TS: Skid Row, yeah.
CK: First Avenue.
TS: First Avenue, yeah.
YM: You might say 12th Avenue, too far up?
TS: 12th, yeah. Because --
CK: Oh, yeah, 12th, right.
TS: Buddhist Church, right.
YM: And then Tazuma Ten-Cent...
CK: And Gosho --
YM: Uh-huh.
CK: Gosho Drug and -- I mean, now State Drug.
YM: (Yes).
CK: And those were --
TS: 10 or 12.
YM: 12, 14.
CK: So, yeah. About 12th Avenue, huh?
TS: Yeah.
YM: (Yes). I think so --
TS: Basically.
YM: Basically, (yes).
CK: Because --
TS: There was a few that lived...
CK: Between 12th and 14th, I guess.
YM: And then Bailey Gatzert was on 12th Avenue, also.
CK: Yeah, right.
TS: Yeah.
YM: Our, the grade school that --
CK: Most of us went to.
YM: The major -- majority of the Niseis had gone to.
TS: It was all, almost hundred-percent Japanese, huh?
CK: Well, no.
YM: No, like --
TS: Few Chinese?
YM: Like my husband's class was majority Japanese.
CK: Yeah.
YM: There's a few Chinese.
CK: Yeah.
YM: And maybe one or two --
CK: Hakujins.
YM: Hakujins in there. But I went to Rainier School, which was on 23rd and King Street. And there was a few families living further up, up the hill from 12th Avenue.
TS: 20th -- that's where Shigas and them lived up there.
YM: Shigas was on 18th.
TS: 18th, oh.
YM: (Yes).
SF: So you had all these stores and lots of families lived in the business in the back?
YM: Right. Lot of them.
CK: Yeah.
TS: Yeah.
SF: And there were some houses -- what -- did most of the people who actually worked and had shops in the area, did they actually live in the area, or did maybe half of them live outside in their own, in houses, or how did that work? Did most of the people live in...
CK: The houses were located on the outskirts of this district. And while quite a few lived on, the start of Capitol Hill, East Fir and...
YM: (Yes).
CK: Those areas. And then, then it stretched up toward Garfield High School.
TS: Yeah.
CK: Then it...
YM: That was 23rd.
CK: Yeah.
YM: And Jefferson.
CK: 23rd. And then would come across, well, 23rd. And then the houses of the Japanese were getting sparser and sparser as you --
TS: Got away.
CK: Got away...
TS: Yeah.
CK: From Nihonmachi.
TS: Some of the people that have money -- Shigas --
CK: Yeah.
TS: Who had the, had that Atlas Theater? They lived up there.
CK: Ah, no, Atlas Theater was Mukais.
TS: Yeah. They lived up --
YM: They lived next door to...
CK: Yeah, right.
TS: Yeah.
YM: Next door to Shigas, I think.
CK: Yeah, right.
YM: And then we were about four, five blocks further south from --
TS: And then, Hosakawas lived up there, too.
YM: Hosakawas? I don't know.
TS: Yeah. Rube and Bill --
CK: Yeah, right.
TS: And their father.
<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.